Red Mosquito

In remembrance, and because I've never read this one:

Oh I love Ligotti. Tangentially unrelated, have you read The King in Yellow?

bune wrote:Oh I love Ligotti. Tangentially unrelated, have you read The King in Yellow?

I haven't but I have it on Audible. I'll check it out next.

Mickey wrote:In remembrance, and because I've never read this one:

Jazz is awesome as an experiment in form but it's probably one of my least favorites by her that I've read. Still a great book. And better than most. But not quite up to snuff for her in my opinion.

durdencommatyler wrote:Jazz is awesome as an experiment in form but it's probably one of my least favorites by her that I've read. Still a great book. And better than most. But not quite up to snuff for her in my opinion.

Yeah it's just another one of the ones I haven't read. I did kind of the greatest hits a few years back (Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon) and of course read Beloved in high school. I loved Sula so much that I decided to keep on the Morrison train. It's good so far.

Mickey wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:Jazz is awesome as an experiment in form but it's probably one of my least favorites by her that I've read. Still a great book. And better than most. But not quite up to snuff for her in my opinion.

Yeah it's just another one of the ones I haven't read. I did kind of the greatest hits a few years back (Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon) and of course read Beloved in high school. I loved Sula so much that I decided to keep on the Morrison train. It's good so far.

Have you read Paradise by Morrison, Mickey?

No. My sense is that one gets less attention, is it worth it though?

Mickey wrote:No. My sense is that one gets less attention, is it worth it though?

100%

BurtReynolds wrote:

bune wrote:Oh I love Ligotti. Tangentially unrelated, have you read The King in Yellow?

I haven't but I have it on Audible. I'll check it out next.

Interesting bit of proto-lovecraft horror tales. From what I've gathered, the last few stories abandon the theme, so I probably won't finish, but a couple of the first few stories were good.

I picked it up after reading some criticism of the first season of True Detective; apparently he lifted ideas from that and also from Ligotti.

Critics have offered many readings of the influence of weird and horror fiction on True Detective's narrative, often examining the influence of Robert W. Chambers' short story collection The King in Yellow (1895) and Thomas Ligotti.[58] Allusions to The King in Yellow can be observed in the show's dark philosophy,[59] its recurring use of "Carcosa" and "The Yellow King" as motifs throughout the series, and its symbolic use of yellow as a thematic signature that signifies insanity and decadence.[60] Pizzolatto was accused of plagiarizing Ligotti because of close similarities between lines in True Detective and text from Ligotti's nonfiction book The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (2010)—accusations Pizzolatto denied, while acknowledging Ligotti's influence.[61] .

I also listened to the audiobook and I have to say that probably helped some of the stories, especially some of the pronunciations and apostrophes that I would have had issues with in reading. My thoughts back then was that I just wasn't feeling the war setting stories. They're surrounded by supernatural ones so you're constantly like, "Is this the part where the sky cracks open and the crazy comes pouring out?" No, just the usual crazy of humans fighting each other. I know that he didn't just write horror stories but when they arrive in between love stories and tales from the front, you're just left wondering when the eldritch horror will show up.

Yeah. I listened to a few before looking it up on Wikipedia to see if I was missing something. There are pages and pages of description in some of them, but I liked the overall mood.

Conspiracy Against the Human Race is the book Rust Cohle would write if he were real. No doubt it was an influence. I'm not a pessimist or anti-natalist, but I appreciate the relentless bleakness.

I just finished that book!

I'm like 50 pages in, is it worth it? I wanted to see if the hype was deserved.

Mickey wrote:I'm like 50 pages in, is it worth it? I wanted to see if the hype was deserved.

I loved it, yeah. But if you're not feeling the first 50 pages, you probably won't care much for the rest of it.

durdencommatyler wrote:

Mickey wrote:I'm like 50 pages in, is it worth it? I wanted to see if the hype was deserved.

I loved it, yeah. But if you're not feeling the first 50 pages, you probably won't care much for the rest of it.

Rad. I'm definitely enjoying it so far, the start was a little slow but there's a buried weirdness in her narrator's observations that doesn't not remind me of Ottessa Moshfegh