Rebellion Against the Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Dr. Raymond Thoss is a peculiar book in a narrow niche of its own. I finished reading it this weekend. Its title references Thomas Ligotti’s treatise The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, the volume of essays in which the horror maestro expounds his profoundly pessimistic worldview. Ligotti maintains that consciousness is a unique burden borne by mankind. His argument, briefly summarized in the Wikipedia article about the book runs thus:
The more conscious one is of the meaningless and often horrifying nature of the world [...], the more one wishes not to be aware of this fact, and so overly conscious beings must constantly engage in exercises which limit their awareness of the negative aspects of existence, either intentionally or instinctively.
Dr. Raymond Thoss is a pseudonym drawn from a character in Ligotti’s fiction. It’s used here by “a clinical psychologist who works primarily with trauma patients”, a vocation he says he was drawn to having suffered major trauma of his own from abuse throughout his childhood. Thoss credits an encounter with Ligotti’s book The Nightmare Factory with saving his life when he read it as a deeply disturbed and suicidal youth. Internalising Ligotti’s nihilistic outlook proved paradoxically therapeutic for him, and has informed his own thought ever since, providing foundations on which he has built a decidedly idiosyncratic view of trauma and of therapy.
Thoss forcefully stresses the irony of treating abuse survivors as sick in a society where child abuse is distressingly commonplace yet still seldom openly discussed. To those cognizant of the sickness of society & the uncaring nature of the world, Thoss says “You are not insane. The world is. You are simply awake.” One hopes he can judge when such thinking will be useful for his patients and when it might be more appropriate to gloss things over a little.
The writing style is often hyperbolic and becomes all the more so in the final chapter when we spend more time in the writer’s troubled mind. This is not a comfortable place to be. Thoss declares himself insane, and his text gives the reader little with which to push back against this assessment. The phrase ‘physician, heal thyself’ comes to mind: but perhaps too much damage was done to him from too early an age for that to be a realistic prospect. One is impressed all the more with his ability to function at a high level — and moreover to provide comfort to others — in the light of the bewildering turmoil of his inner life.
Have you ever, as a fan of a artist or a creative work, been disconcerted to hear from a ‘superfan’ whose attachment to the object of your affection is that much deeper & more intense than your own? I’ve admired Ligotti’s work for decades, and some part of his pessimism has undoubtedly chimed with my own, further tinting my own outlook. Here though is someone for whom Ligotti’s thinking has been profoundly life-changing. It’s good, I’m thinking, but is it really that good: evidently the answer for Dr. Thoss, is yes; while for me, maybe not. That faintly discordant feeling was just one of several overlapping responses this book provoked in me. I’d never read anything quite like it. Fascinating though it often is, it’s a text I would hesitate to recommend. Prospective readers must decide for themselves whether they think it worth picking up.
I was delighted when a recent visit to one of my customary record-buying haunts yielded a copy of Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley, the 1962 album by the singer and the saxophonist (plus the other four members of the latter’s quintet). Wilson sings on six of the record’s eleven tracks, with the remainder instrumentals. I’ve owned a CD copy for some years, but this is one of those records better savoured on vinyl (or it will be once I’ve cleaned this one up). It’s a bright-toned record beautifully-performed by all concerned. The song-choice isn’t entirely to my taste — ‘Happy Talk’, for example, has never been a favourite of mine — but I can readily forgive that. A good example track: the opening number, ‘Save Your Love for Me’, which kicks things off in style. My copy is a later-’60s issue pressed for the World Record Club (who erroneously printed the title as The Swingin’s Mutual on its labels, this being the name of the similar record Wilson had made with the George Shearing Quintet).
Meanwhile, recent arrivals in the post have included a second copy of Dakota Staton’s ‘Round Midnight, as mentioned in the entry before last, this one in much better condition than the first; and, in a similar vein, an album by the singer Ethel Ennis called God Bless The Child, which is an early-’70s compilation bringing together four tracks from albums first issued in ‘64. It's a fantastic-sounding record, very well re-mastered. While a few of the tunes on it (such as the title-track) are familiar old standards, Ennis’s interpretations of them are well worth hearing.
Cheese of the week: Carreg Las, yet another Welsh-made blue cheese. This one is made from ewesmilk by those experts at Caws Cenarth. It’s well-blued with a strong suite of flavours reminiscent of Roquefort: if anything perhaps a little bolder still. Its texture on the other hand is a little firmer and drier than the French classic. It has been an immediate hit with me & I hope this is a first taste of many.