Kafka on steroids. I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would because, although I love Kafka, I've moved on in how I think fiction should address the nihilistic worldview. I'm in the Harlan Ellison camp where the best stories have flesh and blood characters that we actually care about. The stories were weird and somewhat disturbing but never creepy or scary. The atmosphere is more absurdist than horror. Ligotti is definitely unique in his fictional translation of the ultimate meaningless of life. I suppose some people would find this "horrifying" and I understand and appreciate what he is trying to do but it's just not part of my belief system so it doesn't work as well for me as say Lovecraft, or better yet, Ellison does. I'm also more frightened of the bogeyman in my closet than I am of the vapory supervisor in the corner office. If he spent more time developing his characters and making me care for them then I would probably find their meaningless lives more tragic.

I see Kafka here not Lovecraft. It starts at the same place: an uncaring neutral cosmos, but is developed in a more everyman-type Kafka way, not into horror or science fiction.

Some of the stories are actually quite funny, at least to me.

Worth reading if just for Ligotti's unique vision. ( )

Dang I like this ( )

Ligotti hooked me through his philosophical treatise The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. HIs pure pessimistic-nihilism intrigued me: it is better not to exist at all, consciousness is not a gift but pain.

The stories in this collection are an embodiment of this philosophy, often extending it to its highest conclusion.

Of all the stories, the one that captivated me most was the one with the bungalow. Ligotti captures the feeling of loneliness and isolation terrifyingly well, focusing not just on the concept of being truly alone but also at the pure annihilating aspect of it on the psyche.

The final story with Grossvogel is another standout. His thesis: there’s an underlying shadow in the world that must be experienced through the body. This shadow not just permeates through everything, it also destroys any and all meaning that dares to come near it. Ultimately, there’s no light, no hope, no dreams, just pure, black nonexistence. And isn’t that sweet? The joy of not existing at all.

I hope Ligotti produces even more stories, but the next time around, please skip the Lovecraftian language. It feels derivative rather than nostalgic at this point. It’s also a chore to read. ( )

I've heard Ligotti can be an acquired taste, and also that this isn't an ideal first work to read from him; based on this introduction, it's easy to see that being true, but I do plan to try another of his works.

This collection was rather hit-and-miss for me. There were a few stories that I loved, particularly in the first two sections of the work. There were others that felt almost nonsensical, and I'm honestly not sure if that had more to do with the story/writing, my own patience with the stories, or the fact that I was reading this book straight through for a book club even though I suspect it would be much more enjoyable if the stories were spaced out in time. And, admittedly, there was still a third category of story, where Ligotti had me entranced right up till the last few pages, at which point it felt like things would either simply stop, anticlimactic as the ending was, or rush into some form of chaos that felt like it brought the whole story down.

All that said, there were moments where I absolutely fell in love with Ligotti's language and scenarios, dismal as most all of them were. I'm looking forward to trying him again, though I'll take a break first since one of my issues with this collection really was that it felt too one-note, and a bit heavier on atmosphere than story in some spots, which grew wearing after a while. I would certainly recommend horror lovers try him at some point, to see if he's their cup of tea, but I'm not so sure this is the book to start with. ( )

This is a difficult book to rate. As my earlier updates suggest, I started of very much liking it (although 'liking' may not be the right word, given the thoroughly unsettling nature of the stories). The opening story was utterly superb, and the quality continued through the next couple of sections - the book is broken into short collections of themed stories, the tales in each related to a greater or lesser extent - but, toward the end, I was beginning to find a sameness to the writing rather wearing.

The early sections are superb. Derangements is thoroughly surreal and creepy, with The Town Manager in particular having a circular element that reminded me an especially good, odd Twilight Zone. The tales in Defamations deal with a corporate horror, a weirdly Kafka-esque world where yu are utterly controlled by your employment which seeks only productivity and drains all other motivation from life. It made me think of Robert Chambers but in a pointedly modern, industrial setting.

It was the Teatro Grottesco stories themselves, forming the final section, that for me spoiled the collection. A sense that had been building from some of the previous stories that the narrative voices - always first person - were too similar too each other, all of a somewhat pompous, overly-wordy circumlocution that made me think of 19th century literature, did become a problem. ~The stories themselves I found less interesting, the ordinary people of the earlier stories replaced by bohemian artistic types further making the stories feel more dated and less relevant. The stories seemed rather pointless - in the way that some weaker Lovecraftian horror is, where rather than the feeling of hopelessness there is a sense of "huh?" - although the denouement of the final story did reverse this with a growing crescendo of dread and a final burst - or perhaps seep would be a better word - of existential terror. ( )