Can anyone explain the story "Teatro Grottesco" to me?

[peterh]

I wondered if I should post this in the story section, but it seems like not many people read or post on this forum so I thought I might as well post this question where people are post likely to see it, because this has been bugging me for a while.

The title story of Teatro Grottesco is the one story in the collection that I can't make heads or tails of. What was with the small man in the alleyway who had paw like appendages for hands? Why does the bearded man (presumably the Teatro) take a picture of the photographer with his eye camera when he gets into the elevator? What was the significance of the "soft black stars," the globe of starlight that Dr. Groddeck was looking into? What did he dump into the globe of starlight from that brown paper bag?

I get the basic idea of this story. Artists who encounter the Teatro are confronted with the true horrible nature of reality, and this realization destroys all sense of meaning, and so they are no longer motivated to create art. That much I understand, but none of the details of the story add up for me.

Edit: I want to clarify that I understand Ligotti uses dream logic and surrealism, so I understand there might not be a logical explanation for these things. But I'm thinking there must at least be a thematic explanation, ie an explanation of what these elements symbolize.

[Michael]

This is a great question. My reading of this (and I think this is my idiosyncratic reading of the story) is that it is almost establishing a Ligottian "Universe." I read Teatro and then immediately read My Work is Not Yet Done and it almost seemed (there is no data I have to back this) as if Teatro was a "prequel" to My Work is Not Yet Done. If you look at the details as less essential to the plot and more essential to the atmosphere/mood of the "universe" it makes it a little more coherent. (Think Greg Sadler does a YouTube video of this on his Speculative Fiction series.) My understanding is Ligotti did not intend to make anything coherent or a universe (he seems to be drawing more on folks like Bruno Schulz and Thomas Bernhard than traditional "horror" writers) and in some ways is actively working against such coherency (thus why it seems coherent). Then again one could say the same thing (to a lesser extant) about Lovecraft. HPL didn't create the Mythos, Derleth did. But in Derleth's defense the Lovecraftian Universe was right there to put a title on. So, short version, if it seemed incoherent and not clear I think, ironically, you're reading it "right." But to answer your direct question, all of those things you noticed are signposts that you are well within the Ligottian "Universe."

[luciferfell]

Also, Ligotti does something in his work, like say... Lynch did in Eraserhead, where all the unexplained "details" are not meant to be explained, but instead are meant to create a kind of vertigo in the reader/viewer. These works run on "nightmare logic" not daytime logic. They are not meant to make literal sense, but there is a sense to them, operating on their own logic. To ask, what does this mean, is something the artist creating the work did not mean to fulfill for you. There is no "meaning", just nightmare. In this way, these works are closer to real-life experience than more traditional art. In real life, there is no explanation, no meaning awaiting you. To paraphrase Ligotti: Existence equals Nightmare and Nightmare equals Existence.

[peterh]

Quote Originally Posted by luciferfell

These works run on "nightmare logic" not daytime logic. They are not meant to make literal sense, but there is a sense to them, operating on their own logic. To ask, what does this mean, is something the artist creating the work did not mean to fulfill for you.

I understand that Ligotti uses dream logic. But this story seems obscure even by his standards. His other stories have dream logic, but the surreal elements generally have thematic or symbolic meanings. In this story the various elements seem to lack even that kind of explanation, at least to me. But perhaps I'm missing something.

[Sashock Strashock]

The paws on the little man's hands are those soft black stars. I still couldn't figure out - could that same little man in alley be the same Herman Zick, the landlord?

[Knygathin]

Of all the stories by Ligotti I have read, I think "Teatro Grottesco" must have impressed me the most. It is a masterpiece of literary controlled paranoia. I have not bothered to try to analyze its details, but overall I think this is Ligotti's take on the Illuminati (the fashionable term used these days for the hidden and unapproachable utmost administrative power). But he has approached it less from a political/worldly perspective than say Kubrick did in EYES WIDE SHUT, or Polanski in THE GHOST WRITER and THE NINTH GATE. Instead, from a dreamy, spiritual perspective. But just as effective as they, if not more. (And I think there may be a subtle critique baked into it about the direction society is going.) Ligotti may be playing with fire from a purely existential perspective, but he has not provoked the world's ruling class and therefore, unlike Kubrick, thankfully, remains safe from these.

[peterh]

Quote Originally Posted by Sashock Strashock

The paws on the little man's hands are those soft black stars. I still couldn't figure out - could that same little man in alley be the same Herman Zick, the landlord?

This is a connection that I've never noticed before, and I think it makes the story make a little more sense. The idea is that the hands of the little man resemble the soft black stars and he's shrinking, so I think that's implying that he's shrinking into one of those things. This means that when Dr Groddeck dumps that thing from the bag, it's the little man who has shrunk to the point where he's now one of the soft black stars in the globe. So the globe is filled with people that The Teatro has transformed into black stars. Though I'm not sure what the significance of this is (either thematically or story wise).

The other thing is that Dr. Groddeck/The Teatro had that brown bag (the one we later see him dumping something from into the globe) when he went to see the landlord. So is the implication that he shrunk the landlord into a black star?