Define Ligottian/Ligottiesque

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but I suspect Ligotti himself is the person best placed to determine to whom his work is most indebted.

As he's said on numerous occasions, it's Lovecraft and it's certainly not Aickman.

And obviously Mr Barron is in a similar advantageous position when he corrects those who believe his own work is heavily indebted to Ligotti's.

Cue an appearance from Des and talk of the "intentional fallacy" ;)

Mark S.

[Nemonymous]

Intentional Fallacy - YouTube

[bendk]

If I remember correctly, Ligotti stated that his prose style was influenced by Poe, early Lovecraft, and Bruno Schulz. There are definitely sentences in Schulz's work that could easily be mistaken for something Ligotti would write.

Aickman and Ligotti share a certain sophistication and ambiguity in some of their tales, but that is all that I can see. And as the one letter to Nyctalops points out, TL doesn't even care for Aickman's work.

I see a little HPL in Laird Barron's writing, but I never saw Ligotti's influence. Laird's writing is pretty original in my opinion.

[Nemonymous]

There is a long thread here entitled 'Ligotti and Aickman': http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?p=23247#post23247

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

There is a long thread here entitled 'Ligotti and Aickman': http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?p=23247#post23247

I still like my:

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

A non-religious but aeschatological process of... Ligottian: Humanity becoming various Metaphors Aickmanesque: Various Metaphors becoming Humanity

from that earlier thread.

[Brendan Moody]

While I wouldn't use the word "indebted," which to me implies a fairly substantial and conscious similarity of approach, I might personally argue that, from my own aesthetic perspective, Ligotti is more similar to Aickman than to Lovecraft, even if TL admires the latter and not the former. There is a sense of the simultaneous terror and tedium of the world, and an oneiric quality, that they share despite emerging, in terms of narrative content, from the different traditions of the weird tale and the ghost story. The difference is that Aickman's dreamlike atmosphere is maintained through the (seemingly) straightforward description of potentially ordinary events that become baffling and yet seem pregnant with meaning, while Ligotti's involves his hypnotically baroque prose style and a series of disconnected yet linked nightmare images. Or so I think, but this may all be academic-sounding nonsense.

[Corman]

"A set of circumstances where inanimate objects becoming animate serves as the opening salvo in a full-scale assault on the foundations of reality. Often set in decaying urban environments."

[Sand]

"Middle European horrors stalking Middle America."

[paeng]

I believe that the definition may be seen in Conspiracy Against the Human Race, which I'm currently reading.

[A. Northman]

Reviving an old topic again. This is what immediately came to my mind:

"Showing the reality as metaphysical cancer that is constantly growing worse, producing new cells, and always appearing in delusive forms. The state of things – of mind, body, environment, ground, sky – is inevitable, unstoppable degeneration. Conveyed in form of highly imaginative, surreal weird stories."