The Conspiracy Against the Human Race - Face it, you're just a puppet!
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. I read it steadily, taking in each page carefully and with much scrutiny. It felt a bit like studying for an exam in a Philosophy class, and I loved it.
Much of this book made me laugh out loud with just how bleak and existential it was. 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. 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. 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. You might find it dreary and pessimistic. It might leave you wondering why you should continue on your existence as an uncanny puppet with no real reason to be. And to be fair, you’d be right in some of those thoughts. It is dark, negative, and hopeless. Yet it’s so worth reading to be able to view life from that angle and witness the horror of it. At one point in the book he mentions how horror is one of the few, if only, real and true things in our existence. 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. Incredible.
Ligotti addresses various philosophic approaches to existence, reproduction, and God in this book. His references are interesting and relevant. My favorite was by Philipp Mainländer - you must read his idea of God and how it ties in to our existence. It is so intriguingly brutal and I will never forget it.
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. I also think if you’re in a bad headspace, it might not help your situation. However, it is absolutely worth reading and considering, and it is undoubtedly a box you should check off your list if you enjoy Thomas Ligotti’s works.
