Thomas Ligotti & the Polish Avant-Garde

[@SherdsTube]

I will soon be making Parts III & IV of my Q&A video series. If you have anything burningly bookish to ask me, feel free to leave a comment here.

[@FrancesE.DekEsquire]

Make my Day, my sweet personal San Francisco Home of Gods Favoured Peoples.

[@kobijekel6320]

This was a wonderful video! I read cinnamon shops a few months ago, and I kept on feeling a ligotti atmosphere. The quay brothers films do a great job connecting--probably unintentionally--Bruno Schulz to Thomas Ligotti. Thanks for making this!

[@drewboggemes4551]

Great parallel. I definitely see a lot of crossover between Ligotti and many Polish artists, including also Jan Lenica, Wladislaw Starewicz, and Zdzislaw Beksinski. One thing I would add, though, is that Ligotti's work also possesses some more regional characteristics. This is one aspect of the man's influence I just don't see brought up enough - Ligotti was born and raised in Detroit and lived there from the 50s to the early 2000s.The economic and social transition of that city was massive, transforming Detroit from one of the early 20th century's most prosperous and influential hubs, to a place synoynmous with corruption, decay, abandonment, and poverty (Ligotti's childhood in Gross Pointe, one of the nation's wealthiest suburbs, may have informed his revulsion even more) I see this manifest over and over in his descriptions of the derelict and decrepit. The same sort of post- industrial pessimism is also evident in the early work of fellow Detroit denizen Kathe Koja, most notably in The Cipher. Anyway, that's my two cents! Fantastic analysis!

[@SherdsTube]

Sorry for the slow response! Gosh, that's such a great point! You know, I think I often miss out on the regional character of American literature because I'm not from there. Our shared language creates an illusion of familiarity, but things like this can elude me entirely because I have no real relationship with the country. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[@chrisgomes5048]

When I first started reading Ligotti - a long time go - I remember an interview with hm where he said (I'm paraphrasing based on a dim memory) his goal was to write prose that read like awkwardly translated East European literature. I remember this interview as being the first time I'd heard of Bruno Schulz and Dino Buzzati. I ran out to the library and devoured what I could find. I recently watched this video - posted on the Thomas Ligotti website - and really appreciate the thought you've put into your videos (I just watched the others and enjoyed them greatly). After several years of being burnt-out on reading (and subsisting on a diet of plotty pot-boilers and guilty pleasures), I think I'm ready to make the effort to appreciate great literature again (apologies for making it sound like a chore). I suspect your videos will guide me in the direction I wish to go. Thank you.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks for sharing this and for saying such nice things. I'm very pleased to hear I've provided some inspiration. Don't be too hard on yourself, though - to my mind, there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Dino Buzzati's 'The Tartar Steppe' made a huge impression on me. I'd really like to discuss his work at some point.

[@kieran_forster_artist]

Appreciate the linking of Ligotti, dolls, clowns, theatre of the absurd, Beckett, liminality….it’s actually joining these and other things together in a non~manic, relaxing style…..it’s actually atmospherically like some of Ligotti without the overt nihilism…..it sounds quiet and refreshing, like the breeze in the scene in the park where ur sitting thinking And that morbid aesthetic is often relaxing and anxiolytic too beyond Ligotti…..very valuable in this violently busy life

[@georgeallder4802]

Thanks for this. Ligotti is an author who's fascinated me for many years but he was fairly obscure it's great to find someone talking about and analysing his work. I don't know enough about Schultz to comment on him but one writer who did remind me of Ligotti was Alfred Kubin where the dream kingdom in The Other Side was formed entirely out of the outdated and the decayed.

[@SherdsTube]

Glad you enjoyed it. Interesting - I'm aware of Kubin, but haven't managed to read him yet. I'll try to soon.

[@sangyedorje]

Excellent video and comparison of Ligotti with Schultz, your "rzeczywostość zdegradowana" sounded great 👍

[@SleepyOndrej]

There is a certain quietude to Ligotti's work that you have captured beautifully here. Very happy to have found your channel and podcast. You express so much that I love about the aesthetic through your thoughts, production and sound. Thank you!

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks for saying such nice things. Very pleased to hear you thought I captured something of Ligotti's atmosphere.

[@BayardRandel]

I see more Thomas Bernard and Bruno Schulz in Ligotti’s writing, than Lovecraft. I think you’re quite right to suggest that his work doesn’t sit comfortably in the American weird fiction tradition.

[@SherdsTube]

Glad to hear you agree!

[@FrancesE.DekEsquire]

@FrancesE.DekEsquire 2 days ago Eploring connections between the aesthetics of Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco (2006) and those of the Polish avant-garde as well as mid-20th-century European theater. ??? No No No!!!! You missed the fact that Thomas Ligotti's home towen is Detroit Michigan which in 2000 was totally Carnage I use to Hobo ride Freight Trains in 1990.s and 2000.s often Got Off the Boxcarrs to get Free Food in Homeless Shelters in Detroit and Detroit WAS MURDER CITY every body call Detroit MURDER TOWN, so the Polish avant-garde is NOT his model, Detroit Michigan was his Model and Hometown.

[@FrancesE.DekEsquire]

@FrancesE.DekEsquire 2 days ago Eploring connections between the aesthetics of Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco (2006) and those of the Polish avant-garde as well as mid-20th-century European theater. ??? No No No!!!! You missed the fact that Thomas Ligotti's home towen is Detroit Michigan which in 2000 was totally Carnage I use to Hobo ride Freight Trains in 1990.s and 2000.s often Got Off the Boxcarrs to get Free Food in Homeless Shelters in Detroit and Detroit WAS MURDER CITY every body call Detroit MURDER TOWN, so the Polish avant-garde is NOT his model, Detroit Michigan was his Model and Hometown.

[@luccaseixasoliveira]

Amazing, easily one of the best book oriented videos i've seen in youtube. Thank you!

[@luccaseixasoliveira]

Also, I saw a copy of William Gass' The Tunnel in your shelf. I would love to see you talking about Gass, an author I'm very curious about, if you can.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks so much for saying so, Lucca. It's very encouraging to hear. You know, I haven't yet read 'The Tunnel'. It's been growing impatient on the shelf for some time now, though, so I'd better answer its calls soon.

[@heruka369]

This was incredibly deep and informative, thank you for your enlightening work.

[@SherdsTube]

Very glad you think so. Thank you for saying that :)

[@feanor7080]

Amazing video. This channel is already even better than I expected!

[@SherdsTube]

Wow! Thanks for the very kind words!

[@etqz680]

Excellent, thoughtful content!

[@SherdsTube]

Thank you!

[@Karzahani742]

This video was absolutely beautiful. Ligotti is my favorite author, my favorite artist and probably the most vivid figure I have ever had in my life. Thank you for this. Now I want to re read Teatro Grottesco.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks for saying so. I appreciate it. Teatro Grottesco is definitely one that rewards rereading. I've read it three times now, I think.

[@watkins7086]

My favorite author as well. Im currently making my way through all of his work for the 10th time

[@priyankadubey1418]

The video made me wonder about the amount of hard work that must have gone behind this ... got to learn a lot from this ... specially loved the last section where you connect ligotti’s work with beckett. Also, very well produced.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks, Priyanka. Yeah, this one was quite a lot of work, but I hope it was worth the effort. I had a lot of fun doing the research.

[@felipenobre]

Nice vídeo! Never read Ligotti, who has been on my list for a while. (It was also nice hearing your track from the The Wall podcast episode. I think it's one of my favorite tracks by you).

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks, Felipe. I hope you get round to reading him soon. It'll be a treat.

[@ryanofottawa]

I really love the analysis and context building here. Excellent production throughout as well. I look forward to digging into the authors and I hadn't known of that you mentioned and checking out your podcast as well!

[@SherdsTube]

Really appreciate the kind words. Thanks so much. Hope you like the podcast.

[@KulchurKat]

After your teaser on Instagram a couple of days ago, I was really looking forward to this. It did not disappoint. With your exquisite video production values (including original score!) and thoughtful essays, you’re taking #BookTube to another level. And yes, totally agree, by the time of Teatro Grottesco and its tales of nihilistic art communities, Ligotti has sloughed off the Lovecraft debts and sits quite comfortably alongside the European avant-garde.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks so much for this wonderful comment. It has made my day, and it's only half-nine!

[@abnormaniac]

This is very well done. Love the tempo of your essay, how you approached it visually and the content of course. Thanks!

[@SherdsTube]

I really appreciate the kind words. Thanks so much.

[@stuartsimpson4070]

This is the first of your videos I have seen and watched. It was absolutely incredible and has exposed me to so many new ideas my head is realing. I'll be watching the rest of your work. Thank you

[@SherdsTube]

Very pleased to hear that! Glad you found the channel. :)

[@donaldwright6617]

Wonderful podcast! Coincidentally, I finished reading the four Schulz mannequin stories in Cinnamon Shops only very recently. I haven't yet read Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco, but I did read Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe (in the Penguin Classics edition) about four years ago; more than one puppet or mannequin figures in that collection. For example, in "Dream of a Manikin," the fourth tale in "Dreams for Sleepwalkers," a psychologist is visited by an apparent living mannequin. (That tale reminded me somewhat of my favorite Twilight Zone episode of all time-"The After Hours" with Anne Francis as a living mannequin who has forgotten who she is.) And in the rather more horrifying "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech," the doctor of the title turns lovers who deceive Veech into a horrific conjoined puppet; only a ticket-taking dummy is left alive! Many of the Ligotti stories in the collection I read featured old towns with twisted buildings that cast sombre shadows (I can see the parallel to the settings you described in Teatro Grottesco). Often a lone wanderer in the town comes upon some otherworldly danger; dreams blend into reality to nightmarish effect as the stranger slowly changes into some horrible thing that he's chanced upon! Thank you for the inspiration to do further reading. I love the new video format. P.S. Your article about Grabiński’s The Motion Demon inspired me to order The Dark Domain (in the Daedalus edition); and I've ordered Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco. Excellent podcasts such as yours have inspired many purchases. Now I just have to find the time to read them!

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks for this lovely, insightful comment, Donald. Very glad to have inspired you to pick up these books. It's the whole reason I do this stuff, so it's wonderful to hear.

[@melocomanTV]

Teatro Grottesco is so insanely unique, even compared to Ligotti’s previous collections. It will put me in a fugue, completely involved in every word, a state strangely alike to reading after consuming edibles. His recent stories are also amazing, particularly Nightmare Network, but I dread a future without any follow up collection to Teatro Grottesco. Aside from his mastery of dread and pessimism, his experimentation is also quite impressive.

[@manhogful]

Your link between “The Town Manager” and “Waiting for Godot” is really intriguing: now I need to go and re-read both of those seminal works!

[@SherdsTube]

Let me know what you think this time round.

[@scottdwyer7058]

This is beautiful and insightful, and I hope to see many more videos from you! Have you read Grabinski, who I feel was a huge influence on Ligotti?

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks so much. Yes, I'm a big fan of Grabiński! I even wrote a little article about his book, 'The Motion Demon', some time ago: przekroj.pl/en/culture/a-watchman-over-forgotten-lines-sam-pulham

[@books_of_disquiet]

Great videos. Subscribed. Can I ask what camera you use when filming/taking photographs outdoors?

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks ever so much for subscribing - I really appreciate it. I use a Canon M50 for everything. :)

[@jamesrabagliati6978]

The voice of the characters and the almost dismissive way they can react to what is happening around them is reminiscent of Gombrowicz I think. He's spoken about being a huge fan of Witkiewicz. I've read Insatiability where the influence is less clear than with Schulz, but Ligotti's description of the ​plays, and how they "consist(s) of a bizarre ensemble of characters who collectively express a nightmarish vision of the demonic and the nihilistic" sounds familiar...

[@low3242]

Watching this video for the 5th time. The cinematography and sound design are really damn good. This video is a harmonious mixture of information, aesthetic pleasure and contemplation. I am a film student who is trying(and failing) to apply Ligottian aesthetics into my visual storytelling and you have gave me a lot of inspo. Can I hit you up in future for some guidance?

[@SherdsTube]

Wow, thanks for the very kind words! I'm not sure how much help I can be - I'm not a filmmaker or anything - but I'll gladly do what I can for you.

[@low3242]

​@@SherdsTube Thanks a lot sherds. You're maybe not a pro filmmaker but your understanding of expressionist/decadent aesthetics certainly influence your videos. The use of stillness/silence mixed with decay is absolutely comfy. Love it when "content" is as heavy as aesthetics.

[@ericwrazen829]

Interesting connections! Question: where is the video clip at @11:50 from? (Thanks)

[@SherdsTube]

It's from Umarła klasa/The Dead Class. You can find the whole thing on KZbin.

[@marsupial3ew]

Thanks!

[@semiote]

I just discovered your channel and podcast through a mention in a conversation between Chris Via of the Leaf by Leaf channel and the host of the Better Than Food channel. Great stuff! I’ve not read any of the writers you mentioned, though I’ve heard raves about Ligotti. I’m a fan of some Polish modernist lit and film, though: Gombrowicz and Zulawski, for example. What is it about the Polish that they have such a strong tradition of weird lit and film? I wonder if you know of any good treatments of this tradition (if it’s a tradition at all)…

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks so much! I've been trying to establish whether it's a tradition or not - as far as I can tell, there doesn't really appear to be a 'weird fiction' tradition as such in Poland. Stefan Grabiński is the closest I've been able to find to anything resembling the weird in the anglophone sense. Karol Irzykowski could be somewhere in the mix, and Tadeusz Miciński is a writer I'm hoping to get to grips with soon, too. I get the sense that there might be something similar in his work. As for critical texts thinking about a tradition as such, I haven't yet come across any, but will continue to keep my ear to the ground. If you find something, let me know.

[@semiote]

@@SherdsTube Thanks for the reply, and for the recommendations! I guess I don't have a great grip on what 'weird fiction' means these days. I tend to use the term for work that makes uncanny irrealism a central concern - a term that crosses the usual boundaries that people tend to use to separate 'serious' or 'literary' work from scifi, fantasy, and horror. This is simply because the qualitative assumptions that come along with this separation irritate me. I take it you think something similar. (I've started to go through your [wonderful] podcast episodes, and heard you making comments I thought were along these lines while talking about Samuel Delany and Boris Vian.) Anyways, I'm really enjoying the YT channel and podcast. I feel like our literary tastes overlap quite a bit, allowing me to discover new writers I suspect I will enjoy through your stuff! Are you on Goodreads?

[@senselessDesires666]

very very interesting.. subscribed❤

[@SherdsTube]

Glad to hear that. Thanks so much for subscribing!

[@nullset560]

Sorry, this is far too good to be popular on KZbin!

[@SherdsTube]

Lol. That's a pity ;)

[@thorstennesch1]

After finishing watching checking how many 100,000s views this masterpiece has ... 3,302 views... humanity is lost.

[@SherdsTube]

Ha! Thanks. It would be nice, but I'm grateful for every view. :)

[@AleksandarBloom]

Have you read Laird Barron? what do you think about him?

[@SherdsTube]

Yes, I have read the first three collections of his work. Hmm, I go back and forth with Laird Barron. I was really impressed with with many of the stories in 'The Imago Sequence', but found it was a case of "diminishing returns" with his subsequent collections. I find him a little frustrating. On the one hand, he's clearly an extraordinarily talented prose stylist - he can soar into these darkly transcendent psychedelic "arias" - but then, at times, he can also read very much like third-rate airport fiction, or hammy Hollywood horror. Just in terms of taste, I find myself wishing that he'd lean into the former and abandon the latter entirely. Even in what I thought was a very underwhelming book, when taken as a whole - 'The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All' - there are flashes of absolute brilliance. In short, I want to like him a lot more than I actually do. I will probably read 'Swift to Chase' eventually, but I'm in no hurry right now. How do you feel about his stuff?

[@AleksandarBloom]

@@SherdsTube I very much agree with you. Very often he goes into pulpy-macho nonsense, his research, 'mythos'', interest in topics he handles, feels half-arsed. His prose can be bland or overly tendentious, full of received opinions, clichés or immersion breaking pop-culture references. But the most frustrating thing about his work is some kind of smirky disdain for the material he's selling us, like he's above it and above us, his readers.

[@FrancesE.DekEsquire]

@@AleksandarBloom Syncopaths

[@watkins7086]

Awesome video

[@SherdsTube]

Thank you!

[@stephenmurray7495]

What is this disquieting ASMR? This pensive horror? Do you read anything funny like Terry Pratchett? No, lovely work, Sam. Some haunting quotes, too!

[@SherdsTube]

"Disquieting ASMR" - I'm putting that in my bio. Cheers, Steve!

[@stephenmurray7495]

@@SherdsTube A quote for free except a simple credit. I want to take over Stephen Fry's lucrative monopoly over jacket quotes.

[@lelouchvibritania8121]

Damn your polish sound pretty good

[@SherdsTube]

Dziękuję bardzo. Cieszę się. Walczę z tym językiem codziennie ;)

[@novelsandcrumbs3558]

I enjoy your content and would be highly interested in your favorite ten novels. Give it a thought because I have multiple times.

[@SherdsTube]

Thanks a lot. Good suggestion - I'll give it some thought.

[@Garbageman28]

Teatro gotta be pound for pound the most genuinely scary collection of short stories I’ve ever read. Town Manager still freaks me the fuck out.

[@Garbageman28]

Fantastic visual essay, also! Kinda makes me wanna make one.

[@SherdsTube]

Yes, there are many stories in that collection that I still find deeply unsettling every time I read them. Thanks for the kind words! Go for it!

[@rightcheer5096]

I wasn’t aware there was an avant-garde to shoe polish. perhaps you meant silver polish. but you do you.

[@fraterahava]

I've tried Thomas Bernhardt books but found it boring, i still search for writers like ligotti

[@senselessDesires666]

❤😢 obsessed with the conspiracy against human race 🎯💯👆

[@FrancesE.DekEsquire]

Eploring connections between the aesthetics of Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco (2006) and those of the Polish avant-garde as well as mid-20th-century European theater. ??? No No No!!!! You missed the fact that Thomas Ligotti's home towen is Detroit Michigan which in 2000 was totally Carnage I use to Hobo ride Freight Trains in 1990.s and 2000.s often Got Off the Boxcarrs to get Free Food in Homeless Shelters in Detroit and Detroit WAS MURDER CITY every body call Detroit MURDER TOWN, so the Polish avant-garde is NOT his model, Detroit Michigan was his Model and Hometown.

[@SherdsTube]

Somebody has already made this point in a far less aggressive manner. It was a good point when they made it. Go and read their comment - you might learn something about how to talk to people.