Ligotti vs Aickman

I don't know what's going on. But my original entry on the Vandermeer thread doesn't show up. Maybe this will.

Mark S.

Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels

Quote Originally Posted by James Any review for a piece of wyrd fiction complaining about the lack of taut explanation is a very bad review. Quite so. The following excerpt from an interview is doubtless pertinent, given the intrinsic tension between the aesthetic and didactic: Tibet: Robert Aickman? Ligotti: A writer that many people assume that I like because his "strange stories" are so obscure. They are indeed. Mark S.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels

I don't know what's going on. But my original entry on the Vandermeer thread doesn't show up. Maybe this will. Mark S. Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels Quote Originally Posted by James Any review for a piece of wyrd fiction complaining about the lack of taut explanation is a very bad review. Quite so. The following excerpt from an interview is doubtless pertinent, given the intrinsic tension between the aesthetic and didactic: Tibet: Robert Aickman? Ligotti: A writer that many people assume that I like because his "strange stories" are so obscure. They are indeed. Mark S.

It's still there.

It's a downright shame Ligotti doesn't think very highly of Aickman's work. I greatly admire both.

OK, scratch my (usual) whinging. It's some kind of log-in problem. I've just figured it out.

Mark S.

[Ibrahim]

Re: the intrinsic tension between the aesthetic and didactic.

I can see that. Yet it could also be argued that Aickman's aim is no less didactic, only for him it's a matter of pointing out that the mystery needs to be preserved, and his stories serve that goal admirably.
Just a thought.

[Nemonymous]

Ligotti fiction = Humanity becoming various Metaphors – while Aickman fiction = Various Metaphors becoming Humanity.

[Mr. Veech]

This will sound really stupid, but I have to say I enjoy the "gentlemanly" tone of Aickman's prose. If I want something more "visceral," I'll turn to Ligotti.

[marioneta]

Robert Aickman probes your brain with a surgical pick. Ligotti rips it out and puts it back in rearranged.

[Evans]

People try to overmystify Aickman whilst over-systematizing Ligotti. Although the fine details are purposefully blued the central themes of many of Aickman's stories can be puzzled out without too much trouble. Although Ligotti is an 'ideas writers' many of the pre-corporate horror stories don't represent any organized intellectual system (indeed we'd probably read them very differently if we knew Ligotti endorsed a different philosophy).

The point of 'ideas writing' though is to intrigue and stimulate the reader's interest with an idea, not to set out a list of neat and tidy intellectual points. This ought to be remembered by both those who attempt to portray a weird fiction writer's opus as a grand philosophical system (naming no names) and those who who trumpet incomprehensibility as a sign of sophistication and maturity (Henry James' ghost stories tend to attract boors of this nature).

As for the comparison Aickman was technically the better writer and probably more sympathetic in his philosophy but for both prose and ideas I still prefer Ligotti.

[Frater_Tsalal]

This might get me put up before a firing squad in these parts but I've always found Aickman kind of overrated. My main issue with him is that his stories just do not stick in my mind, which is weird because I have a good memory for these kinds of things. I've read 4 of his collections, but if I look at the titles of the stories now I'll be damned if I can tell you what even happens in them, or at best I can recall only minor details about them (for example, I recall that "The Wine-Dark Sea" had three witches in it). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't find his work very memorable... also, I wasn't crazy about his prose style, which I found very dry. But I feel I should say something nice here so I will admit that I do enjoy the titles of his book collections a great deal, probably more so than the actual contents. Anyway, I'll have to read through them again one day and see if my mind has changed on this matter (as sometimes happens with me: you know how it is, the first time you listen to an album you hate it, the second or third time you fall in love with it).

Robert Aickman is my favourite writer of fiction in the English language, and I don't think he really has much in common with Ligotti, though in some ways they're in the same lineage of Blackwood and others. Ligotti writes horror stories, and Aickman wrote strange stories that often featured a macabre element, which means his stories feature a wider spectrum of emotion than most other 'weird' writers.