Ligotti and 'The Intentional Fallacy'

Nemonymous · 03-20-2007

Having re-read all Ligotti's stories recently - I seriously believe the 'philosophy' embodied by them is essentially Intentional Falllacy-driven and if I myself didn't believe in that fallacy I would claim that is indeed TL's intention.

Intentional_fallacy

All absurdities are possible except knowing the answer to this question:

"Who can know the intentions of the Creator?"
from 'Mad Night Of Atonement' by Thomas Ligotti

A new motto for 'Nemonymous'.

Spotbowserfido2 · 03-20-2007

Oh my, Mr. Lewis, oh my. The more I consider your assertion, the more furiously I chase my tail. Oh my. I'm getting dizzy...

Starting from scratch,
Rover

Nemonymous · 03-21-2007

Thanks, Rover.
The Intentional Fallacy seems to be systematic (symptomatic?) of the emptiness and loneliness that underlies the Ominous Imagination. The only God left is one's name. Get rid of that or the intentions that are assumed to exist in your name, then you are in a world even more desolate (and bordered by cosmic madness) than that depicted by Ligotti.
I maintain there is no way one can fathom an author's intentions behind the fiction. Any pronouncements by an author about his own work are just as doubtful as anyone else's about their own intentions. (As the past slips into the present and then back into the past, who can be confident about any certainty?)
It's just that this 'emptiness' 'filled' by 'nonsense' is more cleverly crafted, and more satisfyingly (!), more wringingly desolate than any other literature I know. I challenge anyone to fathom TL's intentions ... or, for that matter, extrapolate from the fiction to the man.

Nemonymous · 03-21-2007

"I have spent extraordinary lengths of time within the borders of each canvass both as maker and as casual inhabitant, until the borders no longer exist..."
from 'The Strange Design of Master Rignolo'

NB I have edited the previous post to make it clearer.

Spotbowserfido2 · 03-21-2007

Mr. Lewis, thank you for the further explanation of your views on the "Intentional Fallacy" interpretation of art. Nevertheless, my mind still reels. A part of me feels as if I have suddenly lost my bearings and my footing. This is the feeling expressed by the protagonist of "Sundance," a story by Robert Silverberg. My thoughts keep falling through trapdoors. I am beginning to suspect that the proper interpretation of dreams may be more reliable and palpable than the interpretation of various forms of art.

:? ,
Rover

Nemonymous · 03-22-2007

Sorry, Rover, but I suppose the whole thing I'm trying to get across does not lend itself to knowing what I think. But my serious point, if I can get through that barrier, is that concepts underlying 'The Intentional Fallacy' (as opposed to this high-browed literary theory itself) not only deepen the world TL creates for me in his fiction but also give me a clue as to the impossibility of ever trying to fathom why or how his work does that to me, even to the extent of me not wishing to ask TL himself about it or take part in further study of the man himself, because those activities would diminish the effect on me of his important work (ie the pure (magic?) fiction that has been posited in the audience arena).

vegetable theories · 03-22-2007

I too like the idea of the intentional fallacy, Des. I'm trying to think how it might relate to Ligotti's work...
It's essentially a Romantic idea, isn't it ? It's based on the assumption that reason is an illusion.
As a form of literary criticism it's a way of discounting the author, and I approve of that. but as an assumption by the author it's a way of not worrying about coherence .
Except that I do, rather unfashionably, believe in the self. At least I believe in character or personality. You mention dream interpretation and this is pertinent. Why is it that if you keep a record of your dreams, you get an undeniable sense that something is being communicated ? That there is an intention ? A pattern or system ? It isn't just random.

Nemonymous · 03-22-2007

Except that I do, rather unfashionably, believe in the self.

Vegetable theories, I believe in the self as an overlapping (sometimes not overlapping) series of Proustian selves. I don't know whether you read my previous post or whether it crossed with yours (they certainly appeared almost simultaneously), but the Intentional Fallacy as a poetic concept deriving from a literary theory - rather than the literary theory itself - seems to resonate with these selves and with the empty/desolate/nonsensish/puppety world that derives from a writer named Thomas Ligotti.

In honour of that literary theory (in all its academic forms (I first read 'The Verbal Icon' by WK Wimsatt (that propounds the theory)) in 1966) - a theory that gave birth to such a poetic concept - I have actually begun to believe it as a literary theory, too! Hence, Nemonymous.

And as to there being a 'sensed' intention between overlapping (sometimes not overlapping) dreams, I have an open mind.

vegetable theories · 03-22-2007

Yes, it's the metaphor of the puppet which is the clue to the intentional fallacy in Ligotti's work, but I don't agree that this is necessarily an "empty" or "desolate" idea. Perhaps we could look at this as D. H Lawrence might have and see the strings of the puppet as the emotions.

Nemonymous · 03-22-2007

The puppet ... or the clown ... or the mirror image ... or creator as part of his creation...

Perhaps we could look at this as D. H Lawrence might have and see the strings of the puppet as the emotions.

Interesting. DHL's two balanced stars, the self as snake ...
It's funny you should bring up DHL, as he crossed my mind this evening on another thread (a very long one) where I'm also involved in a discussion of the Intentional Fallacy:
http://p082.ezboard.com/fshocklinesf...tart=1&stop=20

Take a paragraph from DH Lawrence's fiction. Do you examine the text, (i.e. the semantics, the graphology of the words, the phonetics, the syntax) to derive a view of the text? Or do you look at DHL's life and times and possible motives etc to understand the text? Or do you do both? Most people, if they think of this at all, would say both, I guess. I would say only the first, imbued as I am by the Intentional Fallacy both as a literary theory and as a poetic concept. Shows how far down the slippery slope I've fallen!

I think TL's world in his fiction is both full and empty: full of many things that make it seem empty. Without the things the emptiness woud be less. And it is this paradox that makes it seem so desolate. Maybe not in TL's mind when he wrote his fiction, but that concept of authorial disconnection is relevant to this thread.