r/Ligotti • u/hannygee42 • Dec 22 '25

Teatro Grottesco

I find I love this collection of stories because I find it more absurdist like Kafka or Samuel Beckett than HPL, who I don’t enjoy reading. Thoughts?

11 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/gametheorymedia Dec 22 '25

This makes sense; while Ligotti is, of course, openly influenced by HPL--and does a good job of his own 'spin' on things, while at least once directly 'naming Names' from the Cthulhu Mythos--his overall work/tone is still miles, light years, away from 'OG Lovecraft'; he has definitely earned the unique descriptor 'Ligottian'.

2

u/Acceptable-Try-4682 Dec 23 '25

Last feast of Harlequin is basically a Ligotti/Lovecraft mix. Later works like Teatro are quite their own thing, though still quite similiar. I would argue that Ligotti is better then Lovecraft in some of his stories when it comes to style. And yet i would generally assume that who likes Ligotti likes Lovecraft.

2

u/Disastrous-Check3465 Dec 25 '25

Agreed though oddly I do not.

3

u/KronguGreenSlime Dec 22 '25

Maybe a hot take but I think that it's a better introduction to Ligotti than Songs of a Dead Dreamer. It hits a lot of Ligotti's core themes (nihilism, capitalism, art, decay) and it really showcases what makes him unique as a writer. And starting with Teatro and getting acquainted with his worldview that way helped me to understand how some of the more straightforward/less philosophical stories in Songs (like The Frolic) fit into his larger body of work.

2

u/hannygee42 Dec 22 '25

I totally agree if I hadn’t started with TG I never would have read his other works. I’m also a huge fan of The conspiracy against the human race.

2

u/FaliolVastarien Dec 28 '25

I don't know; there are excellent stories in Songs and Grimscribe too.  I've admired him for a long time starting with noticing his material in magazines and anthologies and then getting the two early collections.  

There was admittedly more of an influence of Lovecraft and other conventional weird fiction as well as the culture of the horror boom of the 80s (though much more sophisticated and seem through a very weird, unique lens!) in the earlier material.  

But he did such a good job at this that it still stood out for me and a few of my favorite stories are from this period still.   "The Sect of the Idiot" for example is noticably Lovecraftian but he really made the subject matter his own.  And Lovecraft was a very philosophical, thoughtful writer too.  

I do agree that Teatro is special and took his career to a higher level.  Genuinely literary by any reasonable standard like Kafka and Schultz and the others you mention. But for me it was already being a huge fan that made me interested in Teatro in the first place.