Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe [Thomas Ligotti]

[Conspiracy Against Man] [Ligottism] [Pessimism]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grim Scribe

Thomas Ligotti

Penguin Classics, NY. 2011. Penguin Classic. Some waviness to the text block starting at around page 350 and rear cover indicating some time spent in a Lovecraftian high moisture environment; no staining though and quite good otherwise. A very good copy.

From the publisher:

"Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction.  Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.

Ligotti’s stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of the human condition. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below."

Try to deny it, but Ligotti is absolutely the heir to deep underground American horror. Pessimistic, experimental, and oftentimes genuinely strange, this is a very very good read, mandatory one may say. Of particular interest is the story "The Last Feast of the Harlequin", which to me, is Ligotti's finest hour. Don't fear the ~~, pick this up at a nice price.