Ligotti, pessimism, religion, and horror. My interview for Rue Morgue magazine

[matt cardin]

Rue Morgue published an article on my What the Daemon Said in its recent/current November-December issue. I gave an interview for the piece (to Dejan Ognjanovic, whom I believe is known to many of you around here). Only portions of it appear in the final product. So, here is the full text of my remarks (see the link at bottom), touching on my early response to Tom's work, the question of whether horror fiction serves as a Trojan Horse for pessimism, and the deep nature of the connection between horror and religion.

Quote

When I first read Tom’s work, starting with his fiction collection Grimscribe, it was one of those transformative reading experiences where you realize in real time that you’ve discovered one of your life’s defining authors. Everything about his stories, from their content to their style, felt like it was speaking to me from the depths of my own soul and saying things I had been saying to myself unconsciously for years. . . . Horror is intrinsically about cosmic boundaries. I don’t necessarily mean “cosmic” in the sense of involving stars and galaxies and the universe at large, although it can and often does involve that. What I mean is that the very idea and experience of horror foregrounds, highlights, underscores, calls out, the boundary between self and world, self and other. . . . [I]t pierces your world, your personal cosmos, the usually unconscious and unexamined boundary between your self and the universe of otherness that confronts it.

More: Ligotti, Pessimism, Religion, and Horror

[dr. locrian]

Quote Originally Posted by matt cardin

Rue Morgue published an article on my What the Daemon Said in its recent/current November-December issue. I gave an interview for the piece (to Dejan Ognjanovic, whom I believe is known to many of you around here). Only portions of it appear in the final product. So, here is the full text of my remarks (see the link at bottom), touching on my early response to Tom's work, the question of whether horror fiction serves as a Trojan Horse for pessimism, and the deep nature of the connection between horror and religion. Quote When I first read Tom’s work, starting with his fiction collection Grimscribe, it was one of those transformative reading experiences where you realize in real time that you’ve discovered one of your life’s defining authors. Everything about his stories, from their content to their style, felt like it was speaking to me from the depths of my own soul and saying things I had been saying to myself unconsciously for years. . . . Horror is intrinsically about cosmic boundaries. I don’t necessarily mean “cosmic” in the sense of involving stars and galaxies and the universe at large, although it can and often does involve that. What I mean is that the very idea and experience of horror foregrounds, highlights, underscores, calls out, the boundary between self and world, self and other. . . . [I]t pierces your world, your personal cosmos, the usually unconscious and unexamined boundary between your self and the universe of otherness that confronts it. More: Ligotti, Pessimism, Religion, and Horror

This is wonderful, as I fully expected!

[matt cardin]

Glad you liked, Jon.