I haven't written anything here for a long time, because I have been enormously busy, but the imminent re-release of my fourth collection of short fiction, All God's Angels, Beware! seemed like a good excuse to brush off a few cobwebs, etc., especially as, with a post of this nature, no planning is required. So let me begin.
All God's Angels, Beware! was first published by Ex Occidente Press in 2009 as a limited hardback edition. I believed, at the time, that it constituted the best of my short fiction so far, and I had high hopes for it. From what I can gather, it actually sold very poorly, and no reviews appeared anywhere till over a year later, the first review being on The Stars at Noonday, in May 2011. (I tell a lie – Des Lewis was the first to review the book, here.) The review situation is beginning to change with the re-release imminent. Here, for instance, is a review at Publishers Weekly, and here is one at The Agony Column. Anyway, for various reasons, I felt, after the initial release of the book, that I had just tossed the condensed essence of years – the best, if one can call them that – of my life into an open grave.
Since the stories in the book come from various periods of my life, I won't write here about the period in which the book was first being prepared for publication, other than to say I was living in a cottage in Wales, and one or two of the more recent stories reflected that fact. And now, the sleevenotes:
Troubled Joe
In the novel "Remember You're a One-Ball!" and the novella Shrike there occurs a metaphor about a ghost condemned to remain on Earth until his story is told. This metaphor, rather like the ghost itself, kept coming back to me – haunting me, you might say – and I decided that I really had to give it a story of its own. 'Troubled Joe' is that story. I am perhaps not big on the idea of favourites, but I tend to think that this is one of my own favourites amongst what I have written. The title, as will be obvious to any who actually have access to the text, is a reference to a song by The Smiths. There are other references throughout the text, which are named, and which, for that reason, I shan't list. However, I wonder how many people will spot the Kenneth Williams reference that I put in somewhere.
The Were-Sheep of Abercrave
Really, I just wrote this as a joke. I wanted to try and write a completely pointless story, of the kind sometimes referred to as a 'shaggy dog story'. I was interested in playing with the form of something pointless. I suppose it's like juggling or tap-dancing or something. I wasn't sure whether to submit this for publication, but I did, and, well, here it is.
Ynys-y-Plag
A reader very kindly pointed me in the direction of some Algernon Blackwood that I hadn't read, and it reignited my interest in the weird and supernatural, that is, in the atmospheric and eerie mode of supernatual fiction. I began to get some ideas that were making me physically shiver and look over my shoulder, there in that Welsh cottage, and I thought, therefore, that I might be able to make a decent contribution to this particular literary tradition. I drew very heavily on the local landscape for this story. Actually, now that I think about it, this and the previous story were twins. They are the issue of one egg. I recall that I realised in the early stages that I was really working on two ideas, not one. Having said that, it's a bit hazy now. Anyway, I remember separating out some of what I was working on into the 'shaggy dog story' idea, and the rest into something less comedic. I do see the stories as a kind of diptych.
Karakasa
I can't remember much about the genesis of this story except that I wanted to do something kind of future-Orientalist, with shades of Maruo Suehiro about it, and that the folkloric concept of 'tsukumogami' was the perfect way to bring everything into focus. At the time, I had the sense that this was a vehicle in which I could 'say everything'. I don't know if I succeeded. Anyway, this is one of those stories in which I was trying something a bit different, I suppose.
A Cup of Tea
I'm not sure there's much to say about this one in terms of background. As I recall, I'd planned it out in a particular way, but, as soon as I wrote the first paragraph, the word "you" appeared, and I realised that I had to write the whole thing as a letter, addressed to the off-stage character. I think this realisation probably made this piece. Oh, the title is kind of a reference to some of my Japanese influences, too. I think this was the first story that I managed to place in Postscripts, since when I've placed so many there you'd almost believe they like my stuff!
Asking For It
For the most part my stories tend to sprawl. I could try and give an explanation of why here, but I suppose I'm not in the dock, yet. Anyway, this idea occurred to me as something that could be executed quite briefly and neatly, in the kind of O Henry style that I hate so much. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that there's a kind of neatness in some of the shorter works of Dazai Osamu that I was emulating here. I'm tempted to talk about the ending, but that would involve a spoiler. Naturally, I drew on my time in Japan for this story, but I spent more time in Kyoto than Tokyo. I hope my lack of familiarity with the latter doesn't show too much.
The Fox Wedding
This was something I must have written in the late nineties. Anyway, it had an online publication in April 2000, so it was written before then (and must be the oldest tale in the collection). When I was first putting together material for this collection back in 2008, I dragged this story up from my hard-drive, and was pleased to find it pretty solid. However, soon after the collection was published, I decided that I completely hated this story. I seem to change my mind a lot like this on what I write. Since I know how much I change my mind, I am, these days more inclined to leave decisions as to what goes in and what gets discarded up to an editor. If I were to give this story a bad review, it would be something like: "A hackneyed cobbling together of Japanese folklore with modern setting. The materials are far from seamless, and often fail to cohere. Like a badly produced song, this story features the histrionic vocals of an unpleasant misogynistic narrator rather too high in the mix, with the other instruments (cliched Orientalist ambience and cod 'weird tale') veering from low to high with little regard for the overall shape of the piece." (Despite what Paul Fussell thinks, there are plenty of writers who are able to critique themselves.) I actually think this story has a kind of brittle quality because – I am reconstructing events in my mind – I was just beginning to get real control of my prose, but was still unsure of the other elements I was working with. The prose therefore kind of crystallises, rather unpleasantly, some of the faults of my writing. I suppose this is appropriate to the subject matter, but it's not a story I can currently look back on, or leaf through, with any sense of satisfaction.
Anyway, I revised this once at the time of the first edition of All God's Angels, Beware! and have revised it again for the second. I think the plot concept is a bit stronger now. Someone suggested to me that I shouldn't leave 'Asking For It' and 'The Fox Wedding' next to each other in the book. I can understand why, and might even have acted on this, but then I read one too many Jezebel articles and decided that if people want something to hate, I should give it to them in concentrated form.
Mise en Abyme
This really was a kind of metafictional experiment. I had the idea of writing a new story for a chapbook that Rainfall Books were going to bring out of my work (The Psychopomps and Others). The idea was that I would write the story, print it out, cut it into one hundred pieces, and glue those pieces into the front pages of the one hundred copies of the chapbook. Then I would post an announcement on the internet (on Thomas Ligotti Online, and I think on my blog, too) instructing readers to write their fragments there, so see if together they could piece together the whole story. I think that two or three readers actually did this, but no more than that. 'Media' (books, the Internet, etc.) can give you the illusion that people are actually listening to you, but as we increasingly realise, a hundred 'hits' on your website doesn't mean a hundred people have read your words. It probably means two people have, if you're lucky. This principle seems to extend to every area of life. For instance, ask a homeless person how many people actually stop to give money and/or talk. That's just the way it goes, and maybe we shouldn't get bitter… until we are reminded of those things that the whole world goes catnip crazy for. I won't mention any names.
Anyway, I hope the story, in its complete form, is not too meta to be enjoyable.
Italiannetto
This was written in record quick time for me – under a week. I think, in fact, it was four days, but I might be misremembering. At one point I was writing page after page (usually I write three pages in one sitting at the very most), and this particular sitting provided most of the story. Also during that sitting, I wept profusely as I wrote. This is also unusual. All in all, this story is out of the ordinary for me. It is also definitely one of my favourites among all I have written. I don't really identify much with being intellectual, but I have been 'accused' (if that's the right word) of being intellectual, and I can understand why. This story is not intellectual. It's not even ironic. It is simply something that 'happened' rather than something I 'thought up'; I want more of my stories to be like this. I believe Woody Allen has said that of all his films, The Purple Rose of Cairo is the one that has been closest to his original vision. So far in my writing, 'Italiannetto' is my Purple Rose of Cairo.
Suicide Watch
Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but in retrospect, this appears to me as something of a credo piece. I was writing this actually at the time the collection was originally being put together. It was one of a number of low points in my life. I thought: "The only way to deal with a low point like this is to write – write anything – just write." And so that's what I did. I had no idea at the time – therefore – whether the results would be at all readable. The story first appeared on Thomas Ligotti Online, where, I believe, it may still be read. I think the editor of the collection read it there, and suggested it replace two or three stories that had been slated for inclusion, as it was the superior work. So, that's what happened. I don't think this story is perfect, but I'm close to being satisfied with it now. If I dare mention Morrissey at this point, there's a bit in the documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey, where he says, "I've left my fingerprints somewhere, and that's good enough." Somewhat in that vein, I've had the thought recently that if I get into terrible financial trouble now and have nowhere to live and am sent to work in the salt mines, that at least this story, 'Suicide Watch' will still exist somewhere for people to read, and that mere fact will make me a tiny bit freer. But perhaps I'll hate it next year?
Well, I've spent too much time on this, when other things demand my attention. Before I go, however, I'd like to thank Chris Conn Askew who has provided for the re-release what is my favourite cover for any of my books so far. Thanks.
o.k. we will wait to hear the rest.glad to hear the book is getting a second chance. :happy:
Thank you. Will write more here soon.
Your stories do tend to sprawl, as you say. One of the reviewers of All God’s Angels, Beware! apparently didn’t like this aspect of your writing, although he was otherwise appreciative. Unlike that reviewer, I liked the longueurs of “Ynys-y-Plag” and “Karakasa,” and I think this is one of the things you do best. I also liked “A Cup of Tea” and find it to be an especially rereadable story.Well, I looked up the definition of longueurs, and now see that it *only* has a negative sense, which I didn’t know. So substitute something like “patient orchestrations” for longueurs.Anyway, the point of this comment is not to rebut a reviewer’s judgments, which there’s no need for me to do. It’s only that for some reason I worry that you might take those criticisms seriously, and I have the impulse to say “Don’t change!” (which I realize is itself a very unhelpful comment).
Originally posted by gveranon:Well, I looked up the definition of longueurs, and now see that it *only* has a negative sense, which I didn’t know. So substitute something like “patient orchestrations” for longueurs.Yes… although sometimes I enjoy longueurs, too, self-contradictory as that may sound.Originally posted by gveranon:Anyway, the point of this comment is not to rebut a reviewer’s judgments, which there’s no need for me to do. It’s only that for some reason I worry that you might take those criticisms seriously, and I have the impulse to say “Don’t change!” (which I realize is itself a very unhelpful comment).Well, I do seem to take writing seriously, so in that sense, I might change – I even plan to change. That is, I do always want to write better. My own tastes in literature, and the things I wish to express, however, are such that, even if I succeed entirely in improving myself (if it’s something that one can succeed at absolutely), I probably still will write in such a way that some readers will find it overly digressive, too descriptive, too instrospective and so on.Originally posted by gveranon:Unlike that reviewer, I liked the longueurs of “Ynys-y-Plag” and “Karakasa,” and I think this is one of the things you do best. I also liked “A Cup of Tea” and find it to be an especially rereadable story.Thank you.
I started reading Karakasa again. When I read Maruo I get a strange sense of ‘vignette-ism’; it’s like looking through the goggles of an old Mutoscope, located in the common-room of a Japanese high-school that is floating in the abyss of an inverted, Tron-esque, gridded nightmare-universe populated by cybernetic bees. Which is a bit like Karakasa.
I was thinking about Tron the other day. I don’t know why.If my Maruo intentions for that story are even just partly realised then I’m glad.I’ve also noticed recently how many different machines there were, pre-cinema of the magic lantern variety, with different names, like the zoetrope, the zoopraxiscope, the kinetoscope, etc.
Jo Ann Hinkle writes:Sprawling or not, I love your writing. It’s like staring into an hypnotic swirl of water and falling inward to a world that is half dream, half reality, but never quite sure which is which. Amazing…
Hello.Thank you for commenting. Originally posted by anonymous:Sprawling or not, I love your writing. It’s like staring into an hypnotic swirl of water and falling inward to a world that is half dream, half reality, but never quite sure which is which.Interestingly enough, I particularly like watching swirls of water, in shallow streams, for instance. I’ve often wondered about the best way to describe the motion of the water.
Streams are mesmerizing. They cast a spell over you, making it nearly impossible to walk away. Sometimes I think if you stared long enough into the eddies and swirls, you might begin to hallucinate.
Things do happen to the brain – for instance, similar to when you can’t tell in which direction something is moving Huymans wrote a book about the river Bièvre:http://lejournaldelaphotographie.com/entries/paris-then-and-now“Like many country girls, the Bièvre, upon its arrival in Paris, fell into the industrial flow of bandits; their herbal outfits and tree-lined jewels were stolen, so she had to go to work, exhausting herself on the horrible tasks asked of her… Along her banks, she became a leather worker, spending her days and nights washing skins, soaking the raw leather, suffering from the effects of the alun, and the lime’s caustic bites. Only at night, behind the Gobelins, in a horribly stinking smoke, can we see her, standing in the mud, to the light of the moon, stupefied with fatigue.I haven’t read the book, but if I find an affordable copy, I intend to. There’s one here for a mere £220:http://www.alibris.co.uk/booksearch?qwork=689059
Ynys-y-Plag is disarming. I’m not usually frightened by that sort of thing, but I was uneasy for several days after reading it. I had to renew my pact with Satan before I felt confident about leaving my bedroom to walk to the toilet during the night.
Thanks. I’m glad it works.I was actually uneasy, myself, for several days, when making the initial notes for the story. The difficulty is that the nature of the unease was such that it would be almost impossible to reproduce it with a direct treatment. When you’re writing an essay, you can probably have a good idea if you’ve got over what you wanted to express, but it’s much harder to tell if what you want to communicate is something atmospheric.