MD

Later, when I was out walking, I stopped dead on the street. Ahead of me, standing beneath a lamp hanging from an old wall, was the outline of a figure of my general size and proportions. He was looking the other way but very stiffly and very tense, as if waiting anxiously for the precise moment when he would suddenly twist about-face. If that should happen, I knew what I would see: my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and behind those features a being strange beyond all description. I retraced my steps back home and immediately went to bed.
Very odd. I found the first half to be boring and pretentious, filled with annoying purple prose that spoke really about nothing. It was only after I reached a story somewhere after the middle portion titled “The Masquerade of a Dead Sword” that I began to change my mind on the collection, and I found myself enjoying most of the stories that came afterwards. The abruptness of it almost feels like Ligotti had a revelation about his writing suddenly and altered it in unnoticeable but severely impactful ways. I don't know. I was about to give up on the collection until that story, and I'm happy I didn't now. I still find his reliance on puppet and doll imagery to be sort of corny, even though I can't lie and say I'm not afraid of them myself. I want to read more of his works though, as I know these were some of his earliest and probably not the best start! “The Journal of Dr. Drapeau,” quoted above, ended up being another one of my favorites.

“I have wrestled with Death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine, it takes place in an impalpable grayness. With nothing under foot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat . . . without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.”
i understand the criticisms that have been made about this book in recent years, but I look at it this way: the book talks about Africans the way it does because it's the way the white people within the novel view them. The book implies that all of humanity is born from a darkened heart, but the characters aren't smart enough to realize this, so they shift blame elsewhere, cast themselves as saviors. I'm fully aware that the time in this book was written guarantees that it would never be a fully progressive story by today's standards, but for its time it was very important & even now i still believe it is, for historical context if not the message

I am a man More sinn'd against than sinning.
^ Lear is pathetic and wrong! His need for power (even when he's voluntarily given it up) is a trait that he's surely handed down to his daughters, which is why most of this happens in the first place. I adore the writing here, and the contrasting narrative with Edmund's betrayal enriches the themes greatly!

The voices seemed to whisper in Rand's ears, right at the brink of understanding, and within it. Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall . . .

I FINISHED! THANK THE LIGHT! The setup is sooo long and in the beginning it wears on you, the endless descriptions of various taverns and farms that don't even last a full scene, and the way the book lingers on the thoughts of the characters for such an extreme amount of time. But halfway through, after the action picked up and all, I found myself really enjoying the details that I'd hated before. It really paints a vivid picture and you feel like you're right there with the characters, whose thoughts and actions become a lot more engaging once you've come to know them. I didn't fall in love with the world or story through this, but I'm so so intrigued to read more, especially for where it left off. Blessed because I was gifted the second book for Christmas!!.. Although I might not get to it for a while.

omg