I also think if you’re in a bad headspace, it might not help your situation. I think if you like horror and you enjoy dabbling in the philosophy of existence, especially on the more depressing side of it, this book will be for you. It is so intriguingly brutal and I will never forget it. My favorite was by Philipp Mainländer - you must read his idea of God and how it ties in to our existence. His references are interesting and relevant.
Ligotti addresses various philosophic approaches to existence, reproduction, and God in this book. There is also an analogy about getting into a car accident where you become upset that it was ‘not part of your plan today’ and how there’s just time to catch a glimpse of yourself in the rear-view mirror becoming the uncanny puppet of a human you really are right before you die, and man, that was such a visceral image. At one point in the book he mentions how horror is one of the few, if only, real and true things in our existence. Yet it’s so worth reading to be able to view life from that angle and witness the horror of it. And to be fair, you’d be right in some of those thoughts. It might leave you wondering why you should continue on your existence as an uncanny puppet with no real reason to be. You might find it dreary and pessimistic.
I will say this, if you don’t like to think about human existence from the perspective of decay and nothingness, you may not find this ‘funny’ at all. He is genuinely funny in many parts, although I imagined him to be delivering the news with a deadpan expression akin to comedians conveying the contents of their black comedy special. Perhaps that’s my dark sense of humour and view of life, but the other half of that is Ligotti’s delivery of such a serious and affective topic. Much of this book made me laugh out loud with just how bleak and existential it was. It felt a bit like studying for an exam in a Philosophy class, and I loved it. I read it steadily, taking in each page carefully and with much scrutiny. I am not usually one to read non-fiction, but I am a big fan of Thomas Ligotti’s fiction so I felt I had to visit this book.
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