William Scott Home

[Druidic]

I found a tremendous article on William Scott Home. It also contains Ligotti’s remarks about that writer.

When Ligotti first read Home he thought the writer was possibly mentally ill or just “inexpert’. He compared Home’s stories to Aickman’s because very often they failed to make any kind of normal sense. The entire quote (from a Ligotti interview) is in the fantastic essay on Home that I just discovered.

After reading this piece, I know I’m not alone; another intelligent human being sees Home’s work as far from “unreadable”—it is extremely difficult, however, that has to be admitted—and heralds “A Cobweb of Pulsing Veins” as a truly “terrific” work. (In my view, it’s a work easily on par with Lovecraft’s classic Hound.)

When I first read Michael Shea’s “The Autopsy” I wondered if perhaps it wasn’t Home working under a pen name. (He had good reason to do so since readers found his stories intimidating). If he had pared down his baroque style in favor of narrative flow he might well have produced something as attractive to readers of weird fiction. Home’s fiction while rigorously intellectual is nonetheless every bit as visceral as early Shea; indeed, there are paragraphs that can produce a real physical revulsion in the reader.

But enough! Here then is the link for those interested in a genuinely unique writer:

http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/2012...day-21-is.html

"A Cobweb of Pulsing Veins" is pretty terrific, and the story continues into some still stranger areas once the inhabitant of the coffin is revealed. This story, too, becomes dependent on certain traditions, but Home never lets go of his special brand of madness. In fact, this story could almost be said to have a happy ending, even an inspiring one (for all its bleakness, "The Last Golem" is also not without a certain spirituality), if it wasn't for that last sentence. That last damn sentence, man, ends things on such a creepy, shocking, baffling note that I don't finally know what to think about the morality of it all, which is something I think is probably always to be considered in Home's work. But whatever the morality of "A Cobweb of Pulsing Veins" is, whatever the positive morality is, it's still fairly hideous. Maybe not specifically morally hideous -- though even then, I don't know -- but objectively hideous all the same."