Robert W. Chambers

[Lobolover]

Author of the King in Yellow,worth everyone's read."The maker of moons" story is also wonderfull,(though I havent goten to any other stories o the colection of the same name),very Chambersian,with THOSE moments,if you know what I mean .I read "the messenger" be recomended,so I'l give it a go.

Anyone know any other of his tales worth a read?His mixing of romance into it kinda makes it hard for them to find.


"Eggs of the Silver Moon" has got to b the bigest disapointment,when,from a
promising title comes the story about hatching bugs and a quarel over eggs ending seeminly brutaly,but then revealed to be jovial,all mixed with a love afair of the narator with a female former private detective . So,stear clear of this one.

 

[GOLLUM]

Yep, I've got a collection by Chambers. His writing is a little mixed in terms of quality but I did like the title story King In Yellow.

BTW welcome, not sure if we've crossed paths before?

Always nice to see another fan of the classic stuff.

 

[j d worthington]

I have read The Maker of Moons; a very mixed bag, as were most of Chambers' books. Worth reading, but decidedly uneven. I've also read some of his other tales now and again, though I've yet to get around to reading In Search of the Unknown as it was revised for novel form. ("The Harbor-Master" is one of those tales where I find myself disagreeing with several people whose opinions I respect. A magnificent concept, with some superb moments, but I found the execution overall tended to rob the tale of much of the power it potentially had. Still, many people regard it quite highly, so this one could just be me....)

 

[Lobolover]

Hmm.Could you tell me which tales from "The Maker of moons" or possibly "The Tree of Heaven" are worth a read?Ive only read the title novela in the first (how'd you like that,anyway?) and "The carpet of Belshazar" in the second.I heard "Message" and "A pleasent Evening are good".How about "The third eye" ?

 

[j d worthington]

Ooof. I last read Maker of Moons more than 20 years ago, so I'd have to dig out my copy of the book and browse through it a bit to refresh my memory. I do recall quite liking "The Maker of Moons" overall (though the romantic element made me think at times of such pulp writers as Burroughs and Merritt; or perhaps some of the Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer....)

 

[Lobolover]

yes,but you have to admit that :"I have seen the shade of Xangi cast across Abbadon-better to die a millon miles from Yezd and Uther Quedah,then to see the white water lotus close its head in the shade of Xangi-I have slept in the ruins of Xaindu where the winds never cease and the Wullwulleh is wailed by the dead" and "Yian lies across the seven oceans and the river,which is longer then from the earth to the moon" have their power.

I think that story deserves far more atention then it got (none).

I could spare you the search and link an australian e-text of the book.

 

[j d worthington]

Not necessary; it's on my shelf, but buried beneath quite a few other things at the moment, so I'll probably go looking it up after my evening shift....

 

[Lobolover]

You read any of the other colection or the Slayer of Souls (HPL said it let him down too) ?

 

[j d worthington]

I attempted to. Couldn't get into it at the time. Too much "yellow peril" sort of thing for what I was up to then. I'll likely try again when I reach Chambers in my current reading program. I'm gradually -- along with other things -- reading my way through all the suggestions in SHiL, in order save for a few exceptions; where he simply mentions a writer in general, I've attempted to track down those works which would either fit as weird tales or which are closely enough allied to fit nicely... in most cases (Washington Irving being an exception here, as Lovecraft thought highly of him in general, and I also have found his work, both fiction and otherwise, to be to my taste.) So it's going to be a while before I get around to reading Chambers again....

 

[Lobolover]

"my way through all the suggestions in SHiL, in order save for a few exceptions; where he simply mentions a writer in general, I've attempted to track down those works which would either fit as weird tales or which are closely enough allied to fit nicely..."

Im doing the same thing.He could at least make a personal listing/catalogu at the end.

Irving-around here they keep reprinting his HORRIBLE Poe-esque parody ofa ghost story ("the dead bridegroom" or something like that),which kinda made me not respect him that much.Well,they also publish Stocton's HUMOROUS SCI-FI in a horror anthology with Poe and Hawthorne.........

Ps:I have a piece of critique on the Lovecraft circle id like debating,but I need someone to post somewhere apropriate.

 

[j d worthington]

Keep in mind that Irving was, primarily, a humorist (as was Cobb, incidentally); his "straight" forays into the weird were few and far between. It was in fact this wry wit that HPL admired with Irving, seeing him as something of an American Addison....

On the piece about the Lovecraft circle you mention... is this a piece you wrote, or something you've read you want to talk about, or....?

And on him making such a catalogue: such would have been completely out of place in the venue in which the essay was originally published -- or, for that matter, just about any other publishing option at that period....

 

[Lobolover]

A critique from a comunist era time publication of Bierce's works around here. Shall I make a thread for it ?

 

[j d worthington]

A critique from a comunist era time publication of Bierce's works around here. Shall I make a thread for it ?

Certainly. It would be interesting to see what was said....

 

[Lobolover]

Okay.

Also:I made a few replies ,I'd realy like to talk about The Dark Chamber,Machen and Cram in the Weird thread.

 

[Lobolover]

Hmm-so what do you think about the MoM colection again ?

 

[j d worthington]

I haven't revisited that one again, nor do I expect to any time in the near future; I've far too many other things going on in the next several months, and my own reading program is crammed to the bursting point as is....

 

[BAYLOR]

The King in Yellow has great imagery but not an easy read given its style of writing.

 

[Extollager]

What by Chamber is truly worth reading? I read some, at least, of The King in Yellow in the early 1970s. About all I seem to remember of it is:

1.An epigraph, supposedly from The King in Yellow, a play that makes people go insane if they read it:

Speaker 1 -- might be a woman named Cassilda or something like that: You, sir, should unmask.
Speaker 2: I'm not wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: No mask? No mask?

2.A story, set in Paris, about a creepy guy who drives a horsedrawn wagon. There's something about his fingers looking like maggots, perhaps. He might be a ghoul.

...That seems to be about it. I used to have the Ace paperback and didn't keep it. I had the Dover paperback and didn't keep it. I have a Ballantine Adult Fantasy anthology with a Chambers story that I don't think I have ever read, although I have owned it for ages.

 

[Randy M.]

No. 2 above is "The Yellow Sign," which I enjoy as a straight-horror story. Moody, creepy, very much an artifact of the Decadents.

"The Repairer of Reputations," though, is something else. A fever dream of a story that is probably a madman's delusion but may be about the future, and if the latter then an eerie evocation of something that didn't happen yet seems in line with part of the 1930s and '40s. If the events aren't analogous, the feel of the story is.

The version I read of The King in Yellow included the non-supernatural/horror stories, which were all right in their way. But I'd characterize the supernatural/horror stories as more about atmosphere and mood than plot or characterization, and as such maybe less important in and of themselves than for the effect they had on later writers. Besides Lovecraft, Karl Edward Wagner tapped into it for his novella, "The River of Night's Dreaming," and I was stunned when it came up as part of the foundation of HBO's initial series of True Detective. And that last led to several reissuings of Chambers' collection since it was out of copyright.

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

In short, Randy, Chambers wrote hardly any weird fiction -- right?