Favorite Selection from NOCTUARY

[Dr. Bantham]

This is the third of three polls constructed to instigate discussion regarding specific stories by Ligotti. Be sure to comment when voting!

[dr. locrian]

My good (fellow) Doctor, I assume that you ALSO voted for "The Tsalal," though I'm not at ALL surprised if that's true!

This was a very difficult decision, considering competition like "Mad Night of Atonement" and "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel," but I feel like "The Tsalal" is one of Ligotti's epic masterworks to date. Ligotti does so well with these longer pieces (i.e. MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE, "The Shadow, The Darkness"). In fact, Ligotti's most fleshed out material to date coincidentally(?) concerns the Tsalal (or "the Darkness"), that destructive chaos at the center of things which lies underneath the mask of the protagonists' tenuous realities.

This is Ligotti at his most terrifying, and the terror is certainly of the most insidiously subtle nature. It's the kind of terror that stays with (at least this) reader years after having first read it. Simply put, "The Tsalal" and it's shadowy counterparts represent what I most fear (in my bleakest moments) actually lies at the heart of our/my existence. I feel like, in these pieces, Ligotti nails the essence of Lovecraft's Azathoth/Nyarlathotep combo and elaborates on that subject from the inside out.

Please forgive the rusty thoughts. I realize I'm not being as specific as I should about the details of this amazing story, and I'm eager to continue this discussion in the hopes of greater and more specific insight from other readers. And, moreover, maybe further discussion will slowly be able to dust this rust off...

[dr. locrian]

HA HA! I see that MATT is the other Tsalal-lovin' culprit! Well well well. Can't say that I'm at all surprised by THAT either!

[eldritch00]

"The Tsalal" is indeed a wonderful slice of apocalypse from Ligotti, though perhaps the votes for it were a factor that urged me to pick "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel" instead. ;)

Still, to claim more than a slight influence on my selection from the ones made before me would be to short-change this story. I think there are two reasons why I found "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel" so powerful.

First, I was raised a Catholic and have since been lapsed in my beliefs. It's not a situation I'm happy with, and this story just hits me with the sense of the Fall that I feel at the end of the story. Whether or not Ligotti intended to evoke this (I personally doubt it), my personal reading background is piqued in this fashion.

Second, I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman, especially his short fiction and his work for The Sandman. As such, the discourse on dreams that Mrs. Rinaldi delivers in this story is something that strikes me as an alternate view of dreams that I find rather interesting, because I myself am beginning to agree with that kind of view more than the ultimately positive spin that Gaiman has.

+++++

I'd also like to mention "Conversations in a Dead Language." I was quite surprised and thrilled to see Ligotti using words like "knifey-wifey" here. It's also a story with a climax that can easily seem ridiculous but succeeded in sending a chill down my spine.

[dr. locrian]

eldritch00,

Great choice and very well stated. "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel" is one of my very favorite Ligotti stories. Though I'm not nor ever have been Catholic, I am a fan of Gaiman's Sandman, and I can see the contrast in "dream views" between that work and MRA.

Also, I tend to favor the literary device of the "demonic child" protagonist (also used in "The Tsalal"). The epiphany of the story's end always makes me wonder what game our hero was playing at.

Have you ever read Ligotti's more recent "Purity"? Again, TL uses the child protagonist, though this time the family members that surround him are at least as demonic as the narrator himself.

Regard Nethescurialian (and that's a mouthful),
Doctor Locrian

P.S. Welcome!

[DeathfareDevil]

It's agreed that "Conversations..." has one hell of a climax -- actually a double-climax: the last line is great, but the one that always has disturbed me far more is, "And suddenly the thing came gliding down through the darkness." Since first reading that, I've been relieved that my house is single-storeyed.

But "The Medusa" is my fave from Noctuary. Partly because it's the first Ligotti tale I read, but also there are in it so many elements that I love: an esoteric writer, a quixotic sort of quest, a cramped and musty bookstore. Even the strange meeting between Gleer and Dregler in the restaurant is odd and memorable in the way that some of life's weirder aspects can be. And there's something about the images of wine-colored eyes and gems that freaks me out. No idea what, though.

Actually I think I'm gonna read that story now. Haha, thanks, Nightmare Network!

[Juan Borgia]

Difficult choice between "The Tsalal", "The Prodigy of Dreams" and "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel", but I finally fell for the seductions of Mrs. Rinaldi.

The idea fascinates me. The Angel, or this creature that posses as an angel, lives in a state of purity, apparently in spheres of spiritual ecstasy above our meager physical reality. Yet, the infective worms of dreams, windows of the true horror of the world, find their way into this most pure of all creatures, gradually devolving it into a state of pure putrefaction.

I read this story while I was supposed to be attending some boring seminar. I read it in the open, around 5:30 PM, with broad sunlight and tons of girls screaming in the distance... and still it froze me to death.

And that is mark of a good story.

[The Silent One]

Just a few modest opinions:
The Medusa: Great stuff, very Thossian. Strange obsession, eh Wink?
Conversation in a Dead Language: Very odd, also a bit distorted. One wonders about the child's fate. Great ending.
The Prodigy of Dreams: Falling into the arms of the all-embalming Mortician God. A Lovecraftian concept if I ever saw one. Beautifully twisted end.
Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel: Jon, your reading of it was pure magic. A disturbing concept of purity.
The Tsalal: Excellent resolution. Surprisingly, the "villain" dies and Tom stays in character.
Mad Night of Atonement: "Oh, blessed puppets, receive My prayer, and teach Me to make Myself in thy image." Creepy. Prime Ligotti.
The Strange Design of Master Rignolo: Art as reality. One of the more satisfying denouements.
The Voice in the Bones: Very creepy, with a truly surreal setting and ending. "Mr. Thump." "Thump, thump, thump."
And yes, I voted for little old Master Rignolo.

[Severini]

"The strange design..." is my favorite by far.
Because it intrigates me no matter how many times I read it...
Here comes my (poor and confusing) comentary:

Rignolo paints those pieces trying to create places to escape reality and that "other thing" (death?) incessantly...

(maybe he even already succeed on doing that when he says,
..."I have spent extraordinary lenghts of time whithin the borders of each canvasess, both as maker and as casual inhabitant, until the borders no longer exist for me and neither does... that other thing"[but if this is true why did he ask for somebody to kill him?])

...and when Grissul and Nolon (Did anyone find that they are very similar to the Samuel Beckett's duos in his two most famous plays?) let him know that he achieved his goal (with his masterpiece he appears to be created a landscape where he can run to), he runs to the place in which he thinks he will find his salvation (the ultimate flight-out of reality)...but instead he is buried into that horrible face..."

To me the story is an allegory of art as escapism.It states that art cannot be a way out at all.But of course it is not only this...

So many questions rise from that pages...this is a quality I've only found in Borges' best short stories...here comes one:

Who could be that silhouette observing Grissul and Nolon from the window?

[unknown]

I loved The Tsalal...it had strong elements of Lovecraft intertwined with some modern elements. The whole evolution of the character into this antichrist like figure was really intriguing. I haven't read the story in some time...I forgot how much I loved it.