{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder

BORN TO FEAR, page 89, in the section Work Not Done?: An Interview with Thomas Ligotti

Wagner:  Recently I read an old interview with you in the magazine Tekeli-li.  I found it very interesting that you mentioned the unknown German author of the book The Nightwatches as some kind of reinforcement for your own work.  Is it by chance the book Natchwachen, that was published under the nom-de-plume Bonaventura at the beginning of the nineteenth century?  This is one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Romantic period and is hardly known even in Germany.

Ligotti:  The Nightwatches is indeed a forgotten masterpiece.  Any book that is so explicitly at odds with the social and religious culture of the world, especially during the period it was written, is doomed to be ignored.  A modern-day counterpart to this book is the work of Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard.  But Bernhard was always raging against the Nazi mentality that he saw as still holding sway within Austria, so his work has been embraced somewhat, at least in Europe.  His work is still too grim for consumption by English-speaking countries.  English and American readers will only tolerate books that ultimately uphold the status quo and offer people reasons why their miserable lives are worth living.