Metaphysica Morum (possible spoilers)

[Nemonymous]

Re: The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti
I have now read 'Metaphysica Morum', but not yet read 'The Small People'. I don't think it's any accident that Olan is an anagram of Loan, a loan being a two way 'deal', infecting and benefiting both ways, just as 'demoralise' is, in its modern sense, to make someone lose hope but, in its archaic sense, to strip someone of morals. This story is of the infinitesimal and the immeasurable, both ironic and non-ironic, about futility, where fighting in this literary way for futility is a purpose that outlasts and immortalises the fighter but also this fighter is fighting WITH futility thus landing him back in that bus station toilet where he began.
I am indeed "open to 'delightful possibilities and interpretations'" but also believing "nothing really meant anything", like Dr. O. The story has its own "magnificent symphony" as its 'all-new context' for a 'metaphysical mutant'. Borrow or lend, which comes first? A fascinating tantalisation. Am I 'uniquely defective' in thus interpreting this work?

[Nemonymous]

Metaphysica Morum was for me, at times, a sort of Swiftian Modest Proposal; The Small People is more a Gulliver's Travels merged with Sarban...

[ramonoski]

Glad to see you finally got your book

Nice catch on the Olan/Loan anagram. It hadn't cross my mind, but I can see how it would be of significance. I'm now thinking of all the Ligotti stories that feature nameless narrators and characters without it detracting at all from the narrative. I suppose when a story actually drops a name it's for a reason.

The "chain of galaxies" showroom is an impressive piece of imagery, I think. I can almost see it when I close my eyes. The description of grotesque patterns reminded me a bit of the "horror maker" from "Allan and Adelaide". And on the subject of things I was reminded of, the last part of the story I think has echoes on Matt Cardin's "Teeth", in which the narrator also contemplates how the world is crumbling into chaos. If I may quote the relevant portions:

Quote

Because what's happening is in fact a profound and far-reaching reordering of reality itself (...) with effects that are not only personal and cultural but ontological. (...) These and a thousand other signposts like them are only the most pointed and obvious manifestations of the all-pervasive malaise that has come to define us. And since, as Sankara observed, we are nothing but particularized manifestations of the Ground of Being itself, we are not only witnesses to this breakdown but participants in it, enablers of the transformation of the world into a vale of horror through the metaphysical potency of our very witnessing. (Dark Awakenings, p. 29)

And compare to this portion of MM:

Quote

The world was mutating, its every organism trending toward an ultimate derangement. It was not an all-new context, just the way things always had been. Death was guaranteed, as the Dealer put it. Harm was guaranteed. It was not as if what was happening had not been in the works for millennia.

On a side note, when I finished reading MM and before I started "The Small People" I wondered if the eponymous race in the latter story would end up being us humans. The Dealer character from MM is mentioned as being twice the height of the narrator, so I thought perhaps that might end up being a connection, a link if you will, between the stories.

And, on a completely metafictional note, I couldn't help but chuckle when at one point the story mentions the unavoidable harm that awaits us all. I doubt that was an intentional, but still...

[Nemonymous]

The loans, the loans.

[Autojector]

Okay. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the philosophical point of this story.

"I'm an inbred and therefor a genetic mutant who must destroy the world by bumming people out.. Click. Bang." Is my interpretation off? I don't know. Am I missing something or is that the point that the story presents?

Sometimes Ligotti stories come across as having a shoddy philosophical messages just tacked on at the end. He did this in Purity, which is a story I absolutely love. For some reason in this one, unless I am missing something, I found it kind of disappointing .

[Michael]

Quote Originally Posted by Autojector

Okay. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the philosophical point of this story. "I'm an inbred and therefor a genetic mutant who must destroy the world by bumming people out.. Click. Bang." Is my interpretation off? I don't know. Am I missing something or is that the point that the story presents? Sometimes Ligotti stories come across as having a shoddy philosophical messages just tacked on at the end. He did this in Purity, which is a story I absolutely love. For some reason in this one, unless I am missing something, I found it kind of disappointing .

To me one of the most profound concepts was that of a "metaphysical mutant." I thought this was a beautiful encapsulation and illustration of multiple concepts Ligotti has articulated in one single conceptual packaging. I'm not sure if there's anything new (maybe same concepts with new perspectives on it) but this idea that there is something metaphysically different (with the value judgment baggage shed) about the protagonist clarified the ideas Ligotti has been articulating across multiple works, but cohered in this idea of a "metaphysical mutant." Don't know if that's helpful at all.

[dr. locrian]

Quote Originally Posted by Autojector

Okay. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the philosophical point of this story. "I'm an inbred and therefor a genetic mutant who must destroy the world by bumming people out.. Click. Bang." Is my interpretation off? I don't know. Am I missing something or is that the point that the story presents? Sometimes Ligotti stories come across as having a shoddy philosophical messages just tacked on at the end. He did this in Purity, which is a story I absolutely love. For some reason in this one, unless I am missing something, I found it kind of disappointing .

I urge you to read the first couple of questions and answers from this latest interview of Ligotti.

Whatever you think of the end result, it would be difficult to seriously argue that the story has a lack of compelling inspiration and craft behind it. I personally think the story is brilliant, but I've talked about that at length elsewhere.