This is one of those books that makes me feel dumb. And I mean that in the best way.

Thomas Ligotti is a deep thinker, and he's very good at pulling together disparate strings of thought into one incredibly cohesive whole. His fiction is unlike anyone else I've ever read, and it's something I come back to time and again, because it's just that good.

There's authors out there that I enjoy. There's authors out there I revere. And then, there's a very, very small group of authors out there that I wish I could write like, but know I'll never be able to. Ligotti is pretty much at the top of that list.

In this tour de force essay, Ligotti lays out his argument against humanity continuing, why life is a futile endeavour, and why consciousness is both indefinable and a scourge to humanity.

It's bleak as hell, and compelling as hell. I've always enjoyed a bleak point of view, I find it fascinating. I'm a pessimist, and I'm far too cynical for my own good, but Ligotti makes me look like...I don't know, the love child of Tony Robbins and Richard Simmons, maybe?

I listened to the audiobook of this, but halfway through, I ordered a hard copy of it, because I know it's something I'm going to want to come back and study in more depth.

Because I know I didn't pick up even half of what Ligotti is laying down.

Because this is one of those books that makes me feel dumb. ( )

Snarky discussion of extreme pessimism as exemplified by Lovecraft, Unamuno, Cioran, and others. Amusingly slouchy in bitching that pessimism (human consciousness is a mistake that should be addressed simply by saying no to more children) isn't more popular than it is. Amusingly snide about optimists, whom he caricatures as simpering Dale Carnegies. Less amusing later on when he undertakes to explain horror. How it works is irrelevant: horror worthy of the name defies and overwhelms anything but the experience itself. It is measured in hairs standing on end. ( )

I know it’s corny but I felt really seen by this book in a way I don’t by almost any media. It is sheer pessimism, without chaser. It doesn’t shy away from labeling life as “MALIGNANTLY USELESS” and consciousness as a mistake of evolution; our minds as Schopenhauer’s Will’s horrible overextension. Do you know how hard it is to make the optimist believe that the problem is not MY life, but life itself? The pessimists and nihilists are unpopular and powerless, but really, who cares?

The ending is a real horror rhetoric whirlwind in the tradition of the best, Poe and Lovecraft and Ellis, and leaves the reader sickened and secure.

(Also please don’t read this if you are struggling to be one who loves or likes or enjoys life. Sorry I know that sounds edgy but it might honestly be dangerous to your safety/wellbeing if you are already in a bad place because it is a really hopeless book. I could see why someone would ask, “Why put this out there?” I guess there is no other reason than selfish authorial intents and maybe, generously, comforting those who wish to see what is at the bottom of the well.) ( )

Unfortunately, despite its promise and general high-regard, the book is characterized by graduate-school tedium: It reads with the tedium of a book report, relying so much on reference and summary of other (more important) works that it is impossible to consider Conspiracy as anything remotely resembling a fully-fledged piece. What's worse, Ligotti leaves us at the penultimate stage, and never furnishes sufficient proof for this premises. I do not begrudge Ligotti's success in other genres, but this is not strong work. ( )

stark, dark, bleak, hopeless, depressing ( )