Letters to Dagon

[bendk]

From issue:
Dagon No. 24 (1989)

Harry O. Morris, Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.
I really wish to thank you for the copies of Dagon 22/23. double Ligotti issue! All in all, a well-balanced issue dealing with off-balance matters. I know this handsomely produced work collecting together essays by many of the leading scholars on the horror/Lovecraft field will be hailed as a pioneering example as Ligotti grows in stature as a writer. I liked all the art in the issue, and was very pleased how my pieces reproduced... just great.

Des Lewis, Coulsdon, Surrey
Thanks very much for the Ligotti special. Let's not beat about the bush, Ligotti has to be my favourite writer, now that your magazine has drawn my attention for the first time to his excellent haunting vignettes, cameos and extended nightmares.

Mark F. Samuels, Sydenham, London.
Thanks for Dagon #22/23. Mike Ashley lists the early stories in just the right way, showing how the development of themes & ideas branch outwards & towards off-shots of ingenuity. Of cardinal interest is his establishment of Ligotti's premier influences: Lovecraft & Poe. Now it seems apparent that all three share the same stylistic nuances to a varying degree. By which I mean that essential & rare, precious, quality of making pale paper & cold black ink leap from the boundaries of the mundane into the reader's imagination with a feverish cosmic life. To my mind, this is the crust of their enduring attraction. Ms. Morris gets right to the heart of the matter in her statement that by choosing to abandon the commercial, Ligotti has more freedom than the horrible enforcements of length, content & style dictated by modern publishers. (This, if I may digress, brings me to an argument I've heard and agreed with about the BFS & like organizations. It is that they don't do enough to apply pressure on said publishers to develop away from standard formulas & sex, violence & gore. With such a body of enthusiasts behind them, one would think the arguments put forward should be of prime importance to the whole field's future. But enough of this...) I also found the comment by Ligotti himself in the essay of note the bit about the commercialism & cheap mass-marketing of horror fiction, to be accurate. Who really cares whether something is the 1st edition or the last edition? Whether it's signed or not? Whether it's in the bound set? I'll tell you who: not people who really care for the stories anymore (though maybe they once did!); but people who have become (1) extremely obsessional (ii) extremely greedy for valuable books (iii) collector's prestige & for reputation (iv) extremely silly. It's all marketing & the transformation of the artistic to that of the commercial.
Dziemianowicz's article comes out tops in the issue, I think. though one fault being its over-bearing on "The Frolic" which was difficult to get through. The force of his considerations regarding the psychological doubts in Ligotti's fiction are unchallengeable, & the delineation of "reality's" fragility superb. But I am surprised that little attention is given to the Machen comparisons here. Their ultimate conclusions on the whole world beyond the veil of reality may differ but the influence surely merits closer scrutiny. Mr. Valentine?
Oh, by the way, here's my contribution to the affair:
"Yes! tho' that long dream were of hapless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life."
There's a Poean influence on Ligotti - well, maybe not.
I was fascinated by the interview. The perspective of Mr. Ligotti differs so much from Lumley, Klein, & Campbell examples in previous issues. Modest, sincere & refreshingly concerned for his work from an amateur viewpoint. I do agree with him when he says he can't achieve the status of "big name" authors of today. His will probably be the voice that echoes into the future; talent seems to be widely reassessed in hindsight! No, a lack of full-length novelisation can't really affect a horror writer's status: M.R. James & Clark Ashton Smith never ranged beyond supernatural novellas.