![]() ![]() Ligotti avoids the explicit violence common in some recent horror fiction, preferring to establish a disquieting, pessimistic atmosphere through the use of subtlety and repetition. Ligotti has suffered from chronic anxiety and anhedonia for much of his life these have been prominent themes in his work. He has also invoked the influence of philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Peter Wessel Zapffe. James, and Arthur Machen, all fin de siècle horror authors known for their subtlety and implications of the cosmic and supernatural in their stories. ![]() Also among his avowed influences are Algernon Blackwood, M.R. Lovecraft is also an important touchstone for Ligotti: a few stories, "The Sect of the Idiot" in particular, make explicit reference to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and one, "The Last Feast of Harlequin", was dedicated to Lovecraft. Burroughs, Emil Cioran, Vladimir Nabokov, Edgar Allan Poe, Giacomo Leopardi, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Bruno Schulz as being among his favorite writers. Additionally, Ligotti played guitar on Current 93's contribution to the compilation album Foxtrot, whose proceeds went to the treatment of musician John Balance's alcoholism. Tibet has also published several limited editions of Ligotti's books on Durtro Press. Ligotti collaborated with the musical group Current 93 on the albums In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land (1997, reissued 2002), I Have a Special Plan for This World (2000), This Degenerate Little Town (2001) and The Unholy City (2003), all released on David Tibet's Durtro label. He probably couldn’t fake it if he tried, and he never tries. Thomas Ligotti is a master of a different order, practically a different species. When inspiration fails, he has the technique to fake it. Terrence Rafferty contrasts Ligotti with Stephen King, observing, "King, the great entertainer, needs the story as the comedian needs the joke, and when he can’t quite deliver it he dies (in the comedian’s sense). Ligotti’s short stories, making him one of 10 living writers, including Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, among the hundreds the imprint has published in the U.S." Ligotti's work received high praise following the publication from the likes of The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. Penguin Classics published a volume of Mr. Michael Calia of The Wall Street Journal wrote of the reprint that "Horror writer Thomas Ligotti is about to enter the American literary canon. In 2015, Ligotti's first two collections, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, were republished in one volume by Penguin Classics as Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. He was contributing editor to Grimoire from 1982 to 1985. Ligotti started his professional writing career in the early 1980s with short stories published in American small press magazines. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |