The King in Yellow

Phyrebrat

Phyrebrat

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Hello all,

I'm two-thirds the way through this collection of short stories.

I've heard a lot of its impact on the weird fic and horror genre, and felt I should read it as part of my due diligence, but I have only been able to engage so far with a couple of the stories and it's starting to feel like homework. The Repairer of Reputations is enjoyable, as is the Yellow Sign but the others seem quite flighty and somewhat inscrutable.

Given the struggles with my mental health, I can put some of that down to my struggle to concentrate sometimes, but wondered what the general feeling of The King in Yellow antho is around these parts.

I'm fine with other weird fic authors from the early 20th C when it come to parsing and 'getting' the stories, but Chambers' are quite an effort. I find myself reading and re-reading passages more than four times in some cases.

What are your thoughts?
 
I've tried a couple of times to finish it, but my interest in doing so somehow always drifted away.

Yet some of the stories quite impressed me. (Don't ask me which ones; at this late date I can't remember.)

Probably one of these days I will try again. Maybe by quitting I missed some of the best stories. (Or maybe not.)
 
Sometimes a great collection isn't because they are all great. If you found some winners, then that might be the reward.

Perhaps an internet search of "favorite stories from The King in Yellow", and skip the rest?
 
I checked my copy and I'm about 70% through. So if I take it up where I left off, what's left shouldn't t be a challenge to finish. Maybe I will read it after I finish the book I am currently reading.
 
Swank said:
Perhaps an internet search of "favorite stories from The King in Yellow", and skip the rest?
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I’m getting better at this but I do struggle to not finish books — I think I might miss something brilliant. It’s a short collection tho and I’m 68% through so it’s not a big mission. I’m usually quite good at reading old modern fiction but this has been a challenge.

I read A Passage to India and Where Angels Fear to Tread in under a week (both of them) so it’s not an ‘era’ thing so much as a characteristic or some weird fiction.

And yep, a quick look shows the net seems to like the ones I have. And I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who struggled :

Teresa Edgerton said:
I checked my copy and I'm about 70% through. So if I take it up where I left off, what's left shouldn't t be a challenge to finish. Maybe I will read it after I finish the book I am currently reading.
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Snap! We must have similar patience-endurance meters.

Just to reiterate, I have enjoyed the ones I’ve enjoyed
 
Phyrebrat said:
The Repairer of Reputations is enjoyable, as is the Yellow Sign but the others seem quite flighty and somewhat inscrutable.
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I've read the original collection and enjoyed it. Of the original group of stories, only 5 (as I recall) are truly weird fiction, and of those the two you mention I think are the most influential and powerful; I've read each a few times. I liked the others at the time of reading (though I thought "The Demoiselle D'Ys" slight), even the non-weird fantasy stories, but those two stick with me and I'd wager are what most readers remember from the collection.

I've meant to get some of his other stories and read them, but never seem to get around to it.
 
I managed to finish it this time, on the third attempt—starting again at the beginning rather than where I had left off—though having read all the way to the end, I rather wish I hadn't taken the time, since the first four stories in the collection are clearly the most worth reading. Part way through, it turns into another sort of book entirely, leaving behind the weird/horror fiction for rather insipid romances about art students in Paris. (Probably considered rather racy at the time they were written, since there are sufficient hints that the women in these stories have been or are still selling their favors—either for love or survival.)

I thought "The Repairer of Reputations" might be the best—which is not to say that I enjoyed it, because I found it too disturbing for that. Not just because of the madness of the main character, but because of the setting: a purportedly Utopian America, which seemed quite horrifying to me (and prefigured authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century, including Nazi Germany, though these stories were first published when Hitler was a child of six). Since the narrator is clearly insane, it is hard to say how much of this readers are supposed to accept as real, and how much we should dismiss as the babblings of a madman. But obviously, it was meant to be disturbing and succeeded, so that is why I admire it, and yet, having apparently read it twice before, I didn't remember it all.

"The Yellow Sign" was also quite creepy, and I did remember that one, so perhaps it was the most effective after all. Anyway, I think it was my favorite.

A thread of madness runs through the early stories, whether or not it is explicitly stated. It's too bad we don't learn more about the King in Yellow, after those first stories. It's an intriguing idea—the play that holds truths so terrific and horrifying that it induces madness in those who read it—and it is disappointing that he didn't develop it further. Though perhaps he felt that by leaving it so mysterious it had more impact that way, and I suppose he might even have been right about that—still, I was disappointed.
 
This is such a perfect summary of the collection Teresa, and how I feel.

I was wondering whether to post to this thread/admit today that I had given up after the First Shell story

I kind of enjoyed it inasmuch as it was easier to follow and the alt-history of the attack on Montmatre was well rendered, but it was a chore.

I’m ashamed to say I was after some bubble gum nonsense so I’m now reading the novelisation of Alan Wake (a video game a la Stephen King meets Twin Peaks).

It was that or Jane Ayre, something by Thomas Hardy (couldn’t decide which as Jude and Tess are too miserable) or Pat Conroy’s (who @TheDustyZebra introduced me to years ago when she bought me the heartbreakingly outstanding Beach Music) South of Broad.

But I wanted something eerie so stuck with the weird/horror element.

Here’s the stupid thing. The only reason I bought and then began reading TKIY was because I had picked up a recent anthology with some of my favourite modern horror writers writing in that universe. In the foreword or introduction the editor had said it’s not crucial to have read the original text, but it might make for a more enjoyable experience.

So off I went to Amazon and clicked ‘add to basket’ and here we are a week later…

What I really want to read is something the way Rebecca or Wuthering Heights made me feel.
 
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Phyrebrat said:
What I really want to read is something the way Rebecca or Wuthering Heights made me feel.
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Watched the 1997 adaptation of Rebecca twice - really love that story. I'll have to read it. It didn't occur to me that it was "gothic", but it would be hard to classify it as anything else.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
What was the title of that anthology, and would you recommend it?
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I’ve not read past the foreword/intro so cannot comment yet but I picked it up because of John Langan’s having contributed.

IMG_7229.jpeg
 
Swank said:
Watched the 1997 adaptation of Rebecca twice - really love that story. I'll have to read it. It didn't occur to me that it was "gothic", but it would be hard to classify it as anything else.
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The opening is one of my favourite lines. Often I reread the dream bit when I’m working on a 75/300 challenge entry. Seems to really inspire me.

I think I’ve only seen the Hitchcock film adaptation
 
Phyrebrat said:
The opening is one of my favourite lines. Often I reread the dream bit when I’m working on a 75/300 challenge entry. Seems to really inspire me.

I think I’ve only seen the Hitchcock film adaptation
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Now I want to watch the that 1940 version and the 1979 version with Jeremy Brett. (Because it is Jeremy Brett, yo.)
 
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