"purity"
 

I finally got around to reading this the other day, and I was amazed by it. It kind of stands out from most of Ligotti's work because it seems so vastly different. There are interactions between characters, dialogue...also, I would've never thought Ligotti to tackle the topic of androgyny. I also heard Ligotti's voice in the role of the father, especially when he was lecturing the religious person who comes to their door.

Comments?

Re: "purity"
 

I did not have the opportunity to read "Purity" until Ellen Datlow reprinted it in the most recent volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

The tale actually brought back the wonderful nightmarish delirium I'd experienced when I first read Mr. Ligotti's work, some eight or nine years ago now. "Purity" ranks as my favourite of the more recent Thomas Ligotti tales. Its dialogue and its otherworldly atmosphere are absolutely superb.

Best Wishes,
Richard Gavin

Re: "purity"
 

Countries, Deities, Families.

This story could be turned into a political manifesto.

This definitely my favorite of his recent tales.

Re: "purity"
 

On second reading of "Purity," this time from the pages of Teatro Grottesco, I admit to being confused. Does anyone really think they have a handle on this story? It seems to me, when I pore back over all its elements, that there is a lack of integration among its parts, or that it could defintely be rewritten for a better clarity of its fascinating themes. I realize this apparent lack may indicate that the story seeks to convey its ideas even in the actual literary form of the piece, but if so, it still doesn't "ring" with me as being well enough of a presentation. I'm disheartened, and greatly fear I'm missing something. Indeed I've often felt this with quite a few of Tom's tales, and ones that I've examined so much that I hope that in itself isn't the blinding force at work.

Is "Purity" one of his "perfect stories"? Or how much so...

Re: "purity"
 

I see Purity more like a story driven by ideas instead of plot, like "The Red Tower". Some of the plot elements do seem a bit random here and there, something that I indeed liked… Although then again, maybe I'm just clueless…

The introduction of the hermaphrodite caught me off guard... I really wasn't expecting any of that, and the strange relationship between the mother and the narrator was rather ambiguous.

In any case, it is a great story. In some sense it reminded me of "Alice's last Adventure"... I imagine the narrator of "Purity" as the sort of kid who would read Alice's children books.

Re: "purity"
 

I was glancing through my copy of History and Utopia by E.M. Cioran and came across an interesting passage. I wonder if TL drew any inspiration from this for his story.

"If purity is what you seek, if you aspire to some inner transparency, make haste to abdicate your talents, abandon the realm of actions, exile yourself from the human, renounce-to use pious jargon- the "conversation of creatures."

Re: "purity"
 

PURITY – The narrator is dead pan, logical about illogicality – and, therefore, from among the many narrators I’ve met in all fiction over the years, he or she (here in ‘Purity’) is one of the most dependable, if not 100% dependable. I use ‘he or she’ advisedly.
We never really know what will be under a stranger’s boxer shorts. This is about insulation, disintentionalisation, holding things beyond one’s own ownership, i.e. renting reality from fiction (or vice versa?).
The feel of this story reminds me of ‘Eraserhead’ and ‘House of Leaves’ but something much more which is tantalisingly within my grasp – only to fall into the basement of the story figuratively and literally. The story itself is my (the reader’s) own Candy. The story is not about but is Candy as described by the story,.
“There’s nothing in the attic [...] It’s only the way that your head is interacting with the space of that attic.”
“Nothing that drives anybody makes any sense.”
The Purity is the need to disentangle from the story unscathed, unblemished. Any story title is often a loophole we can cling to.
The Father’s three principles are just a nonsensical decoy or subterfuge (Cf. “Nonsense” elsewhere in Ligotti) for something else that truly tries to get through the layers of disintentionalisation towards me ... and, luckily, today, I escaped. The next time I re-read ‘Purity’, I may not be so lucky. Or maybe I didn’t escape this time, and I’m still there, hanging in its world? The story is also like the story's own TV that works without electricity. (I doubt if it works on batteries as the narrator proposes!). Not 'getting' PURITY is like not 'gettng' ERASERHEAD, I suppose, but none the less 'enjoyable' for that. I've put some words with ' ' round them to exact some sort of 'purity' for them.

Re: "purity"
 

Someone's 'Purity' comments on the 'teatro grottesco' thread:
THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK - View Single Post - Teatro Grottesco

Re: "purity"
 

By all accounts, this thread is dead... so call me a necrophiliac for posting, but I prefer to think of myself as a Re-Animator.

I've lots to say about this story and the collection it can be found in, but I'm just going to say a word on the structure for now. "Purity," was the first Ligotti story I read, since I began relatively recently with Teatro Grottesco. I too was at first put off a little by the seemingly disjointed nature of its ramblings. However, it lingered with me long afterward, a subtle creeping sensation of dread, but unlike Lovecraft, this feeling had a bit of the, to quote another Ligotti story, "infernal merriment," to it.

As has been mentioned, while I came to love the story, I too feel as though I am missing something, and I think that this is the point.

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS* The ending seems to be presented as a final revelation, a twist ending of the kind short stories do best, but it's as illuminating as Rosebud was to Citizen Kane. It doesn't have an immediate "aha!" feeling to it, and though it's certainly useful for understanding the piece, at no point does the reader feel as though he's grasped the truth lurking behind the story. We, the readers, are implicated in the senseless stream of reality just as the protagonist is. What bits of insight we get into the nature of things from the father and the mother do not mesh easily together, as leave us feeling confused and unsettled.

Ligotti's work is similar to Lovecraft mostly because the final answer, the Gnostic-type revelation, to question of Life, the Universe and Everything, is a maddening non-answer that unravels the minds of those who seek and encounter it. In Ligotti, sometimes it trickles through the cracks and make itself known to broken people, "the damaged and the diseased." Purity stands out among Ligotti stories, because we too are drawn into the question, and we too are disturbed by its "answer."

Re: "purity"
 

I couldn't help but snicker when the father invites the missionary into the basement. I work with severely autistic kids, and while they have a lot of issues, for the most part they are free of the big illusions that Ligotti demolishes in this story: They don't care about countries or Gods, and family to them isn't the nuclear family, but whoever shows them enough affection and attention, which they reciprocate in their own way. Maybe the "damaged and diseased" are more free in some ways than the "normal" population.