Favorite Selection from SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER
 

This is the first of three polls constructed to instigate discussion regarding specific stories by Ligotti. Be sure to comment when voting!

In the interest of time, I actually cut and pasted the following comments from one of my old alt.books.thomas-ligotti posts from yesteryear:

Ok, first of all, my sentimental favorite from SoaDD is definitely "Doctor Locrian's Asylum." Never have I read any piece of literature that has so brilliantly defined the wonder and horror of vacancy--absence of intellect. Ligotti was able to perform a task that I've never before witnessed: vacancy = immortality. This was my first introduction to TL's ever present theme of transcendent nihilism; nihilism as a sort of cult religion in and of itself: "the silent, staring void." At any rate, I love the way the story reads (it sounds wonderful read aloud); Ligotti certainly writes the most sumptuous sentences of any writer since William Faulkner.

I must mention "Doctor Voke and Mr. Veech" in TL's top stories in SoaDD. Samuel Beckett would be proud of this one and with good cause. As in _Waiting for Godot_ or _Endgame_, there are two central characters who drive this surreal story on to its amazing conclusion. Most astonishing to me, however, is Ligotti's description of Voke's Ticket-Man (the boxed in dummy that undergoes a disturbing transformation). In this story TL demonstrates his fascination with personified, inanimate objects: especially puppets. Again and again he uses these "horrible little puppets" (fr "Doctor Locrian's Asylum") as a terrible representation of our own condition as human beings. As someone who had a childhood horror of dolls and ventriloquist dummies, Ligotti's tool works particularly well on me!

Additional favorites that I don't have time to discuss in detail: "Dream of a Mannikin," "The Chymist" (extraordinary read aloud - a unique monologue that drives the story), "Notes on the Writing of Horror," "Masquerade of a Dead Sword," "The Sect of the Idiot" (an elaboration on HPL's Azathoth), and "Vastarien." I know that's an awful lot of favorites, but every story in this collection (with the exception of the rather mediocre "Eye of the Lynx") is a major work of art -- certainly some of the best short stories of the century.

I also voted "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" Why? Simply put, it is without a doubt one of the most disturbing tales I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Years ago, upon my first hearing the tale read aloud by a dear friend, it resonated so strongly in my soul and with such inimical menace that all present had a sleep that night filled with horrible nightmares.

I don't find many stories that can do that...

That being said, it's hard to vote on my favorite tale...there are so many great ones in that collection.

Aether-Wing

Ah, yes, I remember the night of terror like it was yesterday... Ah, the foul, blue spectre! Is that the night you had the unutterably horrendous nightmare about the Eye? There is no doubt that all of us present at the reading had the "silent, staring" denizens of Dr. Locrian's headstone of an asylum to thank for our terrifying visions. (Jeez, I better lower the diction a bit. Ligotti I ain't!)

I actually voted for "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech," though my post would indicate that "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" is my choice for best story. Sorry for the confusion. "DLA" will always be my sentimental favorite (probably of all time), but "DVaMV" presents such a masterfully odd nightscape and unforgettable cast of characters/puppets that I felt I had no choice in the matter.

Yes, that WAS the night I dreamt of the Eye. You and your hideous Blue Lady, Me and my Eye, and N. and her dream of impregnation by myself as an Avatar of the horror from the Great Old Ones poster.

It was a near thing with me between DLA and DVaMV...that, too is a atle of sublimely unsettling terror.

~Aether-Wing

Darnitall! This talk of DLA and other stories from SoaDD is making me break out my copy for a reread. And if I reread THAT, I'll be rereading it all. Ah, well. It's about time for another Ligotti marathon.

--DL

Dr Locrian (hi), you mentioned that Ligotti uses puppets to represent (mock?) the human condition, and that Voke & Veech contains one of his most affecting representations to this end. I'm curious how you guys read Voke's confidence that the Ticket Man is "alive and aware in a way we cannot begin to imagine".

This statement of Voke's always surprises me, because I always tend to fall back into thinking that there is an identity between the Ticket Man's nightmare and our own. After all: "wood waking up"; "aroused from a sleep that should never have been broken"; "a tingling network of dummy-nerves". It's almost a one-to-one correspondence between us and the dummy, just put "meat" for "wood" and "nerves" for "dummy-nerves". It sounds as if we needn't "begin to imagine" it at all.

And I was about to add that I doubted Ligotti would ever try to construct a fictional nightmare of greater scope than the one he sees around him, but then I just remembered something along the lines of his first-person narrator wanting to evoke the "horror of a god" in "Notes on the Writing of Horror". So I don't know. (I only have the Nightmare Factory here with me; I read "Notes" in one of those David G. Hartwell Anthologies.)

I voted for "...Aunt Elise," but I too have to mention "Dr Voke and Mr Veech." On the rare occasions that I've tried to introduce my friends to Ligotti, it has been that story that I've used. There's something so utterly stark about its proceedings... And the image of the lovers sort of melded together isn't one that leaves the mind easily. Hooray for that. (And what would a Ligotti story be without a street of wavering peaks?)

But "Aunt Elise" moves me in an even greater way. In contrast to the glaring detail of "Voke and Veech," this story seems to be so immersed in murk that it's nearly impossible to read it only once in a sitting. The vision of dusty christmas lights in the fog, the drugged somnolence of holiday gatherings, the treachery of memory -- I can't even begin to relay my fascination with this tale. Sometimes I feel that death will be a nap in one of Aunt Elise's creaking, overstuffed chairs. And then I quickly think of puppies and dandelions.

Strangely, I wasn't nearly as moved by The Frolic as I had expected to be. It is certainly vivid story telling. The ideas are unsettling, and the images are very rich. But I just didn't find the end as chilling and compelling as so many other people did. I'm afraid I must have missed something. Can anyone express their reasons for picking this one out as especially terrifying?

Dr. Locrian's Asylum, on the other hand, gave me actual chills. Not just the metaphoric kind. I think I made an audible gasp at least two or three times while reading it. I've managed to make friends of mine twist their faces in disgust merely by outlining the plot for them. I haven't actually finished every story in this collection, but so far, this one is my favorite.

The trail is a bit cold, but a few words concerning "The Frolic"...

I think the main reason why it frightens so many people (i've got the shivers to the sole recollection of it now), is because it involves children. As a parent, the loss of a child is the deepest terror and to think that you are in any way the cause of this loss must be truly maddening.

And do not forget that the psychiatrist "knows" what the lunatic does to children, both physically and mentally. The reader does not, but this adds to the horror of it all. You are just left imagining what could happen to the little girl when they go "frolicking"