Wow two brilliant Ligotti stories within a week. Thanks! Wish I had heard of that symposium in Manchester at the time. Would have given me a good excuse to visit my home town
Glad I could get to these two so quickly after they were suggested. And I know what you mean about that symposium: immediately thought it would have been great to know and go. Got to be bittersweet regret to find out it was held in your own backyard, so to speak. Wonder if any of the proceedings were recorded & wound up online, or papers? Probably not, but Nightmare Network is worth a check first....
Wouldn't you know it: If instead of posting above, I'd first checked out ligotti.net, I would have found Matt Cardin's mention of this Manchester symposium (which was in June 2019). Followups show that there was a report on the event by one of its organizers, then publication of its proceedings in Dark Arts Journal. Both can be found here: Visit Manchester report on the symposium - www.visitmanchester.com/ideas-and-inspiration/blog/read/2019/06/detecting-pessimism-thomas-ligotti-and-the-weird-in-an-age-of-post-truth-symposium-overview-b879 Dark Arts Journal special issue - thedarkartsjournal.wordpress.com/ligotti-post-truth/editors-introduction/ (Just hover over the title of the symposium at the top, and a pulldown list of the presentation papers will appear.)
Thank you; it was fun finally catching up with reading this one. Been a long time since I read Lovecraft's The Outsider... but yes, a good call. Must pick it up and reread tomorrow!
@@manifestdust I think Noctuary is all new to me. I did Teatro, Grimscribe, Songs ... and then Teatro Grotesco again because I'd figured out to enjoy the atmospheric journey! I heard his early stuff can be hard to find. Lovely to not run out :)
@@manifestdust oh wow. It was too Ligotti for me as I was used to Lovecraft crescendo endings where Ligotti just lays it on thick with atmosphere the whole way through. I don't know if it is his best as I like to be surprised but it's his most Ligotti. He's not trying to impose a beginning, middle and end on the stories. Its just there and crawling up the walls :)
Another Ligotti-reading-on-YT 'First', you have here--at least, so far as I know! I hadn't heard (or even heard OF) this particular tale before, so Bonus Points there :) Based on the overall, low-key-yet-creepy tone that (I can only assume) you find appealing in TL's writing, are you at all into the works of authors like Robert Aickman (e.g., 'The Hospice'), Dennis Etchison (e.g., 'The Dark Country') or Ramsey Campbell (e.g., 'Call First', 'The Companion', etc.)? Just curious.
I like Ramsey Campbell but haven't read enough, and I LOVE Aickman. He's on my list for something eventually, and someone a good while back asked if I'd do Campbell's Again. Low-key-yet-creepy is definitely attractive to my darkside. Etchison I have to catch up with.
I am so lost. I've heard this 5 times today already and I still don't understand it. Am I retarded? What is the story about? I don't get any of it, how is that possible? There are no characters right? There is no setting to, right? What is the plot? what's happening? I've read Nethescurial and The Bungalow House and I understood those! The reading and voice acting is amazing but it's still hard to follow. I'm in high school and just getting into reading actual literature making a jump from juvenile books. I found this author because I randomly found this guy named Clark Ashton Smith and then this dude Howard Phillips Love and now i'm here confused as hell. Any tips for reading this shit compadres?
Assuming your query is on the level, I'm afraid I can't really help this time. Ligotti can be a matter of grokking his intellectual metaphorical mood rather than plotting an argument in story. I wouldn't be able to compare & contrast to Nethescurial and The Bungalow House either, as I haven't read them yet. (Really.)
@@manifestdust Kudos for using the term "grok" specially as a verb after saying I come straight from reading the Twilight books and Fifty Shades of Grey, I could really grok with the girls' "intellectual metaphorical mood" with those. It sounds like no one here understands the story either, for what you understand you can easily explain and no one here has. Don't even try these other two I'm on, one called Finnegans Wake and the other Gravity's Rainbow. Same with those two whenever I go to those who've read it for help understanding no one seems to be able to say what they have read much less explain. Poor bastards are probably more confused than a teenage girl fresh off Wattpad erotic fan fiction. Worry not, I'll have this riddle solved like I've solved Blood Meridian's epilouge, If on a Winter's Night a Travele and House of Leaves. This Ligotti dude should be no problem... and as soon as I have time I'll come back here to explain it to you guys so you get it too
@@zd6bc6jh6dUSER Love your response and grok it to the max. Sudden guess: maybe Conspiracy Against the Human Race is the Rosetta Stone for making Bones' imagery cohere in a meaningful pattern. But I still haven't read it. I read Gravity's Rainbow decades ago and am due for rereading. My grad school roommate at the time was a big Pynchon fan and reread it periodically. Picked up Finnegan's Wake one day, more slowly turning the pages as he read them. When he got to somewhere near page 40, he stopped & closed the book. "Okay, I think I've got the sense of this," he said. And never resumed this Joyce so far as I know.
Jumping into Ligotti is quite an ambitious jaunt. Some of his stuff, like this one, is more poetry in prose and comes from the tradition of Poe, Kafka, Bruno Schultz, and the like. It just sort of happens, without all sorts of hidden meanings to be teased out of it. Ligotti's writing is gothic, neo-romantic, and yet, post-modern. You don't need to know all that, though. Just chill and let the story be what it is. Don't try to add meaning, let it soak in like a dream.
Hello :) I like your reading style but your pronunciation of “corridor” snaps me out of the story every time. I’m not sure if it’s a particular regional accent but the widely accepted pronunciation ends with “door.” Sorry to be pedantic but as a neurodivergent person it is very distracting to me. Otherwise I much enjoyed this story! It made me search out other works by Ligotti. Thank you.
Bwahaha! I need to check out that word as I read it. Normally I'd pronounce it pretty much as you expect... but the final syllable can be swallowed a bit depending on the stream of words surrounding it. Will try to be more vigilant in future. If you listen to more of my Ligotti readings while you're exploring his work, feel free to give me a neurodivergent poke as you need to on any pronunciation. Keeps me on my toes! 😆
Yup, just listened to this piece again (and suffered through ~5-6 ad breaks). I do tend to pronounce corridor with a short swallowed syllable at the end when it's in a sentence. Ask me to say the word alone, and it's closer to "door". Must be haste to move on past the word. 😏
Wow two brilliant Ligotti stories within a week. Thanks! Wish I had heard of that symposium in Manchester at the time. Would have given me a good excuse to visit my home town
Glad I could get to these two so quickly after they were suggested. And I know what you mean about that symposium: immediately thought it would have been great to know and go. Got to be bittersweet regret to find out it was held in your own backyard, so to speak. Wonder if any of the proceedings were recorded & wound up online, or papers? Probably not, but Nightmare Network is worth a check first....
Wouldn't you know it: If instead of posting above, I'd first checked out ligotti.net, I would have found Matt Cardin's mention of this Manchester symposium (which was in June 2019). Followups show that there was a report on the event by one of its organizers, then publication of its proceedings in Dark Arts Journal.
Both can be found here:
Visit Manchester report on the symposium - www.visitmanchester.com/ideas-and-inspiration/blog/read/2019/06/detecting-pessimism-thomas-ligotti-and-the-weird-in-an-age-of-post-truth-symposium-overview-b879
Dark Arts Journal special issue - thedarkartsjournal.wordpress.com/ligotti-post-truth/editors-introduction/ (Just hover over the title of the symposium at the top, and a pulldown list of the presentation papers will appear.)
Thank you for this, I'd never read nor heard this story from my favorite author. It was a very good one, and you read it marvelously.
Many thanks in return. At least two people suggested this one, no other readings, so it was about time!
This is gold
I love the interpretation of the dialogs
Thank you! I felt myself putting extra effort into the speaking moments, especially the invisible voice in the adjoining tower cubicle...
Gorgeous, thank you!
Reminds me of Lovecraft's The Outsider.
Thank you; it was fun finally catching up with reading this one. Been a long time since I read Lovecraft's The Outsider... but yes, a good call. Must pick it up and reread tomorrow!
@@manifestdust I think Noctuary is all new to me. I did Teatro, Grimscribe, Songs ... and then Teatro Grotesco again because I'd figured out to enjoy the atmospheric journey! I heard his early stuff can be hard to find. Lovely to not run out :)
@@Wombats555 Well, I've got Teatro still ahead of me, believe it or not. Slow and savoring reader, I am....
@@manifestdust oh wow. It was too Ligotti for me as I was used to Lovecraft crescendo endings where Ligotti just lays it on thick with atmosphere the whole way through. I don't know if it is his best as I like to be surprised but it's his most Ligotti. He's not trying to impose a beginning, middle and end on the stories. Its just there and crawling up the walls :)
@@Wombats555 I see you & raise you a wow. Now from what you say I really must get to Teatro soon.
Theodore Roethke RIP
"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go."
Love Roethke.
@@NataliePierson1 In thy bones?
Thanks very much!
Glad to oblige!
Another Ligotti-reading-on-YT 'First', you have here--at least, so far as I know! I hadn't heard (or even heard OF) this particular tale before, so Bonus Points there :) Based on the overall, low-key-yet-creepy tone that (I can only assume) you find appealing in TL's writing, are you at all into the works of authors like Robert Aickman (e.g., 'The Hospice'), Dennis Etchison (e.g., 'The Dark Country') or Ramsey Campbell (e.g., 'Call First', 'The Companion', etc.)? Just curious.
I like Ramsey Campbell but haven't read enough, and I LOVE Aickman. He's on my list for something eventually, and someone a good while back asked if I'd do Campbell's Again. Low-key-yet-creepy is definitely attractive to my darkside. Etchison I have to catch up with.
I am so lost. I've heard this 5 times today already and I still don't understand it. Am I retarded? What is the story about? I don't get any of it, how is that possible? There are no characters right? There is no setting to, right? What is the plot? what's happening? I've read Nethescurial and The Bungalow House and I understood those! The reading and voice acting is amazing but it's still hard to follow. I'm in high school and just getting into reading actual literature making a jump from juvenile books. I found this author because I randomly found this guy named Clark Ashton Smith and then this dude Howard Phillips Love and now i'm here confused as hell. Any tips for reading this shit compadres?
Assuming your query is on the level, I'm afraid I can't really help this time. Ligotti can be a matter of grokking his intellectual metaphorical mood rather than plotting an argument in story. I wouldn't be able to compare & contrast to Nethescurial and The Bungalow House either, as I haven't read them yet. (Really.)
@@manifestdust Kudos for using the term "grok" specially as a verb after saying I come straight from reading the Twilight books and Fifty Shades of Grey, I could really grok with the girls' "intellectual metaphorical mood" with those. It sounds like no one here understands the story either, for what you understand you can easily explain and no one here has. Don't even try these other two I'm on, one called Finnegans Wake and the other Gravity's Rainbow. Same with those two whenever I go to those who've read it for help understanding no one seems to be able to say what they have read much less explain. Poor bastards are probably more confused than a teenage girl fresh off Wattpad erotic fan fiction. Worry not, I'll have this riddle solved like I've solved Blood Meridian's epilouge, If on a Winter's Night a Travele and House of Leaves. This Ligotti dude should be no problem... and as soon as I have time I'll come back here to explain it to you guys so you get it too
@@zd6bc6jh6dUSER Love your response and grok it to the max. Sudden guess: maybe Conspiracy Against the Human Race is the Rosetta Stone for making Bones' imagery cohere in a meaningful pattern. But I still haven't read it. I read Gravity's Rainbow decades ago and am due for rereading. My grad school roommate at the time was a big Pynchon fan and reread it periodically. Picked up Finnegan's Wake one day, more slowly turning the pages as he read them. When he got to somewhere near page 40, he stopped & closed the book. "Okay, I think I've got the sense of this," he said. And never resumed this Joyce so far as I know.
Jumping into Ligotti is quite an ambitious jaunt. Some of his stuff, like this one, is more poetry in prose and comes from the tradition of Poe, Kafka, Bruno Schultz, and the like. It just sort of happens, without all sorts of hidden meanings to be teased out of it. Ligotti's writing is gothic, neo-romantic, and yet, post-modern. You don't need to know all that, though. Just chill and let the story be what it is. Don't try to add meaning, let it soak in like a dream.
I'm envious you get to experience these for the first time.
Enjoy your feast.
Hello :) I like your reading style but your pronunciation of “corridor” snaps me out of the story every time. I’m not sure if it’s a particular regional accent but the widely accepted pronunciation ends with “door.” Sorry to be pedantic but as a neurodivergent person it is very distracting to me. Otherwise I much enjoyed this story! It made me search out other works by Ligotti. Thank you.
Bwahaha! I need to check out that word as I read it. Normally I'd pronounce it pretty much as you expect... but the final syllable can be swallowed a bit depending on the stream of words surrounding it. Will try to be more vigilant in future. If you listen to more of my Ligotti readings while you're exploring his work, feel free to give me a neurodivergent poke as you need to on any pronunciation. Keeps me on my toes! 😆
Yup, just listened to this piece again (and suffered through ~5-6 ad breaks). I do tend to pronounce corridor with a short swallowed syllable at the end when it's in a sentence. Ask me to say the word alone, and it's closer to "door". Must be haste to move on past the word. 😏
Blech...