Ligotti and Characters Devoid of Free Will

[Arthur Staaz]

I've been reading John Gardner's The Art of Fiction. There's a lot that is instructive and thought-provoking, but there's much that I tend to disagree with. At one point, Gardner writes:

". . .the writer who denies that human beings have free will (the writer who really denies it, not jokingly or ironically pretends to deny it) is one who can write nothing of interest. Aside from a grotesquery that must soon grow repetitious, he cannot endow characters, places, and events with real interest because he can find no real interest in them in the first place. Stripped of free will--robbed of all capacity to fight for those things they aspire to and avoid those things they fear--human beings cease to be of anything more than scientific or sentimental interest. For the writer who views his characters as helpless biological organisms, mere units in a mindless social structure, or cogs in a mechanistic universe (emphasis mine), whatever values those characters may hold must necessarily be illusions since none of the characters can do anything about them, and the usual interplay of value against value that makes for an interesting exploration of theme must here be a cynical and academic exercise."

I find this discussion of free will particularly intriguing given my fascination with Ligotti's work. One could hardly find a better description of Ligotti's attitude toward his characters than the language highlighted above. And yet we love the stories and find them intensely interesting. Why? Does Gardner put too much emphasis on the use of interesting characters? My own take is that Ligotti makes the stories interesting because he is more interested in the situations and the ideas they elucidate rather than the characters. His characters are used to express facets of a deterministic, consciousness-destroying world that most people are reluctant to look at. Still, I find that even in most weird fiction there is this obsession with creating characters that readers are called upon to "care about" because of their exertions of will and struggles with personal values.

This is not to say that I don't find Ligotti's characters interesting. He has many interesting characters. But the characters and any "struggle of value against value" are not the focus of the stories. Yet, the characters still work (at least for us), as do the stories. Thoughts?

Quote

". . .the writer who denies that human beings have free will (the writer who really denies it, not jokingly or ironically pretends to deny it) is one who can write nothing of interest.

It seems like a very limited view of what good writing is. The characters in Ligotti's work, in stark rebellion to the prevailing consensus of what makes good melodrama, have zero agency in their universe, which is absolutely key to the philosophical point he is making.

[Gray House]

"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

I think that Schopenhauer quote shows why the fatalism that John Gardner suggests follows from determinism doesn't actually follow from determinism. Determinism does not prevent anyone from acting according to their beliefs, knowledge, and value judgments. It just means their beliefs, knowledge, value judgments, and intentions to act are determined by the previous state of their brain and consciousness, and the previous external influences on their brain and consciousness.

Quote Originally Posted by Prince James Zaleski

The characters in Ligotti's work, in stark rebellion to the prevailing consensus of what makes good melodrama, have zero agency in their universe, which is absolutely key the philosophical point he is making.

Perhaps in this respect Ligotti's characters are some of the most realistic in fiction.

[Arthur Staaz]

I am, at the same time, reading The Annotated Lovecraft. Lovecraft basically says characters don't really matter in his stories. He's not interested in highly developed characters. In essence, the cosmos is the main character in his stories. This is why Fritz Lieber called him the Copernicus of the horror story. Man is no longer at the center. I think the same goes for Ligotti's stories and obviously it works. In this sense, I agree with James that Gardner's view of characterization is too limited. In essence, it's a pre-Copernican view.

[VeganSmokerOneironaut]

Ligotti's characters are perhaps one of the best reasons he can be compared to Lovecraft, imho, along with his pessimism. He's the only author other than Ligotti whose characters seem so unreal and unimportant. I think ironically Ligotti himself might agree to a certain degree, I've read him saying he is ''emotionally limited'' in an interview, that he's basically 'stuck' in the literal emotion of horror both in his life and in his writing.

That being said, I would challenge Gardner that there are any truly unrepetitive writers. While Ligotti does have some repetitiveness I've noticed (Insane intellectuals, people preaching horrific cosmologies, clowns, jesters, etc) so does every other writer, it seems, imho.

If you think of writers themselves as machines you can see why they might be incapable of creating anything than imprinting their own neurosis, make-believe and pathology.

I've never thought about Ligotti's character's not having free will though, I read them more like Kafka's characters, impotent victims against vast forces beyond their control. Those two things probably overlap though.

Maybe you might be interested in developing a list or essay about writers who consciously or unconsciously write deterministically?

Not saying they definitely are, but Lovecraft, Kafka, Ligotti might be, as well as maybe, the Marquis de Sade (with his wooden hedonists) and Philip K. Dick (with his theological matrix inhabitants). Just venturing a suggestion.

[Ibrahim]

" Wooden Hedonist" will be the name for my new death metal band.

Quote Originally Posted by VeganSmokerOneironaut

He's the only author other than Ligotti whose characters seem so unreal and unimportant.

...well, what about Borges? John Banville? They write characters who seem aware they are masks. John Fowles, who imbues ( in his novels more than in his short stories) characters with character traits only to emphasize their most essential quality- that of fiction.
A more widely read person could probably make that a longer and more comprehensive list...

Quote Originally Posted by Ibrahim

" Wooden Hedonist" will be the name for my new death metal band.

Seems more suited for black metal imo

Quote

...well, what about Borges? John Banville? They write characters who seem aware they are masks. John Fowles, who imbues ( in his novels more than in his short stories) characters with character traits only to emphasize their most essential quality- that of fiction. A more widely read person could probably make that a longer and more comprehensive list...

Perhaps this list could be applied to most authors of allegories, even the likes of C. S. Lewis.
However I maintain my position on Ligotti's characters and their realism, as the major allegorical authors are predominantly anthropocentric and pre-Copernican (especially in Lewis's case with being pre-Copernican )

[VeganSmokerOneironaut]

Quote Originally Posted by Nirvana In Karma

Quote Originally Posted by Ibrahim " Wooden Hedonist" will be the name for my new death metal band. Seems more suited for black metal imo Quote ...well, what about Borges? John Banville? They write characters who seem aware they are masks. John Fowles, who imbues ( in his novels more than in his short stories) characters with character traits only to emphasize their most essential quality- that of fiction. A more widely read person could probably make that a longer and more comprehensive list... Perhaps this list could be applied to most authors of allegories, even the likes of C. S. Lewis. However I maintain my position on Ligotti's characters and their realism, as the major allegorical authors are predominantly anthropocentric and pre-Copernican (especially in Lewis's case with being pre-Copernican )

I would have to agree that Ligotti's characters are the most realistic, baring another spare author here or there. What is your opinion on the optimism bias in fiction? Along with it being hard to find characters without free will, through Ibrahim thought of good several others, it seems hard to find authors who aren't addicted to ''hopium.'' Even, freaking True Detective season one ends with Rustin Cohle going insane and becoming an spiritual optimist! That would be another good list/essay, authors who don't pretend our lives end in anything other than death!

[Arthur Staaz]

One of the things I notice about Gardner's argument is that several of his claims are unsupported. Why must a grotesquery soon grow repetitious? Are there not a myriad of grotesqueries to explore in literature? And even if we accept his argument that a writer like the one he describes cannot endow his characters with real interest, why would that mean he could not endow places or events with real interest?

In Ligotti's work and in much of Lovecraft's work, I think we see a de-emphasis of the human character as well as of place. The locales used in their fiction certainly convey an important feeling, but they are generally described with a lack of particularity, which is what gives them their dream-like quality. That doesn't mean description is lacking. Ligotti's a master of the telling detail, especially in stories like "The Shadow at the Bottom of the Earth" and "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech." But I think Ligotti tends to focus on the grotesqueries and the situations in which these grotesqueries are found.

In an age with an increasing realization of the grotesqueries of modern life (at least for some), I can't help but find Ligotti's fiction (particularly the situations in which he places his characters) supremely interesting.