My Case For Retributive Action

[Nemonymous]

MY CASE FOR RETRIBUTIVE ACTION – What is a “storefront office”? When reading this story before, I’ve taken this term for granted. Being a UK reader, I wonder if this is an American term.
This story, for me, is a fabricated improvisation where the fogs, spiders and other nightmares seem to appear out of nowhere – also the Kafkaesque office and the phobias/anxieties are formulaic. The narration is not so naturally believable or dream-like as some of TL’s other stories. The narrator only addresses a reader whom he seems to know in his own life, which rather un-involves other readers like myself. I am perhaps just another person like Ribello and Pilsen that the Narrator has not fully fathomed.
I like the pickle smell, & the smoking being banned because of it getting into the office’s forms. Actually, as a different reader, I might have noticed more readily that the story is its own venom, its poison moving in a vicious circle in a futile attempt to cure its own ills with an instantaneous vaccine that is itself.
And I shall emerge from reading it as the very reader whom the Narrator addresses – like waking up (hatching?) in metamorphosis as the nobby spider monster.... And that makes me want to hurry on to the next story in the book and read it to prevent falling asleep .... but .... I notice it’s only a Temporary Supervisor....

[Odalisque]

I think that a storefront office is one which looks (from the street) much like a shop. The Citizens Advice Bureau often has offices of this sort -- they are well suited to the public dropping in. When Victim Support Newham was to move premises in the late 90s, it was mooted that a storefront office should be sought, although (in the event) they failed to find such an office. (I think that it was at this point that I first heard the phrase "storefront office".) The only Victim Support storefront office I have actually visited is that of Camden (it's near Euston station) -- but I imagine that Victim Support have such premises in a number of places.

How useful a storefront office is to the Quine Organisation, I don't know. Perhaps the general public bring their forms in for processing...

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

MY CASE FOR RETRIBUTIVE ACTION – What is a “storefront office”? When reading this story before, I’ve taken this term for granted. Being a UK reader, I wonder if this is an American term. This story, for me, is a fabricated improvisation where the fogs, spiders and other nightmares seem to appear out of nowhere – also the Kafkaesque office and the phobias/anxieties are formulaic. The narration is not so naturally believable or dream-like as some of TL’s other stories. The narrator only addresses a reader whom he seems to know in his own life, which rather un-involves other readers like myself. I am perhaps just another person like Ribello and Pilsen that the Narrator has not fully fathomed. I like the pickle smell, & the smoking being banned because of it getting into the office’s forms. Actually, as a different reader, I might have noticed more readily that the story is its own venom, its poison moving in a vicious circle in a futile attempt to cure its own ills with an instantaneous vaccine that is itself. And I shall emerge from reading it as the very reader whom the Narrator addresses – like waking up (hatching?) in metamorphosis as the nobby spider monster.... And that makes me want to hurry on to the next story in the book and read it to prevent falling asleep .... but .... I notice it’s only a Temporary Supervisor....

I have just re-read this Ligotti story having first read and reviewed it during Christmas 2008. I suddenly remember that for a long time in the 70s and 80s I had a medical doctor called Dr Rebello (cf Ribello) but how relevant that is perhaps I'll need another five years to fathom!

"I've even come to believe that the world itself, by its very nature, is unendurable. It's only our responses to this fact that deviate:..."
Alongside that quote from it, the whole story seems to take on a new resonance having since read and reviewed the CATHR book. The klaxon clarity of the Anti-Natalism message that we have experienced in recent weeks also takes on a new light, just as my experience of re-reading 'Severini' a few days ago gave a new light, too. Not a clear light, but a complexly illuminating light nevertheless, similar to what is vaguely discerned - in the 'My Case for Retributive Action' story - by the peering into the attic.

	CATHR The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

[miguel1984]

I reread this story last week and I didn't find it horrifying while I was reading it, but, later, I was yet again stunned by how the horror in Ligotti's stories lingers long after one finishes reading them.

After I finished it, I went to sleep but, since I wasn't sleepy at all, I was just moving in bed trying to get asleep; I can only sleep well if I am really tired or on pills.

I was able to fall slightly asleep, but I had a nightmare and woke up, and, as this happened, I involuntarily moved my hanging arm to the space between the wall and the back part of my beside table.

It was then that I touched a spider's web that was not there a few days ago. This really killed any hope or chance to get a good night's sleep and all I was able to do was to stare at the ceiling and think about Hatcher.

Also, after rereading The Town Manager all my conceptions about democracy were shattered forever.

[Kevin]

Quote Originally Posted by miguel1984

I reread this story last week and I didn't find it horrifying while I was reading it, but, later, I was yet again stunned by how the horror in Ligotti's stories lingers long after one finishes reading them. After I finished it, I went to sleep but, since I wasn't sleepy at all, I was just moving in bed trying to get asleep; I can only sleep well if I am really tired or on pills. I was able to fall slightly asleep, but I had a nightmare and woke up, and, as this happened, I involuntarily moved my hanging arm to the space between the wall and the back part of my beside table. It was then that I touched a spider's web that was not there a few days ago. This really killed any hope or chance to get a good night's sleep and all I was able to do was to stare at the ceiling and think about Hatcher. Also, after rereading The Town Manager all my conceptions about democracy were shattered forever.

Wow, what a night! Impressive!

[Nemonymous]

This is an extract from my current on-going review of the TEATRO GROTTESCO collection:-

MY CASE FOR RETRIBUTIVE ACTION

A man who has crossed the border to a tedious storefront office job (reminding me of the paperwork job involved in Kurosawa's film Ikiru), a branch of their corporateness owned by Quine Organisation, Q. ORG - a job arranged by his doctor on the other side of the border, the same doctor who also deals with an unknown 'you' that the man addresses as he tells of the worker Hatcher he has replaced, and the deadpan absurdities of the residual staff and their rivalries, their lunch spots and unaccountable lack of understanding, the smell of smoke or pickle (the store used to be a pickle shop) that gets into the paperwork, and whether this job is part of an experiment on the protagonist or simply as a gratuitous conduit for a dark vision of arachnid transmogrification, a vision that will surely turn YOUR dreams into nightmares. As reviewer I am immune or just allowing my own nightmares to vanish into the text that has been provided for them.

Reading Ligotti is its own experiment. An experiment where conduits can work both ways, I have found. On this point, I have a conviction that this story title should not have 'retributive' in it but 'redistributive', and that the former is a typo of the latter. The case for the redistribution of many things including phobias, and also including the fact that 'nothing is unendurable' is not a fact at all.
(This book is not without mistyped titles, as I have just looked ahead in this Durtro edition and found that the next story is headed in stylishly large print: 'Our Temporary Superivsor'. The Supervisor of this book must have been on sick leave the day that title was print-set, I guess.)

(I shall now read my 2008 review of this story that is shown at the top of this thread above.)

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

This is an extract from my current on-going review of the TEATRO GROTTESCO collection:- MY CASE FOR RETRIBUTIVE ACTION A man who has crossed the border to a tedious storefront office job (reminding me of the paperwork job involved in Kurosawa's film Ikiru), a branch of their corporateness owned by Quine Organisation, Q. ORG - a job arranged by his doctor on the other side of the border, the same doctor who also deals with an unknown 'you' that the man addresses as he tells of the worker Hatcher he has replaced, and the deadpan absurdities of the residual staff and their rivalries, their lunch spots and unaccountable lack of understanding, the smell of smoke or pickle (the store used to be a pickle shop) that gets into the paperwork, and whether this job is part of an experiment on the protagonist or simply as a gratuitous conduit for a dark vision of arachnid transmogrification, a vision that will surely turn YOUR dreams into nightmares. As reviewer I am immune or just allowing my own nightmares to vanish into the text that has been provided for them. Reading Ligotti is its own experiment. An experiment where conduits can work both ways, I have found. On this point, I have a conviction that this story title should not have 'retributive' in it but 'redistributive', and that the former is a typo of the latter. The case for the redistribution of many things including phobias, and also including the fact that 'nothing is unendurable' is not a fact at all. (This book is not without mistyped titles, as I have just looked ahead in this Durtro edition and found that the next story is headed in stylishly large print: 'Our Temporary Superivsor'. The Supervisor of this book must have been on sick leave the day that title was print-set, I guess.) (I shall now read my 2008 review of this story that is shown at the top of this thread above.)

Rationale: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.ph...007#post123007

[Trolley Driver]

This story is one of my favorites, and I think it strikes the perfect balance delivering a Ligottian worldview as well as traditional horror narrative.

My theory is that if it weren't for the awkward title it would enjoy a more iconic status among TL's works.*

*But surely we aren't that fickle?