is Ligotti's work experimental or traditional?

[Nemonymous]

Stemming from the discussion here, I thought it might be interesting to pose this question.

Since reading it in the 1980s, I have always thought of Ligotti's work as being more experimental than traditional, and the work benefits from that. It is not Avant Garde, but it originally broke new ground and still does.

[Acutely decayed]

I am reminded of a quote by Nemesis the warlock in an old british comic - along the lines of - "I hold the original and oldest belief in the universe - I believe in nothing" perhaps Tom is the Arch-traditionalist ;)

[Mark Cooper]

I'd say that Ligotti's writes within the experimental tradition. In so doing, I know I'm problematizing the question, which presupposes a simple dichotomy between the traditional and the experimental. However, after more than a century of experimental modernism in literature, and the canonization of certain experimental styles, techniques, and themes, a definite blurring of the lines of demarcation between the traditional and the experimental has occurred. Ligotti's work is experimental inasmuch as he writes in the register of experimental modernism. His literary voice and style echoes the voices and styles of many of the great experimental modernists, ranging from Kafka to Beckett to Borges to Bernhard. His principal themes -- alienation from self and society, the loss of any coherent sense of reality, and a loss of faith in the power of language to adequately 'name' reality -- are all common to the tradition of experimental modernism.

Seen from this perspective, it might be tempting to say that Ligotti's work is quite hackneyed and devoid of originality. Fortunately, this isn't the case, and the only reason that it isn't the case is that Ligotti, in his personal life, clearly experiences the modernist problematic in all its terrifying poignancy and immediacy. There's no affectation, no posturing, in his writing. That being so, he's able to use the common tropes of the experimental tradition in such a way that he appears to be original. Of course, there's almost nothing original in Ligotti's work, but the appearance of originality endures because people tend to conflate the original and the originary. While Ligotti's writing isn't original, it's most definitely originary: it's an authentic expression of his experience of being in the world, and this is, in large measure, what makes it so powerful.

[qcrisp]

Kingsley Amis, a novelist known more for traditionalism than experimentation, said in an interview - if I recall correctly - that every novel is an experiment. (If he said "novel", this would apply to shorter fiction, too.)

I would agree with this.

But there are degrees of self-consciousness in experiment. The Oulipo group would be an example of very deliberate and self-conscious experiment - and this is valid and interesting.

Nonetheless, I think people are mistaken in a tendency (which I think I detect) to believe that attention to craft is against the spirit of experimentation.

In any work of art, surely, the artist is more accomplished the more able he or she is to 'control' effects. (I put the word 'control' in inverted commas, because many might agree with me that part of what an artist does - the main part - is letting the art happen.)

In any case, the smoothness of finish to a work of art is no indication at all that it is not experimental.

Many experiments are repeated ones: I'll try writing in the present tense for this. I'll use a more colloquial tone here. Etc.

Surely, any writer knows this. You can ONLY improve by experimentation. Even if experiments have been done before, we perform them again in a new setting, and with new materials (experiments are meant to be repeated in this way).

Therefore, I would say that the degree of originality of a work is probably the best indicator of the degree of experimentation, not the degree of jaggedness or inconclusiveness, etc. Even 'originality' (if it is possible to define that) may not correlate completely with experimentation. However, using this measure, I would say that Ligotti's work is markedly experimental.

[Nemonymous]

The posts so far have been thought-provoking and have opened my eyes, especially to the distinction between original and originary.
For me, experimental includes (1) being essentially tractable by most readers but with difficult subject matter, text leading to allusion, illusion, or elusion, by poetics or density or text's texture or richness of sound and semantics and look, relative complexity of narration's and time's points of view, a prime example of which would be Lawrence Durrell's Alexandrian Quartet or (2) as (1) but often also with seemingly Avant Garde devices like the marble or blank pages and typographical mazes in Tristram Shandy or the mind-blowing and vexed texture of text in Finnegans Wake, the latter breaking taboos, too (or an anti-novel like Robbe-Grillet's?)
I personally place Ligotti's canon of work firmly in (1), demonstrated by difficult subject-matter balanced between truth and metaphor upon the fulcrum of its author's self in a nightmare of distress, and I would include CATHR in the canon, in this respect.
Most other weird literature that I enjoy presents an array of traditional story-telling and not experimental in the above sense. Cisco, Connell and Crisp would be examples of exception.

[Nemonymous]

PS. Other examples of exception abound in the huge Zagava/ Ex Occidente canon of books.
Indeed, separate from that, its canon as a whole has been an Avant Garde experience in itself....!

PPS. My mention of Tristram Shandy shows that experimental or avant garde does not always mean modern or modernist.

[Druidic]

I don’t personally care for the experimental in literature or music. I don’t see Ligotti’s fiction as being experimental at all. On one side it stretches back to traditional and seminal figures like Poe and on the other to the Pessimist philosophers. His style is lucid and authentic, the voice of the confessional.

I just don’t see any experimentation going on here and I’m grateful for it.

[Nemonymous]

Ligotti's work becomes indeed 'lucid' to me but after working through something like an art installation or some music by Ligeti and, having just re-read my real-time review in 2008 of the collection TEATRO GROTTESCO, I can see why I thought it was experimental in a skilful way to ensure I received that lucidity from something not at first completely lucid on first reading, say, the dense and textured 'The Shadow, the Darkness'.
And combining, say, Poe and a study of pessimist philosophy certainly sounds as if it's not an art to be easily done or easily read, while transcending the traditional Gothic tale.
It is perhaps the skill of Ligotti that allows his work to appeal to traditionalists as well as experimentalists.

[Druidic]

If we regard experimental as a subjective quality than one possible definition of it is to attempt something new, an experiment. A writer writes his first story and that’s an experiment. He writes his second—and it’s a new story obviously—and that too is an experiment. Obviously this definition won’t fly. So what is an experimental story?
A surrealistic story isn’t experimental. It’s part of a tradition. It may be good or bad but it isn’t necessarily experimental.
Too often writers use formatting to advance their idea of an experimental story. Harlan Ellison wrote a few to my deep regret and I merely found them badly flawed stories. I have no desire to turn a book 360 degrees several time to read concentric prose, each line in smaller type and spiraling into infinity. Where is the line between experimentation and self-indulgence?
Burroughs’ cut up technique is just a game, he admits as much, and it reminds me of arranging a pretty corpse to model the latest fashion designs. It’s still a corpse.
Durrenmatt was known for his 'experimental' plays; I can't even begin to pretend I understand that. Nothing in Durrenmatt's work has ever struck me as experimental.

Man, I’m having a very bad day. This post may document it.

[Nemonymous]

Sorry to hear you're having a bad day.
Surrealism was once experimental and later became a tradition.
Perhaps there is now a Ligottian tradition of writing.