The Frolic by Thomas Ligotti

 


THE FROLIC
The Trickster is a character from mythology, folklore and religion, one of the archetypes in the psychology of Carl Jung, a character exhibiting keen intellect and secret knowledge in order to play tricks, defy the ordinary and mock convention and rules.

In The Frolic, Thomas Ligotti presents a character whose both archetypal trickster and (gulp!) psychopathic murderer, an eerie, unsettling combination that will give anybody the creeps.

It's evening and we're in the town of Nolgate, site of the state prison. Prison psychiatrist Dr. Munch speaks with wife Leslie while daughter Norleen rests in her upstairs bedroom. Dr. Munch fumes with anger, tells Leslie that perhaps it was an unwise decision to have taken this job. He admits he was somewhat masochistic: he wanted a thankless, impossible job and that's exactly what he has.

One prisoner has pushed the good doctor to the edge, a prisoner refusing to divulge his name or where he is from or where he was born, a prisoner known to the authorities as John Doe. What's particularly maddening about John Doe: he claims he wanted to be caught so he could spend time in the penitentiary – and he tells the doctor that he can leave anytime he wishes.

Dr. Munch details his session with John Doe. “There's actually quite a poetic geography to his interior dreamland as he describes it.” John Doe provided Dr. Munch with the grizzly details in his “phantasmagorical mingling of heaven and hell” as he relates his 'frolicking' with what he terms his 'awestruck company.' Unfortunately, the 'awestruck company' could be seen by the state as helpless victims of heinous crimes. But the doctor observes: “There is always a paradoxical blend of forsaken topographies and shining sanctuaries in his mind.”

What's particularly fascinating about this Thomas Ligotti tale is all in the blending, not only in the mind of John Doe but in John Doe's very identity. Seen in one way, we're talking John Doe the prison inmate, the psychopathic killer. But viewed from a different angle, John Doe's 'frolicking' can be taken as the rule-busting, convention smashing, creative dance of the Trickster.

Herein lies the author's magic with echoes of one of his frequently cited quotes: “Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.” Is the Trickster aka John Doe beckoning us to expand our world by transcending rules, regimentation and conformity, beckoning us to also abandon artificiality and peer into the chaos of a trickster cosmos?

The Frolic, a remarkable tale that can be read as slice of life realism or modern mythology with strong Jungian archetypes – or both together.



Thomas Ligotti, born 1953


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