The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

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Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

Savor these stories, my friends. You have every reason to, and you'd be foolish not to. They are gifts that should not be...

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

It's been over a week and a couple re-reads, and I'm still trying to figure out how to put my thoughts in order so I can write something in the way of a review or analysis. Despite being relatively short pieces, they have a lot of meat to their bones.

In a brief recap sort of way: I thought "The Small People" was absolutely brilliant. "Metaphysica Morum" didn't knock me out of my seat, so to say, but I find myself enjoying it more and more each time I read it.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

With these stories, as with most others, I was left feeling like I had taken blows to the face. Which is why I read Ligotti, and weird fiction in general. I'm not searching for scares or creepy crawlies, I want devastation and questioning. Blunt force trauma that won't loose its grip long after I have put the books down. Fingers are most assuredly crossed that there may be more soon coming down the pipeline.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

"The Small People" is, without question, one of my favorite stories Ligotti has ever written. "Metaphysica Morum" starts out nicely, but quickly devolves into an ending that ultimately feels like a cheap personal rant, which I feel devalues the story that carries it there. I'm looking forward to reading them both again, though. I'm sure there is a great deal I didn't pick up on.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

I agree, Cnev. The ending of "Metaphysica Morum" was easily the most foolish thing that Ligotti has written. What I found particularly absurd about it was the way that, without the slightest irony, he sets his pessimism within a religious framework that echoes at every point the same tired Biblical theological tropes used by all the Sunday Morning fundamentalist preachers.

First, he presents his pessimist and anti-natalist philosophy -- what he calls his 'demoralization' -- as a pathway toward salvation: pessimism and anti-natalism are "universal deliverance" and "redemptive." Those who affirm life must be condemned for not being on "the path of a saving self-mutation."

Second, he gives his anti-natalism and his pathway to extinction a hilariously Biblical prophetic and eschatological framework. He characterizes himself and his kind as "liberators by demoralization":

"From the day that marked our kind's awakening to life, [we]...have borne the task of attaining for the world its true status and to announce its arrival in a time to come." Seeing Ligotti set himself up as a Biblical prophet à la Isaiah or Jesus sent by the void to announce the coming eschaton is pretty strange.

Like Ligotti, I'm an anti-natalist and a pessimist. However, Ligotti's absurd framing of anti-natalism and pessimism in terms of a dogmatic and fundamentalist religion modeled on Biblical theology does absolutely nothing for me.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

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Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

Said to be incorrect or assumed to be incorrect? In literature, nothing is definite, I feel.
There is often a certain narrative unrealibility with authorial intentions, some conscious, some unconscious.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

That's a valid point. I shouldn't have used the term "incorrect." I blame responding while still bleary eyed and freshly indignant at "foolish" being applied as an adjective to any prose Ligotti has ever written.

The proselytizing MM protagonist is as (to me) clearly damaged and malignant as his long-lost family is. Yes, the story projects angry indignation at life and life's defenders, but it's all couched in the world of the story.

There's no doubt the story works well for some and very poorly indeed for others, and I also have no doubt that "The Small People" is superior to MM and is (in my opinion) perhaps the best story Ligotti has ever written.

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
 

Hmmm, interesting... You know from the author but does any author really know? Literature is, for me, something that readers read, interpret, etc. with no other help than the text that they are reading.

Thanks, Dr L. I'll keep my powder dry until Amazon UK deign to send me this book that I pre-ordered in March. :|