In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land

[Nemonymous]

IN A FOREIGN TOWN, IN A FOREIGN LAND: His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House – This is a story of labels. Many words become catch phrases (eg Twilight Talk, Uncreated Grave, Ascrobius Escapade etc) and reputations earned by people as well as things, ‘the charlatan Dr Klatt’, ‘the Uncreated Grave’ etc, many wrapped within “ “ (as I said before, to exact purity for words outside the impingement of any deceptive ‘tabula rasa’?). The “annulment of existence” (as the story tells), a parthenogenetic late-labelling...
Twilight Talk’s Mrs Glimm (another Purity Ghost?) has a lodging-house or a brothel? Reputations proceed as well as follow. The use of a disfigured body as another body’s headstone...most disturbing image. Genius!
With such weak glimmering twilight, can there be a shadow at all let alone a higher house (or astrological mansion)?
I found myself “thinking” about this story even before I first read it (this was a second reading of it). It was as if I had known about this story (which I didn’t) before inventing the word ‘Nemonymous’ because uncreation has to come before creation or because one needs a ‘tabula rasa’ to create anything at all.
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IN A FOREIGN TOWN, IN A FOREIGN LAND: The Bells Will Sound Forever – Well, a story connected to the previous one mainly by Mrs Glimm’s rivalry with the new Purity Ghost in this story: i.e. Mrs Pyk (once exotic dancer and fortune-teller). In fact the whole story becomes a " " or purity ‘label’ by virtue of being told ‘retrospectively’ (?) to the Narrator by this story’s main protagonist on a park bench.
Another lodging house/brothel with (today) an apt Christmassy doorbell (Sleigh Bells) extended to the bells on the stick-jester that the ‘main protagonist’ becomes. That image (in the descriptive ‘context’ and ‘ambiance’) is truly the stuff of nightmares. An overused word, but it is ‘genius’ the way this happens in TL’s work: not so much a ‘genius loci’ as ‘genius loco’.
Mrs Pyk’s wooden arm (Cf the stick-jester (a ‘fool’s motley’) and ‘candy cane’) gave her extra powers - or, rather, her missing arm ('tabula rasa'?) was what gave her extra powers ... as echoed by Stephen King in Duma Key (also cf: Matt Cardin’s Divinations of the Deep) ... but I’m now descending into Twilight Talk myself: i.e. my over-keen extrapolation or ‘critique loco’ that almost becomes an apocryphal Nonsense....
“a great sense of excitation relating to things which he could not name...”
"Perhaps this dream ultimately belongs to no one..."
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IN A FOREIGN TOWN, IN A FOREIGN LAND: A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing - A very bleak story, one of assisted suicide, recommended amnesia, metaphysical namelessness...
I’m in the still growing, GLIMMering context of ‘Teatro Grottesco’ as a collection and of ‘In a Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land’ as a narrower group within a wider group entitled ‘Deformations’ within a single reader’s even wider personal reading history outside of Ligotti (and of other stories labelled Ligotti not in this book), and subject to the dislocation of duration that I have already implicitly noted with my critiques -- and I’m now led by a pasty-faced clown (amid “shiny sickles of fever”) back to the first sentence of this story: “Long before I suspected the existence of the town, near the northern border, I believe I was in some way already an inhabitant of that remote and desolate place”.
Dr Zirk (Circus Curse?) calls the sickly Narrator (to his face) “little puppet” at the story’s beginning but calls me “stupid little puppet” at its end – with his soft voice whispering.
This story is a genuine dark masterpiece (of hope and horror?), a story that pulls all my strings -- as Dr Zirk’s own strings are eventually pulled (jerked out like veins?).
This is a seasonal story for Christmas with “frosted panes” and a genius “locus of winter spirit”.
Meanwhile, “How could we find a pretext to react to anything if we understood ... everything?”
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IN A FOREIGN TOWN, IN A FOREIGN LAND: When You Hear The Singing, You Will Know It Is Time –
I’m not the same Narrator as before.
“I had lived in the town near the northern border long enough so that, with the occult passing of time, I had begun to assume I would never leave there...”
The leathery trap-door (a vocal flap?) and other “architectural moans” remind me of “The House of Leaves”(Cf. also ‘Purity’). The unlabelled “threshold-signs”, too, are as if Ligotti has left such teasing trapdoors in his ‘Wall of Words’ to provide some potential means of fathoming the very stories (Cf. the vicious circle of spider venom) – but how to choose the correct textual entry or exit thresholds? Via “old town” “demon town” or “other town”?
I cannot even manage to die here!
No easy euthanasia except to lose oneself along the delightful rich Ligottian passageways of clause and sub-clause that expresses the ultimate existential conundrum.
“There was simply no peace to be had no matter where you hid yourself away.”
More characters, Dr Pell and Reverend Cork (to add to the fat, jewellery-rattling lady who is connector of the four stories within the truly classic IN A FOREIGN TOWN, IN A FOREIGN LAND as a whole) gather around a barely visible slow-burning fuse as the glimmer travels up the candy cane towards the tambourine-man’s jingle-jangle head.
“...the town near the northern border, which, whatever else it may have been or seemed to be, was always a genius of the most insidious illusions.”
It's not over till the fat lady sings.

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Edited because some of the text didn't show up in certain TLO formats.

[Odalisque]

I seem to have been wading my way through "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" forever. On the whole, I haven't enjoyed it. I'll probably finish it because there are now only a few pages left -- but on the train this morning, I found myself wondering why I was persevering with it.

[gveranon]

I seem to have been wading my way through "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" forever. On the whole, I haven't enjoyed it. I'll probably finish it because there are now only a few pages left -- but on the train this morning, I found myself wondering why I was persevering with it.

I think the quartet of stories in "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" relies mainly on mood, atmosphere, and thought for its effects. The plots aren't as engaging (at least to me) as the plots of some of the better-known stories in Teatro Grottesco. When I first read these four stories, I liked them, but they left only vague impressions on me -- vague but somehow compelling, I should say. And I loved the titles!

I found them much more arresting on a second reading. It's probably just a matter of taste, but I like stories that are more atmospheric and less plotty, if they're well done, as these certainly are. At this time, I'm more interested in these stories than in any others in the collection, and am probably going to read them a third time. It's been a while since my last reading of them, and I can tell just by glancing through them that I will really enjoy reading them again.

I suspect that public transportation isn't the ideal place in which to read Ligotti's fiction. I read a few of his stories in a laundromat and found myself too distracted to fully appreciate them.

These four stories remind me more of "literary" writers such as Sebald, Walser, Kafka, and Schulz, than they do of other horror writers. These stories give a hint, I think, of what Ligotti's fiction might look like if he edged out of the horror genre and started writing darkly contemplative literary fiction. (I don't know if he has any intention of doing this; I'm just speculating here.)

In addition to all the above, I have personal reasons for appreciating these stories. It sounds bizarre to say, but I feel that I'd like to live in that strange northern town. The remoteness, the sense that everything is old and odd. The passive characters who seem to have plenty of time on their hands to do nothing but wonder about mysterious phenomena while they wait for the inevitable end. As in a Ballard story, the characters seem to have accepted and even embraced the weird, the disturbing, the fatal, even as they remain listless and detached. Can I move there? That northern town seems like a good place to "retire."

[Nemonymous]

I agree with gveranon about many things there. They are mood pieces and the 'laundromat' point is relevant to one's own mood when reading some fiction. I think the 3rd 'story' in the quartet (Namelesston Quartet as opposed to Alexandria Quartet!) is probably the bleakest of all Ligotti I've read (and I think I've read all his fiction). And I actually have 'retired' to these and similar environments in Ligotti by Magic Fiction if not bodily!

“Long before I suspected the existence of the town, near the northern border, I believe I was in some way already an inhabitant of that remote and desolate place”.

[Odalisque]

I suspect that public transportation isn't the ideal place in which to read Ligotti's fiction. I read a few of his stories in a laundromat and found myself too distracted to fully appreciate them.

I think that this is probably true. For me, though, public transport is almost certainly the only place that I would ever read In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land. At home, there are too many other options for me ever to concentrate on something that relies mainly on mood, atmosphere, and thought for its effects (as you so aptly put it). There are the possibilities of working on my own fiction, reading any of the books I own, listening to my CDs, watching my DVDs, doing the housework, going on the TLO and afflicting others with my thoughts (if my mental processes may be dignified with that word)... By contrast, on a tube train, there is little to distract me from In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land -- the alternatives are of the order of reading the adverts, or looking at the all too often ugly faces of my fellow passengers -- there isn't even a view out of the windows. And, even if I have CDs and a Walkman with me, I can't listen to music -- tube trains are noisier than any portable audio device I've ever owned. So, I am trapped with the Ligotti book, and the options other than reading on are unattractive. It may be impossible to enjoy In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land in such conditions. But in other conditions I wouldn't read it at all. What all of this presumably means is that I am tempramentally unable to enjoy In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land. It is devoid of what I enjoy in fiction -- such as the development of characters and (for goodness sake!) some kind of a storyline. Perhaps I am missing the entire point of Ligotti's fiction.

[Nemonymous]

the alternatives are of the order of reading the adverts, or looking at the all too often ugly faces of my fellow passengers -- there isn't even a view out of the windows.

That sounds like a Ligotti story in itself!

I am tempramentally unable to enjoy In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land. It is devoid of what I enjoy in fiction -- such as the development of characters and (for goodness sake!) some kind of a storyline.

Some of the other stories in the TG book, as you've already possibly found out, are more in line with your above template for fiction.
However, I find HPL fiction more in line with the Ligotti template.
According to my mood, I can enjoy both templates separately or overlapping.

I wonder if any writers regularly combine both types of enjoyment equally in a single fiction?
des

[Odalisque]

the alternatives are of the order of reading the adverts, or looking at the all too often ugly faces of my fellow passengers -- there isn't even a view out of the windows.

That sounds like a Ligotti story in itself!

Indeed! It struck me as such shortly after writing that. :D

I am tempramentally unable to enjoy In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land. It is devoid of what I enjoy in fiction -- such as the development of characters and (for goodness sake!) some kind of a storyline.

Some of the other stories in the TG book, as you've already possibly found out, are more in line with your above template for fiction.
However, I find HPL fiction more in line with the Ligotti template.
According to my mood, I can enjoy both templates separately or overlapping.

I wonder if any writers regularly combine both types of enjoyment equally in a single fiction?
des

It struck me, too, that Lovecraft's fiction is also devoid of character development. That said, Lovecraft does employ storylines. His fiction is more about phenomena than about people. As such, the Lovecraftian template differs markedly from both my fiction and Ligotti's. If you intended to imply that there are only two fiction templates -- or that fiction templates can be conveniently divided into two -- then I think you are mistaken.

But, yes, I enjoyed the earlier Teatro Grottesco stories (with the exception of Sideshow, and Other Stories) and consider such as Purity and The Town Manager very fine pieces of fiction. Had the book started with In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land, I imagine that Teatro Grottesco would have been swiftly removed from my bag to languish with most of its contents unread. :drunk:

[Nemonymous]

It struck me, too, that Lovecraft's fiction is also devoid of character development. That said, Lovecraft does employ storylines. His fiction is more about phenomena than about people. As such, the Lovecraftian template differs markedly from both my fiction and Ligotti's.

I think we are agreed that Ligotti's fiction is not all "mood, atmosphere, and thought", and even IAFTIAFL does have its plot in a way with Mrs Glimm, the Ascrobius Escapade, the stick-jester etc.
But I'm sure you will enjoy more, for example, 'Gas Station Carnivals' and 'The Bungalow House' (which I guess you haven't read yet).
In other words, I think Ligotti has just as much plot as HPL, generally speaking, and both reside within a similar template of fiction.


If you intended to imply that there are only two fiction templates -- or that fiction templates can be conveniently divided into two -- then I think you are mistaken.

No I don't think that but I do believe there is a smooth spectrum that moves between two extremes of "mood, atmosphere, and thought" and "plot/character predominance". But that does not exclude the possibility of blending both extremes in one work which I think Ligotti sometimes does.

[Nemonymous]

But that does not exclude the possibility of blending both extremes in one work which I think Ligotti sometimes does.

In fact, in a different Jefferyan way, you do this successfully in 'Odalisque'.