Thomas Ligotti
Nottuario

Ligotti is either loved or hated. Personally, I consider him an extremely important author in current weird literature, although he needs to be approached with the right mindset. The American writer is a sort of “philosopher of horror”, his influences are numerous and do not necessarily concern supernatural literature. In any case, he has chosen the aesthetic of the “weird” story to give voice to his poetics, as it is deemed suitable to convey his impulses and nightmares. Among his favorite horror writers, he cites Poe and Lovecraft, although stylistically, he is perhaps closer to the former.

All the "Ligottian" characteristics emerge once again in Noctuary, which at certain moments seem even stronger here. The volume is divided into three parts: Studies in Shadow, Discourse on Darkness, and the last one titled Night Notebook. This last part is a sort of personal diary (composed of short fragments) in which Ligotti wrote notes, “visions,” and personal obsessions, representing a kind of small philosophical breviary of the macabre. As admitted by the author himself, the Night Notebook refers to the eighteenth-century English writer Edward Young.

The writing that introduces the book, titled At Night, in the Dark. Critical Notes on Mystery Fiction, is an excellent exemplification of how Ligotti conceives “weird fiction.” It starts from the premise that “in life, the experience of mystery is an inevitable and fundamental fact.” It goes on to point out how “the main effect of mystery stories is the perception of the so-called macabre unreality.” For Ligotti, “the mystery story is based on an enigma that can never be unraveled,” citing H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space as a perfect example of this viewpoint.

And the stories present here are no exception: texts like La Medusa, an original and “sui generis” revisitation of the ancient myth, Mrs. Rinaldi’s Angel, the apocalyptic and visionary The Mad Night of Redemption. Future Story, where a character predicts the end of the world through a puppet show, are typical examples of his art. There is always an underlying indeterminacy, and one gets the distinct feeling, if one immerses oneself in his pages with the proper spirit, of entering a nightmare with contours that are both vivid and evanescent. The masterpiece of Noctuary is undoubtedly The Voice in the Bones, a macabre and dreamlike story where the vicissitudes of a character imprisoned in an enigmatic tower (created by a mysterious maker) with rooms, corridors, and labyrinths are narrated, symbolizing our putrescent universe.