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The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories
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KIY first 4 stories - BIG SPOILER thread
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Last three stories? Mine has 10 in full, everything listed on the wikipedia page--Are there differences in edition?
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Where did you get your book from, Nate?
The dollar bin at the Strand. Cheaply made recent edition, of which I think there are many since it's out of copyright.Prophet's Paradise is worth a look. By far the most cryptic entry in the volume, a set of short, almost palindromatic sketches that repeat or invert themselves, arguably (though maybe only aspirationally) relevant to the King in Yellow's text. Check it out in an online version, it's only a couple pages.
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Prophet's Paradise is worth a look. By far the most cryptic entry in the vol..."
Ah, those dollar bins can be treasure troves if one has the time to sift through the inevitable drek.
Thanks, I'll certainly look it up!
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A. wrote: "Okay, now I'm heading out on a limb.
1. You could say the main characters in each of the four stories have a "mask of self-deception" that gets torn away by reading TKIY. That's the whole purpose of TKIY: to strip away masks. I'll take the stories in order:
a. I think Hildred is actually deceived twice. When he's insane, he thinks he can become the Emperor of America by getting rid of his cousin; but what other self-deception did he have? I think that before his head injury and reading TKIY, he was probably already jealous of Louis' success - but this is based on my reading of the other three stories. If they weren't there, I wouldn't necessarily have caught that. Oh, and incidentally, at one point when Hildred looks in the mirror, he describes his reflection as looking pale and skeletal - like the KIY.
b. Alec describes his mask plainly. He's pretending to be okay with the fact that Genevieve chose Boris and that he can still be friends with both of them.
c. The narrator of "The Court of the Dragon" is deceived about his faith. He's been going to church for ages without really believing. Reading TKIY exposes his hypocrisy.
d. Jack Scott in the fourth story deceives himself that he can be fair in his treatment of Tillie, and he also deceives himself in thinking he's a man of the world. When he reads TKIY, he gets his eyes opened and realizes he was an innocent before and now he's not.
2. That new element Boris discovered *has* to mean something. If it's a symbol, my best guess is that it relates to the new element in the trio's relationship: that Genevieve really loves Alec more. In fact, it's possible that the new element caused the change in her.
3. The white rabbit makes me think of innocence (because of the color) and Alice in Wonderland. The characters all do go down a rabbit hole.
4. In his delirium, Alec sees "the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it." I wonder if this relates to Boris' pool. He does seem to be obsessed with it.
5. In "The Prophet's Paradise" there's a section called "The Phantom" that includes this quote: "The Phantom of the Past would go no further./ “If it is true,� she sighed, “that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together. You will forget, here, under the summer sky.� /I held her close, pleading, caressing; I seized her, white with anger, but she resisted." Then the scene repeats. What if this relates to Alec and Genevieve? If she's really dead and stays dead, then she *is* a phantom of the past that can go no further - and only wanted to be friends. But reading TKIY causes Alec to fantasize a new life for her - with him as her lover instead of Boris.
6. Petrification is a powerful symbol: things staying the same, not being able to change - but also not being able to live. I think this relates again to the quote from "The Prophet's Paradise." For Boris, petrification is a symbol of things staying the same, of Genevieve staying with him and not changing her mind. For Alec, petrification is reversible - Genevieve can change her mind. Alec imagines(?) Genevieve petrifying herself but then recovering at a time when she can love him without Boris getting in the way.
5. Alec's "one sane thought" during his delirium was that he had some responsibility to Boris and Genevieve. My guess is that's his obsessive thought and not sane at all. He's using it to justify his wanting Genevieve revived and with him because that way he can protect her and do a friendly duty to the dead Boris.
Like I said, I really don't think I get this story. But my best guess is that Boris genuinely died of a heart attack and Genevieve never chose Alec, did get petrified, and didn't recover from petrification - although I'm not entirely sure she was ever petrified. Alec could have imagined that part too. Heck, maybe she just died like Boris died. "
Reading that, I discovered that my copy of KIY does not contain "The Prophet's Paradise", so I'm off in search of it...
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Thanks, Amy, heading there now. I won't mind if you comment in the meantime... do you think we need to make a thread for "Prophet's Paradise"? I think it would be fine if we simply included it in the discussion here, eh?
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Oh, I see Gutenberg has become pretty polished since I last grabbed books there.
Although Cassilda's Song is in the Feedbooks version, I missed it. I'm going to repost it here in case anybody else missed it. (I know you referred to it in one of the threads, Amy, but I wasn't sure where it was!)
Interesting dedication as well.
THE KING IN YELLOW IS DEDICATED TO MY BROTHER
Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2.
Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.
==============
Hm, I glanced at Prophet's Paradise, and it seems as if it's going to require some time to parse...
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1. You could say the main characters in each of the four stories have a "mask of self-deception" that gets torn away by reading TKIY. That's the whole purpose of TKIY: to strip away masks.
Yes, that is true. I didn't notice it yet until we got to The Mask, so I didn't see it in the first story, so, nicely pulled together, there, A.
Also, I didn't get the White Rabbit at once, but now you mention it, it seems obvious!
Also, magicians use white rabbits to make them disappear into their hats, so white rabbit => illusion .
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What if there's a section for each story? or maybe it's all mixed up.... :( Some imagery in THE STUDIO might point to medieval furnishings, which made me think of the armorer in the first story, but...
Some lines/stanza's/paragraphs in almost all of the 'stories' repeat themselves, and most of the repetitions are creepy!.
When you read this one, you have to pinch yourself to remember that this was published before WWI:
THE SACRIFICE
I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.
Far afield a woman cried, "I have killed him I loved!" and from a jar she poured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.
Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while from within the fresh blood bubbled to the brim.
"I have killed him I loved!" she cried. "The world's athirst; now let it drink!" She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.
If he had written it after WWI, I would have interpreted it as the woman being the governments of the warring nations, and the 'lover', their countries being destroyed; but maybe it does refer to war in any case.
I really want to know what that imagery means.
PS, this looks like a nice copy for someone who doesn't mind reading online:
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1. "Repairer of Reputations" is exactly as it seems, in spite of its unreliable narrator: Hildred Castaigne reads the play The King in Yellow, goes insane, and attacks and kills Wilde, and is taken back into custody with minor injury to his cousin Luis and Luis' fiance Constance. Through later stories, we learn that it really was the reading of the play that drives him mad.
2. "The Mask" is still the story that is so difficult to fit in any pattern. Alec only glances at the very beginning of the play, and the other stories make it clear that it is the second act of the play that causes madness, not the first (although even a glance at the second act is enough to bring instant madness). So he is not the madman. It is quite possible that either Boris or Genevieve or both have read it, though. If that is true, then this is the only story that has outright supernatural elements (i.e. the statues) with no influence from the play (the story opens with Boris showing Alec his new process before Alec ever touches the play). But what exactly happens here? (And why was Jack Scott so agitated that Alec stay put? That is still driving me batty.)
3. "The Court of the Dragon": A. really has done a much better, closer reading than I have, but I'm resistant to the idea of the evil organist (guise of the King in Yellow come in person) being a representation of Christ unresurrected. I read this as the organist being, if anything, a kind of satan (accuser), in keeping with the Dragon of the title, but I read the end as being the King in Yellow usurping the place of God, i.e. he is the living god and there can be no escape from him; he has taken the narrator's soul.
4. "The Yellow Sign" becomes the culmination of the three previous stories. Jack Scott is now our narrator, and he mentions that he knew Castaigne (although he does not mention Alec or Genevieve - crazy making!). So how does the third story tie in? An organist is mentioned, but it's not clear if it could be the same one. That's a big string to leave dangling! So as I read the unfortunate culmination, it began to seem to me that the church watchman/living corpse (who has been dead for months before being summoned by the yellow sign to attack Tessie and Jack) is most likely the damned narrator from the Court of the Dragon.
What do you think?
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Re #3: Interesting thought about the Yellow King having replaced the Living God in the narrator's mind ; yes, I was thinking along the same lines with my point about him now seeing "the religion of the Yellow King" as having supplanted his Christian Catholic structure - The Yellow King and his minions and the KIY mindset has now invaded the poor guy's perception of his religion. Remember the rules work as such: If he's read the KIY, he is already crazy, so all of this that he experiences, is not "real" but how he perceives them.
Re #4 : ...it is true that both Jack and Tessie 'dream' about the guardsman pulling the hearse before either of them read the play, and his painting also becomes corrupt BEFORE he reads the play, and that puzzles me a bit, because as far as I have figured the KIY mythos out by now, various experiences around TKIY are manifestations of madness - or does anybody else get that the KIY phenomenon bleeds into reality as well, and becomes part of reality once someone has read it? I had assumed that all of the Yellowy happenings were taking place only in the minds of those that had read the second part.
Initially I had thought that the guardsman had killed the couple, but later on I started wondering if it had not perhaps been the other way round- that he was just a normal bloke and they hallucinated his 'deadness'. There is the nose, granted, and the outside person who had also experienced the guardman as a zombie, but that 'could' have been how Jack saw events after he went insane, as part of the grand delusion?
The guardsman in story 4 also reminded me of the organist and the stranger in story 3. Are they manifestations of the same creature?
Hmm, interesting that you seem to see the previous narrator in him, Amy - but why would he be ...by the same token, is the stranger/organist in story 3 then the narrator from stories one or two? Very perplexing...
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..as Derek also remarked elsewhere, if I'm not mistaken...
Okay, these are my combined responses to Amy and Traveller.1. I'm not sure who killed Wilde. It didn't occur to me that Castaigne was the murderer until I read the discussion page for that story. I assumed Vance did it, but I really don't know. Anyway, there's definitely something very weird about that cat and its relationship to Wilde, but I'm not sure what to make of it and I don't think a real cat could kill a human being that way. Maybe the cat never existed and Wilde was really wrestling Castaigne at least intellectually if not physically until the end. Hmm, the name "Castaigne" does have "cat" in it.
2. Amy, I disagree with you about this one. I know Alec says he barely glanced at the book, but the visions he has during his delirium are of things that were in the second half. That means he's either lying or genuinely deluded about how much he read. Delusion seems likely, especially if he's trying to give himself a happy ending with Genevieve. Boris and/or Genevieve could certainly have read the book too, but I don't see any evidence of them being insane, just depressed. The thing about Jack Scott being agitated could be explained a couple of ways. One, he *didn't* tell Alec to stay put; Alec just imagined Jack said that. And two, Jack really did have a premonition - which does fit within the context of his own story, since he and Tessie both have premonitions there (well, maybe - see below).
3. Amy's theory makes as much sense to me as my own does. ;-/
4a. I think I know the timeline. Jack's story is chronologically last because he remembers what happened to Castaigne, and since he dies almost immediately after reading TKIY, his story must take place *after* Alec's story. Alec's story must be chronologically first because Boris is still working on The Fates, and that sculpture is finished in Hildred's story. So the order is Alec first, Hildred second, and Jack last. And when you put them in that order, you see an increase over time in the power of TKIY to affect minds and lives. Alec has a relatively harmless delusion in comparison with the others, Hildred is a nutcase and a murderer, and Jack/Tessie see physical manifestations of the book's power before they even read it (well, maybe - see below).
4b. Chronologically, I have no idea where to put the unnamed narrator of #3. I suppose he *could* be the watchman from Jack's story, just because it would make sense for all four stories to tie together. But is there any evidence that he's the watchman? Could he be someone else from one of the other stories?
4c. It is problematic that Jack and Tessie have premonitions of death before they read the book, and that Jack's painting is affected. One possible explanation is that it's because the book was sitting on Jack's shelf. But that begs a larger question: how did the book *get onto* Jack's shelf? I wonder if perhaps Alec put it there while visiting Jack. Alternately, maybe Jack (and also maybe Tessie) read the book before the start of the story but forgot they read it. That would mean all the physical manifestations except the watchmen (more on him in a minute) were delusions.
4d. This whole story is written by Jack as he's dying. That makes it the only story of the four that we know is told *in full* from a madman's point of view (Even Hildred gives us a sane point of view at the beginning). But that calls every @#$%* thing in the story into question, so I'm going to proceed as if at least some of it is true and try to figure out which bits *are* true.
4e. If we believe Thomas really spoke to Jack about the watchman, then the watchman is real, but that doesn't necessarily mean Thomas actually broke a finger off the man (Maybe the man was just missing a finger and Jack made up an explanation for it). Likewise, the watchman could really be dead in Jack's apartment but *not* be a months-old corpse. He could be newly dead, and Jack could have killed him.
4f. My 4a and 4e contradict each other. Either the book is growing in power or else Jack's story is mostly delusion. Or maybe both are true. Heck, I don't know.
4g. What's up with Sylvia? Jack talks about her as if she's dead and buried, but then he hopes she'll return: "The one passion of my life lay buried in the sunlit forests of Brittany. Was it buried for ever? Hope cried "No!" For three years I had been listening to the voice of Hope, and for three years I had waited for a footstep on my threshold. Had Sylvia forgotten? "No!" cried Hope." ... So either Sylvia *isn't* dead, or else Jack is already delusional at this point in the story.
4f. I haven't finished the whole anthology yet, but I've read "The Street of the Four Winds." It's interesting that (view spoiler)
4g. The idea of Sylvia being dead in Brittany also resonates with "The Demoiselle D'Ys," but again we have the narrator's name, and it's not Jack Scott.
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...but okay, then I guess we must make time to read them as well, if they'll help at all with unraveling these mysteries. ;)
A. wrote: "But that begs a larger question: how did the book *get onto* Jack's shelf? I wonder if perhaps Alec put it there while visiting Jack.."
I realized only after reading your post that I had simply assumed that "Mr Scott' was Jack Scott; I googled the name, and I found this:
Let me copy and paste the salient points:
There are two characters in The King In Yellow with the surname Scott, both artists; as the second lacks a forename, it is likely they are the same character.
Jack Scott is a character in The Mask. He is a friend of Boris Yvain and Alec.
Mr Scott is a character in The Yellow Sign. His model is Tessie. Three years earlier he dated a woman called Sylvia.
Reconciling The Two
Jack Scott was in Paris during the events of The Mask, which must occur before The Repairer of Reputations as Boris Yvain is dead by then. Mr Scott and Tessie live in New York City. As Hildred Castaigne is dead by the time of The Yellow Sign, that story must take place after The Repairer of Reputations. If Sylvia is connected with one or both of the other Sylvias in The King In Yellow, she would most likely have dated him in Paris, putting him there three years earlier, say two years before The Repairer of Reputations, which fits neatly.
Interestingly, the artist Jack Trent also dated a Sylvia, which (running with hints in The Repairer of Reputations) may imply that Jack Scott is his equivalent in a fictional or alternate timeline.
Oh, the webs you spin, Mr Chambers!
A. wrote: "4e. If we believe Thomas really spoke to Jack about the watchman, then the watchman is real, but that doesn't necessarily mean Thomas actually broke a finger off the man (Maybe the man was just missing a finger and Jack made up an explanation for it). Likewise, the watchman could really be dead in Jack's apartment but *not* be a months-old corpse. He could be newly dead, and Jack could have killed him. .."
Yeah, I have felt that way as well, and I don't really think your a and e contradict one another if you bend a a bit...
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Actually, for that matter, you might enjoy Jeff VanderMeer's work as well....
Thread for story 5 (The Demoiselle d'Ys.) is here: /topic/show/...
Will get around to making one for story 6 soon - haven't read story 5 yet, so will try to hurry up...
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Traveller: What you found out about Jack Scott vs. Mr. Scott irks me no end! I just refuse to believe they're not the same person! ;-P Putting him in Paris at the time of "Repairer" might "fit neatly," but that doesn't mean it's true! Both Scotts are painters, and he could have traveled from one continent to the other during that period of time. Chambers does seem hugely hung up on the name "Sylvia," though. I wonder why.Unfortunately, I haven't read that Shirley Jackson book (although I'm sure I'd love it) and am too caught up right now in reading "tangential Lovecraft" like The King in Yellow to jump into anything else. Plus, I write books of my own and am nearing the end of one of them, so I'm pretty tied up.
I already am a huge fan of Jeff VanderMeer and had a lot of input in the spoiler thread for the Southern Reach trilogy. Here's that thread.
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(That site I linked to isn't necessarily right....)
Re Southern Reach, I haven't read it yet and will be doing it with this group here in January 2016. :)
Well, give me a heads-up when you start talking Southern Reach. I will definitely join in. I *loved* that series!
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The Yellow Sign & Other Stories by Robert W. Chambers, edited by S.T. Joshi. It's got all of Chambers' Weird tales. Joshi says in the introduction that only the first six stories are fantastical and only the first four are related. The remaining four stories have no connection to KIY. (That was my conclusion when I read the other stories as well; Chambers loves the names Sylvia and Jack, but those other Sylvias and Jacks are different people.) I will leaf through this tonight and see if there is any more useful information for our hunt and comment more tomorrow when I'm at a real computer.
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The Yellow Sign & Other Stories by [author:Robert W..."
Ah, S.T. Joshi! Yes, he's an expert on The Weird - he wrote/collected some stuff around Lovecraft as well. Nice!
A. wrote: "Well, give me a heads-up when you start talking Southern Reach. I will definitely join in. I *loved* that series!"
Will do! Have you read any of his Amergris stories, btw?
Traveller wrote: "Have you read any of his Amergris stories, btw?"Yep, I've read the whole Ambergris series. I wasn't crazy about Shriek, but I liked City of Saints and Madmen (particularly "Dradin, in Love") and really loved Finch. Still, the Southern Reach trilogy resonated with me more than the Ambergris trilogy. Just a matter of taste.
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Yep, I've read the whole Ambergris series. I wasn't crazy about Shriek, but I liked City of Saints and Madmen (particularly "Drad..."
It would be nice if you had time to drop in on those discussions as well. COSAM here: /topic/group...
It's been going slow because looks like there's only mainly 2 of us interested, sadly - but I'd certainly like to discuss more if more people jumped in....
OMG! If I keep jumping into all these discussions, I'll spend my whole day talking about books! I very, very much want to join in on these other discussions (especially the one about Dradin), but I have a lot going on here and really need to do some work. :-(
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I'm sorry to report that, while Joshi's style is delicious (his reputation as a cranky critic is well deserved), he provided no further commentary than the introduction for the anthology. He does not seem to think Chambers himself made any particularly serious go at rendering a coherent mythos for his KIY stories, so no help in that regard.
I started rereading, but I didn't make it very far. I think I am going to have to set this aside and come back to it after a few other things get done (*cough* review of COSAM *cough*).
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...and that also means we should revive the COSAM discussion before it becomes stale in our minds!
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On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
The Yellow Sign and Other Stories (other topics)The Yellow Sign and Other Stories (other topics)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Robert W. Chambers (other topics)S.T. Joshi (other topics)
Jeff VanderMeer (other topics)
Shirley Jackson (other topics)
3sorry, 5 or 6 stories in the book?The main idea here, is to pull all the threads of the stories together to arrive at some sort of synthesis of the world Chambers has created with his Yellow King mythos.