LogFAQs > #946654844

2. The King in Yellow (1895 book) (27.5 points)
Nominated by: Gall (0/4 remaining)


Importance: 10
Fear: 9
Snake: 8.5

A book of ten short stories in anthology format, the first four of which in some way or another revolves around the titular "King in Yellow", alternatively a play that drives readers of it to madness or an actual supernatural entity. It was written by Robert W. Chambers, and has been cited as a huge influence over Lovecraftian horror in particular but its influences extend to practically every horror writer working today. Deliberately written to be obtuse and jarring, supernatural horror eventually gives way to Chambers' attempts at romantic comedy. You'd definitely be forgiven for checking out of this book after the first four stories, as The King in Yellow is where the book is at its best, most creative, and most horrific. The first story, "The Repair of Reputations", features an unreliable narrator, Hildred, due to an injury from falling off his horse. Set in the future of 1920, it imagines a sci-fi world where an aristocratic elite have taken over and immigration has been all but halted, eerily prescient of World War II as it primarily focuses on the exclusion of the Jewish people. Chambers actually uses the story to criticize fiction of the time, positioning The King in Yellow as the type of pop culture that was rotting society's minds and making people obsessed with the wrong things (and the internet wasn't even a thing yet!) at the time and in fact the play is played up as a real-life document, toying with the idea of a mockumentary decades before its time. On purpose, the story is underwritten and I don't mind that the writing is bad, but the idea that Hildred is insane always hangs over the story and there really isn't any satisfying plot or conclusion to anything, with the intent being that probably all of it, the future, The King in Yellow, it's all made up and doesn't matter. I think this is the best story in the book, and the following are more traditional horror stories that you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for genuine Lovecraft. In the Court of the Dragon for examples follows a man pursued by a cult-like church, with a small-scale cast and a story that symbolizes the ever-present specter of death in our lives, while incorporating The King in Yellow as more of a passing occurrence, just something the protagonist had been reading in his spare time. It really shows Chambers' sense of continuity and world-building that even by the third story he's able to write related horror stories without specifically relying on the crutch of the framing device. It's just this piece of fiction that weaves in and out of people's lives, and as important as this book is and how enjoyable the four initial stories are, it makes me think that it's still just a huge missed opportunity to not connect all the stories to The King in Yellow. It almost feels like Chambers got bored with it and attached a bunch of unrelated stories to fill out a full-length novel. It's much more of an interesting thing to hear about and maybe connect it with shows like True Detective or the SCP Hanged King in a "aha" moment than it is to actually read nowadays. I still like it a lot for what's there, but the only thing it may end up driving you insane with is the eye-rolling generic nature of its later sickeningly-romantic protagonists.

---

Bare feet on the tile with my head up in the clouds
https://imgur.com/1e1e70S