Magic Fiction

I am currently running an exercise with myself of (re-)reading TL (some stories after a long gap of years) - including the new book TEATRO GROTTESCO. And it has re-minded me who the true master of 'magic fiction' (as discussed on this thread) is and will remain!
des
 
Further to above, has anyone read 'The Others' by Javier Garcia Sanchez? It seems very Ligottian to me. It also reminds me of the acclaimed 'The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada' by Anonymous in 'Nemonymous Two' (2002).

I am pleased that, during my current re-journey through the Land of Ligotti, there are already pre-echoes of Magic Fiction (Art-Magic) and frequent resonances (astrological harmonics) with Nemonymity by various fictional themes. Perhaps one day, TL will submit an anonymous story to 'Nemonymous'. I'm sure I will know it is by him. But then again...
 
'"Have you ever heard of a book, an extremely special book, that is not...yes that is not about something, but actually is that something?"'
from VASTARIEN (Thomas Ligotti)

A book with an unknown author ... and hinted later to have blank pages...
 
Speaking of a book that is that something...

Currently at the Milwaukee Museum of Art and Design there is an exhibit with a "books as art" theme. In this case the books themselves really are something. Most of them are very beautiful and fascinating. Follow the the link to see some examples. Once there you can click on the individual artists' names on the left to see more from their portfolios.

http://stcf.miad.edu/index.php?t=Caren+Heft&f=heft_caren

Enjoy!
 
Many thanks to The New Nonsense for the link to the exhibit on contemporary interpretations of sacred texts. I was quite startled when I first saw Sue Ann Robinson's Chisholm Hours. Since I have a spotted coat of fur and sometimes sport a bandana about my neck, the book struck me personally as the perfect example of a grimoire. I think I would be afraid to peek between the covers of this one...
 
'The Necronomicom' by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred has by some said to be a 'fictional prop'. I think it became far more by the power of 'Magic Fiction'. As the years go by, the more I see non-existence becoming more powerful than existence.
 
DF Lewis said:
As the years go by, the more I see non-existence becoming more powerful than existence.
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Mr. Lewis, your words point to something which has bothered me lately. I have recurring moments in which I feel as if I am merely the figment of someone's perverse imagination. Strangely, these episodes (which are quite brief and fleeting) are somewhat more comforting than the compulsory acceptance of "reality" as it is generally viewed. Volition vs. Vaudeville, so to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis!

Three wags of the tail,
Rover
 
Spotbowserfido2 said:
DF Lewis said:
As the years go by, the more I see non-existence becoming more powerful than existence.
Click to expand...
Mr. Lewis, your words point to something which has bothered me lately. I have recurring moments in which I feel as if I am merely the figment of someone's perverse imagination. Strangely, these episodes (which are quite brief and fleeting) are somewhat more comforting than the compulsory acceptance of "reality" as it is generally viewed. Volition vs. Vaudeville, so to speak.
Rover
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"I have always thought that the truth of fiction is more profound, more charged with meaning than everyday reality. Realism, whether it be socialist or not,falls short of reality. It shrinks it, attenuates it, falsifies it, it does not take into account our basic truths and our fundamental obsessions: Love, death, astonishment. It presents man in a reduced and estranged perspective. Truth is in our dreams, in the imagination."
-- Eugene Ionesco (author of 'Rhinoceros')

This quote was first drawn to my attention in 'The River Runs Uphill' by Robert Aickman.
 
Nemonymous said:
'"Have you ever heard of a book, an extremely special book, that is not...yes that is not about something, but actually is that something?"'
from VASTARIEN (Thomas Ligotti)

A book with an unknown author ... and hinted later to have blank pages...
Click to expand...

Ligotti is alluding to Samuel Beckett's famous remark about Joyce's Finnegans Wake: It's not about something, it's that something itself.
 
Jezetha said:
Nemonymous said:
'"Have you ever heard of a book, an extremely special book, that is not...yes that is not about something, but actually is that something?"'
from VASTARIEN (Thomas Ligotti)

A book with an unknown author ... and hinted later to have blank pages...
Click to expand...

Ligotti is alluding to Samuel Beckett's famous remark about Joyce's Finnegans Wake: It's not about something, it's that something itself.
Click to expand...


Really?
That's fascinating. Thanks.
Hmmm... I must reread (if that's the word) Finnegans Wake.
 
No, Finnegans Wake isn't a book you can read in any ordinary sense. You can study it, decipher it, immerse yourself in it (and drown in limitless meaning)... FW is the nec plus ultra of (musical) prose, and as such a final frontier and a warning. It taught me a lot, how far to go, where to stop. Ulysses may be Joyce's masterpiece, Finnegans Wake is the boldest linguistic and structural venture ever and because of that to me, as a writer, eternally fascinating.
 
Mr. Lewis's and Jezetha's comments reminded me of something Richard Kostelanetz said about Finnegans Wake: that it is both unreadable and rereadable. That describes in a nutshell my own experience with the book.
 
I've always thought there was something unhelpful about the term "magic realism". There's something in that phrase which points out the way that we misunderstand or misuse art.
There is only only one genre and that's the genre of the dream. Which has nothing to do with surrealism or fantasy fiction inwhich dream-like elements such as incongruity are usually used stylistically.
There is no such thing as realism in fiction, or if there is it should be an offshoot of a wider magicism.
 
What if reality is a fiction, then
Magic Realism: fiction from reality becomes, fiction from fiction,
and Magic Fiction: reality from fiction, becomes fiction from fiction as well, and Magic Realism equals Magic Fiction.

Reality is a viewpoint, it doesn't exist without me, nor as a universal stage where I rehearse my life. Some of us have to go back to work on Monday, and therefore we pretend that there is a reality, and that this is a universal reality, that everybody shares it. But we do not. Reality doesn't exist. My mother was dying on a hospital bed, and I (just for a few seconds) looked outside, and I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life (I exaggerated my example a little), while she was dying. So, I ask, what was reality at that time? My reality or hers?

People believe that when we die, there is an afterlife. Others, like myself, denies it. What is reality then? A world where we pretend to live day by day, but has no meaning at all. A useless passion (Sartre). A world of delusional Christians that more or less rule the world. A world where we still pray God, when half the world dies in poverty. What reality? The one of my mother who believed in afterlife, or mine, that believes that our observable Universe, all we could ever know, is so insignificant, that the real Universe is 10 to the power of 23 times bigger, according to Guth,
 and there are at least[FONT=&quot] 10 to the power of 500 Universes, according to String Theory. What reality? I ask. Reality doesn't exist but in our minds.[/FONT]We have to believe in some kind of reality to keep breathing. How could we accept that we mean nothing, that we are worthless creatures that barely exist for 8 decades?

Philip K. Dick, "Eye in the Sky", "Valis", "Ubik", are masterpieces in the sci-fi genre, creating reality. Another writer is John Varley. I could also mention "The Night Visitor" a story by B. Traven, a masterpiece in inventing reality.
 
Russell Nash said:
What if reality is a fiction, then
Magic Realism: fiction from reality becomes, fiction from fiction,
and Magic Fiction: reality from fiction, becomes fiction from fiction as well, and Magic Realism equals Magic Fiction.

Reality is a viewpoint, it doesn't exist without me, nor as a universal stage where I rehearse my life. Some of us have to go back to work on Monday, and therefore we pretend that there is a reality, and that this is a universal reality, that everybody shares it. But we do not. Reality doesn't exist. My mother was dying on a hospital bed, and I (just for a few seconds) looked outside, and I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life (I exaggerated my example a little), while she was dying. So, I ask, what was reality at that time? My reality or hers?

People believe that when we die, there is an afterlife. Others, like myself, denies it. What is reality then? A world where we pretend to live day by day, but has no meaning at all. A useless passion (Sartre). A world of delusional Christians that more or less rule the world. A world where we still pray God, when half the world dies in poverty. What reality? The one of my mother who believed in afterlife, or mine, that believes that our observable Universe, all we could ever know, is so insignificant, that the real Universe is 10 to the power of 23 times bigger, according to Guth,
 and there are at least[FONT=&quot] 10 to the power of 500 Universes, according to String Theory. What reality? I ask. Reality doesn't exist but in our minds.[/FONT]We have to believe in some kind of reality to keep breathing. How could we accept that we mean nothing, that we are worthless creatures that barely exist for 8 decades?
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I feel there's a slight floor in that argument. The later part about eight decades suggests that you consider humans to be worthless. So far so good the term worthless would seem to be a rather comparative term. If something is worthless then it denotes there must be something of worth to compare it too.

The earlier paragraph suggests that any value or reality is given by the viewer so there should be no concrete idea of intrinsic worth or worthlessness. Sorry if that came over rather hostile, it wasn't my intention.

 
Here's my take on all of this, for what it's worth.

I think there probably is a reality that exists independently of your or my or Spotbowserfido2's or Shamu the Killer Whale's viewpoints. But none of us will ever fully know what it is. (Consider Kant's notion of the "thing-in-itself" beyond all phenomenal appearances.) Humans have some impressive scientific tools and methods to investigate reality, but we are probably not even remotely capable of fully accessing or understanding this reality. We're just sort-of smart primates. I agree with Colin McGinn's "mysterian" position as he explains it in Problems in Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry and other books.

Once we depart from the most practical and rational kinds of thinking, our thought-worlds tend to be highly emotional, aesthetic, and mythical. I'm an atheist and I don't (fully) agree with John Gray's denigration of atheism, but I do agree with him that mythical thinking is ineradicable even in the most rational of us -- and we might as well come to some pragmatic accommodation with it. No purity campaign will ever stamp it out, in all its forms. The best we can do is to modestly realize that our myths (not only religious but philosophical, historical, political, and personal) are nothing more than potent fictions. They can be useful and/or dangerous.

If someone thinks that humans are worthless, this is probably as compared to the notions of worth that humans usually have concerning ourselves. Most humans value themselves and others most of the time, but in moments of despair (or clear-sightedness?) the negative evaluation may seem unavoidable.

I would like to be a Platonist. I do feel the existence of values and ideals, as if they were objective things. But once Platonism is shorn of it's most-likely false transcendental dimension, what is left is just monistic naturalism, the universe that our most rigorous scientific investigations suggest that we live in and are wholly a part of. Our values and ideals are created and projected by us. That doesn't mean we have to regard them as worthless, but this realization (to me at least) is rather deflating and dispiriting.

I wish that these weren't conclusions I came to in adulthood. I wish that adults had the honesty and integrity to not raise children with all kinds of insanely positive beliefs (not only religious, but in all areas of life) that will inevitably be quashed as they grow older. This isn't just a matter of blaming parents; it's a matter of a whole culture that parents themselves are part of. If we had been acculturated in our formative years with a more sober and (as far as we are capable) realistic view of things, then I think it's possible that as adults we wouldn't feel as much despair. We would value what can be valued, to the extent it can be valued, and not be lacerated because it's not more. That's what I'm trying to accustom myself to now, as a middle-aged adult. Perhaps that's just my myth. I do think it is possible for human beings because not all human cultures have been as insistently foolish as ours is.

I am a moderate (insipid?) pessimist, not the full-bore Ligotti/Zapffe kind.
 
Excellent, Evans.

There is a book, "Assassination of Light, Modern Saudi Short Stories", that starts with this line: "Everything is an empty repetition without meaning". And without meaning there is nothing that is intrinsically worthless. Worth or better than what? As I always tell my wife, "don't worry, we are going to be dead within the next a hundred years". In this sense, our entire history, not only our present lives, our present moment in time, but our entire history, humankind, all our efforts, are pointless.

Society, at least in Western countries, mostly through Christianity pretends that life is worth living, that there is a reason to be alive one more second. That reason is God. Without God there is no sense at all. We cannot find any preferential frame anywhere, and one goes from atheism to nihilism, oscillating, with no meaning. Is this the ultimate belief of humankind? I'm trying to find something that gives meaning to my life, and cannot find anything. However, I have to believe that there is something, or why is it that I don't commit suicide right now, after this sentence? I do create my own reality. Even though I know that it is only a creation of my mind to keep breathing.

I cannot avoid using adjectives like worthless, insignificant, and several others, although they are all meaningless, as you deduced it correctly. But, it doesn't change the idea that reality begins in my mind, and that there are no two realities that are equal. None of them is better or worse (compare to what, as you said), but they are all meaningless.

I say that without this invented reality that I create for myself everyday (my wife, my kids, my job, my books), there is nothing. People, like my parents, believed that we are the apex of creation. On the other hand, I see ourselves, humanity, more as an accident, something that could never have happened.
 
I think that the concept of "thing in itself" was already refuted by Nietzsche somewhere. If I don't make a mistake, the refutation is in "The Gay Science". Therefore, there is no "reality in itself".

I was a truly Christian, son of a baptist pastor, and since I am 15 or 16 I consider myself an atheist, and for the last decade a practical nihilist. And I will keep saying that not only reality, but also concepts such as Good, Evil, God, or even Life, Energy, or practical ideas such as Gravity or Space, will probably never have meaning.
 
Russell Nash said:
I think that the concept of "thing in itself" was already refuted by Nietzsche somewhere. If I don't make a mistake, the refutation is in "The Gay Science". Therefore, there is no "reality in itself".

I was a truly Christian, son of a baptist pastor, and since I am 15 or 16 I consider myself an atheist, and for the last decade a practical nihilist. And I will keep saying that not only reality, but also concepts such as Good, Evil, God, or even Life, Energy, or practical ideas such as Gravity or Space, will probably never have meaning.
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Regarding your first paragraph, I'm completely an amateur in philosophy, as is probably obvious. I've read The Gay Science, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember the refutation you speak of. But just to say that Nietzsche refuted Kant's concept, and therefore there is no reality-in-itself is merely an argument from authority (Nietzsche's authority). Nietzsche is no more the last word in philosophy than Kant was. Much as I love reading about philosophy, I tend to take philosopher's theories as more-or-less intelligent and persuasive fictions or myths. Whether or not Kant's way of conceptualizing things was perspicuous, I suspect that there is a reality beyond our limited and local views of it. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

Regarding your second paragraph, I wish I could be confident that you're wrong. But I fear that you may be right. Since I think that meanings and values are human-created, it all depends on how much capacity for illusion individual humans have. I seem to have a higher capacity for it than you do, but my confidence in this is somewhat weak. My moderate pessimism is resting on a less-than-sturdy floor and may end up falling into the abyss beneath. Probably not, though, because I think this is a matter of temperament, and there seems to be a limit to how pessimistic I can be.
 
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