"The Troubles of Dr. Thoss"

Nemonymous said:
THE TROUBLES OF DR. THOSS

"Nothing was in the window but the pure whiteness of the page, the pale abyss of unshut eyes."

The insomnia theme of this section of stories comes home to roost with this truly disturbing one, and is it any wonder, with the quote above, that Alb Indys, the main protagonist, has a name that has the mixed-up middle letters of the word Blind?
He sits sketching in his bed - to avoid such insomnia or to make it worse? - with a lump in the bed that might be his own trousers (or Nathan's, I ask?)

He is sketching today, for the umpteenth time, the window in his room, one of his regular subjects of artistry by continuously depicting the interior objects of his room. His other discipline of artistry is when 'collaborating' with pictures by other people that he finds in various publications and old picture books, using their images separately or together, morphing them, plagiarising them, cohering their leitmotifs into a new and sometimes disturbing image that he calls his own. (I try to ignore any specious thought that I might be accused of doing much the same thing with my Dreamcatching real-time book reviews!!)

Today, he hears, outside his window, a garbled conversation recurrently mentioning a Dr. Thoss. This name continues to crop up in the story until we reach one of the most frightening endings to a story you are ever likely to read. That is no idle claim. In the artfully built-up context, it really is.

But, for me, the most intriguing aspect -- of this highly textured and evocative style of a prose fiction -- is when Alb Indys leaves his seedy PInteresque or Beckettian room (in this downtrodden town that is vaguely a seaside one), giving the impression that he is triangulating various leitmotifs of his surroundings and the people, including the mysterious Doctor, to cohere his own gestalt, which process is a highly methodical, close-knitted, almost autistic, approach very much like the characters in 'Report on Probability A' by Brian Aldiss (reviewed HERE) and that thought releases all manner of new dimensions to this story.

Which again brings me back to Dr. Thoss.

(An extract from my on-going review of the Penguin Classics collection.)
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Rationale: Le NŒUD de Ligotti - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK
 
I signed up specifically to come on and see people's thoughts on this story. I was wondering if this one was particularly autobiographical from what I've read about Ligotti. However, I see that this was already confirmed by Dr. Locrian over 10 years ago... haha. Glad to have found this site!
 
Monolith said:
I signed up specifically to come on and see people's thoughts on this story. I was wondering if this one was particularly autobiographical from what I've read about Ligotti. However, I see that this was already confirmed by Dr. Locrian over 10 years ago... haha. Glad to have found this site!
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Welcome to TLO.

"The Troubles of Dr. Thoss" is one of my personal favorites.
 
Not sure how you can draw dependable biographical knowledge from reading an author's fiction. Guesswork, is the best you can expect, I suggest, even if one factors in what else you know from extraneous material about or from the author?
 
I expect Monolith was referring to this:

Dr. Locrian said:
Don't know why this didn't hit me till now, but the following is from the recent Fantastic Metropolis interview regarding Alb Indyhs:

"The main character is hypochondriac, as was I at the time I wrote the story. I based the character’s artwork on that of Harry Morris. His first name, Alb, short for Alban, was used because Harry lives in Albuquerque. The rest of it is based on my own fears and sickness and delirious dreams of a cure that will be worse than the disease, which in this case was my panic-anxiety disorder. I also wanted the main character to be pursuing a form of horror art, a pursuit that is the path to his undoing. I’ve never really had any faith in the imagination or creativity as means of purging oneself of demons but more as a degenerate pastime. I’m definitely not a believer in art as a curative catharsis."

As a fellow hypochondriac of old (and fear of doctors as an added bonus), my love of this story is not too surprising.

Another thought (inspired by Matt's message above): Alb Indys pronounced phonetically could be translated as "I'll be in Dis". Also, "Alb Indys" is an anagram for "Blind-say" or, if you want to get fancy and hermetic: "Sibyl DNA"! I'm CERTAIN Tom didn't intend Alb's name as such an anagram, but these lines of thought are fun to pursue, regardless (and, as Matt has recently inferred) tend to reflect on the reader's imagination as much if not more so than the author's!
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and

Dr. Locrian said:
Oh, and I was recently informed by Tom (via email) that Thoss is simply an abbreviation for "Thomas." So much for my Thoth theory (though I didn't honestly believe that was the kind of thing Tom would consciously pull).
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I think, additionally, I recall Ligotti telling me that in TToDT he was fictionally "killing off" his friend (in this case Harry Morris) just as Lovecraft killed off Robert Bloch in "The Haunter of the Dark." Although it's possible I incorrectly made that assumption based on the above quote. I'll verify.

As for interpretation, it's of course notable what Ligotti was thinking as he wrote the story, though--as was mentioned earlier in the thread by Matt Cardin--an authorial interpretation is not the last nor even necessarily the best word on the matter.
 
I had wondered if the name "Alb Indys" was a loose association with the word "albino", as Ligotti goes out of his way to make sure we are aware of the main character's white-blonde hair. I'm likely overthinking this and finding things that aren't there.
 
I have just discovered that this wasn't an original thought, Matt Cardin had already touched on this possibility. My apologies, I'm a new member and the threads were showing the newest posts first and I hadn't read through to the oldest posts. Still, it's a small victory for me to know that somebody else may have interpreted the name "Alb Indys" in a similar manner.
 
I just love this passage from "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss":

"If only Alb Indys had examined the drawing more closely, he might have observed that something was crouching in that chair, that its softly packed arms had other arms overhanging them - two thin appendages that were now flexing in the room's faint luminescence. White noise, white noise. As if speaking in static, a parched, crackling voice repeatedly croaked these words: I am a doctor."

I'm a sucker for any kind of imagery depicting spidery limbs slowly unfolding.
 
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