Ligotti's favorite Lovecraft Stories
ForumThe Weird Tradition
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2artturnerjr
>1 mazadan:
That's actually a really good question. I'm probably not the best-qualified person here to answer that, but I'll certainly give it my best shot.
The only specific work of Lovecraft's I am able to find a reference to Ligotti naming as a favorite is "Nyarlathotep".* What I generally glean from interviews with TL is that HPL's oeuvre, rather than one specific work, had a profound effect on him.
Here's what Thomas Ligotti Online has to say on the topic:
What influence did H.P. Lovecraft have on Ligotti?
In a phone conversation I had with Mr. Ligotti in the Spring of 1998, he explained that Lovecraft's fiction had had the most profound influence on his life rather than his fiction, as reading HPL's work was the impetus for Ligotti's writing career. Aside from this fact, Lovecraft really has had very little to do with the subject or style of Ligotti's writing. It was Edgar Allan Poe, Ligotti pointed out, who had the most intrinsic influence on his actual fiction. He has stated that "the supernatural interests me only in its experiential aspect, its power to disrupt our lives, and its symbolic value in alluding to the monstrous insanity of all creation" (Tekeli-li! 30); so perhaps it is this philosophy, inspired by some of HPL's work, that has had at least an indirect influence on the content of Ligotti's fiction.**
There's also an interview that I recall reading a while back where TL said that HPL's biggest influence on him was his reputation as a recluse, which TL has strived to emulate, but I'll be damned if I can find it now.
What's left to us, then, at this point, is speculation. S.T. Joshi has noted the close resemblance of TL's "Nethescruial" to HPL's "The Call of Cthulhu"***, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch to to guess that that one's a TL favorite. Joshi also notes the influence of "the Festival" (on TL's "The Sect of the Idiot" and "The Last Feast of Harlequin"), "The Music of Erich Zann" (on "The Sect of the Idiot") and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (on "Harlequin")****, so those seem to have made their mark. But again, this is merely speculation.
Hope that helps.
*here: http://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/thomas-ligotti/
** http://www.ligotti.net/tlo/faq.html
*** http://tinyurl.com/p72f8gw
**** http://tinyurl.com/qyxzo7t
That's actually a really good question. I'm probably not the best-qualified person here to answer that, but I'll certainly give it my best shot.
The only specific work of Lovecraft's I am able to find a reference to Ligotti naming as a favorite is "Nyarlathotep".* What I generally glean from interviews with TL is that HPL's oeuvre, rather than one specific work, had a profound effect on him.
Here's what Thomas Ligotti Online has to say on the topic:
What influence did H.P. Lovecraft have on Ligotti?
In a phone conversation I had with Mr. Ligotti in the Spring of 1998, he explained that Lovecraft's fiction had had the most profound influence on his life rather than his fiction, as reading HPL's work was the impetus for Ligotti's writing career. Aside from this fact, Lovecraft really has had very little to do with the subject or style of Ligotti's writing. It was Edgar Allan Poe, Ligotti pointed out, who had the most intrinsic influence on his actual fiction. He has stated that "the supernatural interests me only in its experiential aspect, its power to disrupt our lives, and its symbolic value in alluding to the monstrous insanity of all creation" (Tekeli-li! 30); so perhaps it is this philosophy, inspired by some of HPL's work, that has had at least an indirect influence on the content of Ligotti's fiction.**
There's also an interview that I recall reading a while back where TL said that HPL's biggest influence on him was his reputation as a recluse, which TL has strived to emulate, but I'll be damned if I can find it now.
What's left to us, then, at this point, is speculation. S.T. Joshi has noted the close resemblance of TL's "Nethescruial" to HPL's "The Call of Cthulhu"***, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch to to guess that that one's a TL favorite. Joshi also notes the influence of "the Festival" (on TL's "The Sect of the Idiot" and "The Last Feast of Harlequin"), "The Music of Erich Zann" (on "The Sect of the Idiot") and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (on "Harlequin")****, so those seem to have made their mark. But again, this is merely speculation.
Hope that helps.
*here: http://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/thomas-ligotti/
** http://www.ligotti.net/tlo/faq.html
*** http://tinyurl.com/p72f8gw
**** http://tinyurl.com/qyxzo7t
4artturnerjr
>3 mazadan:
My pleasure. Your question kind of got me curious about what Ligotti has had to say about that myself, so it was kind of fun researching it. :)
Joshi (in The Modern Weird Tale, which I linked to above) speaks to TL's preference for HPL's early tales also:
Ligotti has flatly declared that he is most attracted to Lovecraft's early tales... in which the dream element is more prevalent and the supernatural elements not always satisfactorily accounted for; he has remarked of the latter work that "I find Lovecraft's fastidious attempts at creating a documentary style 'reality' an obstacle to appreciating his work"...
That goes a long way toward explaining why he would name "Nyarlothotep" as a favorite. It's an early tale (written in 1920), it's more of a prose poem than a short story, and it is usually classified as one of his "dream cycle" stories.
My pleasure. Your question kind of got me curious about what Ligotti has had to say about that myself, so it was kind of fun researching it. :)
Joshi (in The Modern Weird Tale, which I linked to above) speaks to TL's preference for HPL's early tales also:
Ligotti has flatly declared that he is most attracted to Lovecraft's early tales... in which the dream element is more prevalent and the supernatural elements not always satisfactorily accounted for; he has remarked of the latter work that "I find Lovecraft's fastidious attempts at creating a documentary style 'reality' an obstacle to appreciating his work"...
That goes a long way toward explaining why he would name "Nyarlothotep" as a favorite. It's an early tale (written in 1920), it's more of a prose poem than a short story, and it is usually classified as one of his "dream cycle" stories.
6artturnerjr
>5 mazadan:
Does The Modern Weird Tale represent the best of his work and is it worth reading ?
Yeah, it's pretty great. Actually, pretty much everything I've read by Joshi is - he is as incisive and hard-nosed as any literary critic I've read. His magnum opus is generally considered to be his two-volume HPL biography I Am Providence; I haven't read it, but all his other writing on HPL that I've read is excellent, so it's difficult for me to imagine that being any different.
Does The Modern Weird Tale represent the best of his work and is it worth reading ?
Yeah, it's pretty great. Actually, pretty much everything I've read by Joshi is - he is as incisive and hard-nosed as any literary critic I've read. His magnum opus is generally considered to be his two-volume HPL biography I Am Providence; I haven't read it, but all his other writing on HPL that I've read is excellent, so it's difficult for me to imagine that being any different.
8AndreasJ
"The Mound" is not very dream-y - it's more in the vein of AtMoM, with a documentary set-up, detailed description of alien society, and references to Cthulhu et consortes.
10AndreasJ
It's in The Horror in the Museum, which surely is as standard as you can ask for.
12paradoxosalpha
>11 mazadan:
I don't know what you mean by "standard," but the 1989 Arkham House Lovecraft edited by Joshi includes The Horror in the Museum, and that's the blue-ribbon standard at my house--far more authoritative than the Grafton/Harper-Collins that you mentioned in #7.
I don't know what you mean by "standard," but the 1989 Arkham House Lovecraft edited by Joshi includes The Horror in the Museum, and that's the blue-ribbon standard at my house--far more authoritative than the Grafton/Harper-Collins that you mentioned in #7.
13housefulofpaper
>11 mazadan:>12
To be fair, it's not so easy to get hold of in the UK. We don't have the Del Rey paperback reprints of the Arkham House volumes. "The Mound" wasn't included in Eldritch Tales or Necronomicon: the best weird tales of H P Lovecraft which I think are the most widely-spread Lovecraft collections here.
To be fair, it's not so easy to get hold of in the UK. We don't have the Del Rey paperback reprints of the Arkham House volumes. "The Mound" wasn't included in Eldritch Tales or Necronomicon: the best weird tales of H P Lovecraft which I think are the most widely-spread Lovecraft collections here.
