The Glamour By Thomas Ligotti

 


With The Glamour, Thomas Ligotti gives us a knotty, baffling yarn about a chap I'll call Chad on one of his frequent wanderings through a city to see a movie. “But something else was involved on the night I went to that theater in a part of town I had never visited before. A new tendency, a mood or penchant formerly unknown to me, seemed to lead the way.”

Thomas Ligotti fans will sit up and take notice when Chad reflects on a new, unknown mood that “seemed to lead the way” since an ongoing theme of the author revolves around a character reduced to the status of a dancing puppet with a malevolent puppet master moving the strings.

Chad walks deeper and deeper into the unknown. “As I advanced farther into that part of town I had never visited before, my attention was drawn to a certain aspect of things – a fine aura of fantasy radiating from the most common sights, places and objects that were both blurred and brightened in my gaze.” What's particularly striking: Chad sensing “a fine aura of fantasy radiating from the most common sights” is a characteristic way creative types, artists and writers, take in the world.

A critical question we can ask: Is Chad's creative perception part of the same force that seems to be leading him on? Let's hold this query in abeyance for now.

Further walking, further solitary exploration in a previously unexplored, deserted part of town and Chad feels an “acute anticipation that a child might experience at a carnival” when he comes upon a marquee for a movie theater where the feature film is The Glamour. He's about to move on when he notices “a double-faced sign propped up on the sidewalk, an inconspicuous little board that reads: ENTRANCE TO THE THEATER.

A few observations. Most importantly, Thomas Ligotti is all about precision, the exactitude of language. My recounting here captures only a fraction of the atmosphere and detail provided by the author. To absorb the full impact of Chad's nightly excursion, you'll have to read for yourself.

Secondly, keep in mind Chad's likening his acute anticipation to that of a child at a carnival. Similar to his current mood, the freshness of a child's perception counts for so much in the creative process for artists and writers.

Lastly, when Chad is told the price of admission to this theater is free, we shouldn't be surprised – echoes of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf where the sign overhead reads: MAGIC THEATER. ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY. FOR MADMEN ONLY! PRICE OF ADMISSION, YOUR MIND.

Following a few instances of the weird, Chad enters the theater, takes a seat and the tale's weirdness kicks into turbocharged overdrive: amid things like "a peculiar phenomenon I had not formerly observed...I am speaking of the cobwebs" both on the screen and in the theater, Chad eventually witnesses possession by a diabolical, infernal power. However, he himself makes his escape.

What are we to make of Thomas Ligotti's tale? A number of elements we're well to consider:

Appearance and Reality – Glamour refers to appearances we find attractive or fascinating. However, many times, as the case here, all we have to do is pierce the eye-catching shell and what lies beneath is anything but glamorous. Perhaps this tale can serve as a warning living as we do in a culture where so much emphasis is placed on commercialized glamour, glitz and manipulative razzamataz.

Witchcraft - Chad perceives in the fabric of a theater seat "an old woman's face with an expression of avid malignance - floating amidst wild shocks of twisting hair. The face itself was a portrait of atrocity, a grinning image of lust for sites and ceremonies of mayhem." Yet a man sitting one seat away from Chad asks as he giggles on the edge of joyous hysteria if Chad has seen her. Are we shocked when this man himself becomes entrapped by the malignant presence?

Cosmic Horror - Chad observes “the movie theater was merely a virtual image, a veil upon a complex collage of other places, all of which shared certain qualities that were projected into my vision, as though the things I saw were possessed by something I could not see.” Utoh, sounds like Chad senses a demonic force undergirding the entire theater, maybe even the cosmos itself.

Cosmic Dualism – But then again, Chad does escape. Can we attribute his overcoming possession to the creative mindset he's been experiencing the entire night? In other words, is the fine aura of fantasy and childlike exuberance he's tapped into an expression of a universal force counterbalancing those dark, sinister powers? If so, this speaks to the cosmic dualism embodied in such ancient religions as Manichaeism and Gnosticism.

Ligotti Magic, One – As a work of art, The Glamour is sufficiently rich and ambiguous to allow multiple interpretations on a number of levels. In the end, Thomas Ligotti leaves room for a reader's imagination to soar, one prime reason I find his writing so compelling.

Ligotti Magic, Two - Perhaps Chad and the author himself can inspire us to tap into our own realms of fantasy and imagination, our own artistic exuberance to overcome life's dark forces. Look at Thomas Ligotti, a man who has endured much physical and psychic pain throughout his life, yet he can create exquisite literature.


Thomas Ligotti, Born 1953