This book is weird, but if you're reading this then you probably already knew that. If you're particularly obsessed with the Lovecraft mythos then you might have heard of this book already, if not then you might have heard of it through True Detective. Aside from that, you probably never heard of it at all. At any rate, the latter was how I first discovered it, and with good reason because the show draws inspiration from the very best aspects of the book. And when book is good, it's really something. Thing is though, the rest of it is, as I've said, weird... As you may know, the book consists of a collection of nine short stories plus one collection of eight prose poems. Its title comes from a play, existing only within the book itself, called The King in Yellow, a book so bizarre that all of its readers are driven to absolute madness. Its author is said to have attempted suicide, though he, perhaps tragically, survived. His book is meant to have some kind of deep, almost divinely inspired wisdom running through its pages, tales of bizarre places, mythical cities that lack all logic and sense, cities which are unlikely to have been built by human hands... And at the center of it all, in a status as exalted as that of God, is the King in Yellow himself, a king whom emperors have served, a strange malignant entity whose existence is never made clear.
On that note it's easy to see why Lovecraft became so enamored with Chambers, and it's easy to see why True Detective viewers were so terrified, as well as intrigued, by its Yellow King, its spirals, the black stars and, of course, Carcosa. It's a neat trick actually – leave them wanting more. Isn't that what they say? It seems to work particularly well for horror stories but it also leaves fans divided. Is there an actual mystery of the Hyades? Is the lake of Hali an actual place the author conceived of? What's the meaning of the black stars in Carcosa? What does the pallid mask really look like?... Can we ask all that or did the writer just randomly come up with some cool stuff that he didn't actually put that much thought into? After he's dead I suppose it don't really matter, the work takes on a life of its own and it's up to us to figure it out. But the questions still remain. Some people will read the infamous Carcosa poem and dismiss it as pretty drivel, as nothing more than fanciful writing to drum up the business, but other people will keep going back to it, always wanting to piece it together, hoping that the book within the book is actually somehow real... I for one find myself somewhere in between.
The first time I read the book I didn't like it at all. A strong reason for my dislike was that, though beautifully written as far as the english language itself goes, Chambers' style is a little alienating. It can be hard to follow what's going on, who is who and just what the hell is happening, especially if you are going through the pages with eager anticipation for more revelations of the King in Yellow. It seems like a real page-turner until you get to the end and realize that the whole story went right through you. In that sense his style is also a kind of meandering one, with lots of pages detailing events that are more or less secondary to the overall plot, and overcoming that initial difficulty is something I've been working on with my subsequent readings. But the main reason for that first dislike, the reason why the book is often met with average reviews, the reason why the book is often sold incomplete, is that the King in Yellow, either as an entity or book, is only referenced in the first four stories. So if after finishing the fourth you are left with questions, which you will be, then you're out of luck. The fifth and seventh stories are still creepy enough, if you're a fan of horror literature you might like them, but that dreaded figure won't appear anymore. And perhaps weirder still, the last three stories aren't even horror at all, they are romantic literature about a vast array of characters going about their bohemian lives. I almost wanna say that Chambers is the lovechild between H. P. Lovecraft and Marcel Proust.
As for me, I admit I considered writing an individual blog post for each of the ten stories in the book, but as I went through it on what was my third reading, I realized I wouldn't have that much to say. My understanding of the book gradually wanes, and my comprehension, even of its plot, escapes me. Furthermore, when I changed my mind about that series of articles, I thought of writing an individual segment for each story, something which I also couldn't do. You'll see what I mean when we get there... Until then, well, it is what it is, I suppose.
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THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS
The very first story is set in a kind of alternate future of the United States. Indeed, the first few paragraphs even read like news clippings, with all their constant references to strange names of politicians and branches of government. The whole thing is rather strange and hard to follow but I think that is precisely the point, I think it's meant to be gibberish because it's all fake, particularly the claims of legalized suicide, an action which is now able to be undertaken in lethal chambers spread throughout the city – If death is welcome, let him seek it there.
Our protagonist is Hildred Castaigne, a man who was released from an asylum after his doctor concluded that he was never insane and therefore should never have been there to begin with. It all began with a fall from his horse, after which the beast is said to have taken a bullet to the head, one of the many instances of animal cruelty in the book. And interestingly though, during his recovery, Hildred read, and became fascinated by, The King in Yellow.
Having changed into an apathetic demeanor, Hildred goes about his day with a distinct air of superiority about everything, a kind of feeling that nothing anyone does is of any importance compared to his life's work. He visits an armorer whose daughter, Constance, is enamored with another Castaigne, Hildred's cousin Louis. But that visit is rather brief, in fact, he only swings by because he likes the clang sounds of the armorer at work and because the shop is adjoined with the house of a man named Mr. Wilde, a strange recluse, a very short man with missing fingers, artificial ears and who works a profession from which the story's title derives. And I suppose that is exactly what it sounds like – he receives payment from people who seek to have their reputation repaired after some incriminating incident. It is implied that Mr. Wilde is very successful, albeit unpleasant, and has many workers at his command. As such, Hildred holds him in very high regard, considers him to be nothing short of a genius, perhaps even a prophet, a man who could be a millionaire if he cared about such lowly things. The only thing that Hildred dislikes about the man is his insistence in keeping a feral cat which often growls and hisses and strikes.
At some point, Louis comes to visit Hildred at home and finds him dressed in a embroidered robe, fiddling with an imposing safe triggered by an alarm combination, and wearing a gold diadem encrusted with diamonds. However, Louis appears not to hear the alarm sounds, he says the gold diadem is actually brass worth fifty cents, and as to the imposing safe he calls it a biscuit box. Still, always understanding of his cousin, Louis brushes all that aside and shares the news of his engagement to Constance. For that reason, Hildred asks Louis to meet him out in the street at midnight, something which Louis agrees to since he's always careful so as to not offend his cousin. But before that, Hildred meets with Mr. Wilde once again and they seem to perform some sort of ceremony whereby Hildred will be crowned Hildred-Rex. They initiate a troubled man named Vance in their plans and send him off with a sharp knife. Hildred then wanders through the street, wearing the strange diadem, clad in the kingly robe, and going to meet with Louis. As he goes along he gives a homeless person some money and to another he gives a drawing of what he calls “the yellow sign” and then he watches someone walk into a lethal chamber which, on second thought, might actually just be a metro station.
He finally confronts Louis, blatantly tells him he must never marry and that he must be exiled. He tells him that by now Vance has likely killed the doctor, the armorer and Constance, something which, upon hearing, Louis runs off in a hurry. Hildred believes he has been crowned and his plan has finally come to fruition, but instead he comes to find that Vance didn't actually kill anyone, everyone remains unarmed, or rather, everyone except for Mr. Wilde who appears to have been killed by the cat. Hildred strikes the creature and, though it disappears in the shadows, Hildred is convinced to have struck it with deadly force. Hildred is then apprehended by the police and shouts that Louis has seized the throne for himself, but warns him of being crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow... Lastly, we get an editor's note informing us of Hildred's death in an insane asylum.
So we have here a good start for the whole book. Not only is the narrator unreliable but he's also completely mad. Though interestingly, Chambers doesn't reveal much about the protagonist's stay in the asylum nor of his first discovery of the book which drove him mad. All we get from the play itself are details remembered by the protagonist after reading it – I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth–a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.
And as for the beginning itself, I for one try to avoid that sort of stuff though I understand it's not in Chambers' style, nor Lovecraft's for that matter. The story is set within the real world, with real nations, places, streets and languages, but it is rather interesting how it flips so much specific world-building on its head. Lastly, it shouldn't be left unsaid that Hildred's arrogance and mad ravings are beautifully conveyed by Chambers' flawless writing style.
THE MASK
The second story is set in France, a place of great importance to Chambers. The protagonist is a man named Alec who is involved in something of a love triangle between his friend Boris and his betrothed Geneviève. Boris, being the oldest, appears to live in a large estate, and thus he has Alec over quite often, all three of them being young and reckless art students, or at least involved with fine arts one way or another, which is also a recurring theme in the book. Boris is working on a strange alchemy, he can apparently transform living beings, like a flower, a white rabbit and a goldfish, into a perfect marble sculpture by dipping them into a liquid of uncertain properties. When Boris is about to perform one of those experiences, Alec excuses himself, not wanting to see the rabbit die, and so he finds a neat room to read a book in, and of course, he coincidentally chooses The King in Yellow.
After that bizarre night, Geneviève falls ill with a fever she won't quite recover from. She seems to be going madder and madder, gaining some brief consciousness only to reveal that she has feelings for Alec as well. Alec later falls ill too, unsure of whether what he really feels is an illness or a mixture of guilt for his lust for Geneviève, knowing she is engaged to his best friend. During his illness, Alec imagines Boris coming to visit him, something which he can't quite know if it truly happened or not, especially because his fever dreams were consumed by visions of the lake of Hali, and Carcosa, and Cassilda's desperate plea – Not upon us, O King, not upon us!
Alec does indeed recover only to learn that Geneviève has flung herself into the pool of chemicals and becoming petrified into a statue, leading Boris to shoot himself immediately after. Alec then learns that Boris has left him the estate in his will. He moves in and slowly realizes that the white rabbit and the fish appear to have returned from their marble state... and then he finds Geneviève's marble statue, apparently returning to her old self as if awakened from a peaceful sleep.
For this one we don't have as much of an unreliable narrator, or at least not a mad one, but we do get a glimpse of what happens to an everyday person when visited upon by the King in Yellow. In a word, things simply go from normal to inexplicably awful... People go mad and fall ill, they have fever dreams which are indistinguishable from revelations, they feel every detail of the book echoing through their minds at all times... It's a truth they can no longer look back from, and few, or none, can truly behold it. The meaning of this one's title is alluded to in the epigraph for the story which consists of a brief passage from The King in Yellow, a fragment in which a stranger approaches, Camilla tells him to unmask, Cassilda reiterates the request, and the stranger then admits he wears no mask, something which causes great horror to both ladies of the court. Perhaps the pallid mask is the King's own face, a vision that strikes such horror in the faces of those who behold it, a revelation so ugly that madness and submission become the only means of escape... And as to this one's ending I'm not so sure. It's almost as if Alec got what he wanted – the estate is his, Boris is out of the picture, and Geneviève is alive. Though perhaps he's doomed to live the rest of his life with a woman who may not be her true self, and he might just be forever trapped in a house where the statues themselves might be alive, and watching.
IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON
This story is set in a church. The unnamed protagonist is trying to listen to a sermon but he's consumed by his own thoughts and gradually obsessed with the strange-looking church organist, so much so that the protagonist stops listening the preacher's sermon about the power of the human soul, which has nothing to fear because nothing in this world can truly harm it. But the protagonist just can't focus on it, the church organist keeps staring at him with his pale, dead face, in such stark contrast with his pitch-black coat. The man's presence is overwhelming, almost sickening and feverish... The sermon ends, the protagonist walks out and tries to run home but he's constantly chased by that presence, a seemingly unstoppable force that apparently never tires and never will, not until the protagonist chooses to defy him.
Upon doing so he finds himself at the church once again, at the very end of the sermon. It would seem that the whole thing was a dream, or perhaps maybe more of a vision because the protagonist is convinced that he really did escape that entity. But as he walks out, the church organ sounds out loud, the people fade away, the black stars appear in the heavens, the winds from the lake of Hali blow on his face, and of course, lost Carcosa rises from behind the moon. Then he hears the King in Yellow himself whisper to him – It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! The end.
I suppose the most striking thing about this one is that the protagonist claims that it was the King in Yellow who spoke to him, not Camilla nor Cassilda, not the church organist, but the King himself. And his words were a direct quote from the Bible, it is from Hebrews 10:31, meaning that dying and returning to God is a fearful thing if one lacks faith or atonement for his or her sins. On that note, the story seems to be that of a church-going man being haunted by his own demons, being chased by a past he is forever unable to escape from. And the King in Yellow freely and ironically quoting from the Bible gives him a distinct satanic quality but, within the book, do we assume he is as powerful as God himself or just a demon? Or maybe he really is God?... It's hard to say. As for the title, it refers to the street in which the protagonist confronts his pursuer, a street with a dragon statue. However, Satan is often depicted or described as a serpent or a dragon, and in continuing with the satanic comparisons, it could be said that the court of the dragon in fact refers to the court of the King in Yellow.
THE YELLOW SIGN
This story might just be the best but it is sadly the last one within the King in Yellow mythos. The story begins with a painter named Scott who, similarly to the previous story, keeps getting distracted by a church watchman who just won't stop staring at his window. The watchman wears a black coat and has a completely pale face, reminiscent of a coffin worm, similarly to the church organist. Scott tries to ignore it and focuses on painting a portrait of his favorite model, Tessie. But the watchman still occupies his mind and so the protagonist accidentally paints the model's face so as to look quite sallow and ugly. She sees it and they decide it's best to take a break. It is then that she tells him of a dream she had – she dreamed she was woken up in the middle of the night, she went over to the window and saw a hearse being driven by that very watchman, and inside the hearse's coffin was Scott... He tries to calm her down, telling her that dreams are just the power of suggestion and thus mean nothing. Their bond grows stronger but he thinks of how, though it could never work due to their age differences, he does love her. Then again, he also wistfully reminisces of a woman named Sylvia, presumably a former lover of his.
The next day, Scott tells Tessie of his own dream, precisely the same as hers, only he dreamed he was in the hearse the entire time, but in his dream a voice asked him three times if he had found the yellow sign... Strangely enough, Tessie brings him a gift, a serpent-skin box containing what we can assume to be the sign itself, a box she found last winter, and since no one claimed it, she kept it. Then, in a playful scene, or perhaps a hint of madness, Tessie mysteriously finds a copy of The King in Yellow, a book the protagonist claims to never have gone near to, let alone purchased, and so she playfully runs around the house with it. Scott looks all over for Tessie but when he finds her it's too late, she has read it and has been consumed by its madness – At first glance I saw she had been punished for her foolishness. The King in Yellow lay at her feet; but the book was open at the second part. I looked at Tessie and saw it was too late.
Scott joins her, they spend an undetermined amount of time together simply reading the book, gaining a deep understanding of its mysteries and sick truths, all the while the rest of the world seems to have ceased to exist... Then a man barges in and tries to take the yellow sign by force. Tessie just can't take it anymore and gives up the ghost. The man is defeated only to be revealed as the church watchman, who had apparently been dead for months. The rest of the story is revealed to be a sort of written confession which ends mid-sentence with the protagonist's apparent death.
Sadly, there will be no more King in Yellow after this. I suppose in some way this story is a synthesis of all the previous ones – we have some of the madness of Hildred, whom Scott actually claims to have known, we have the bohemian lifestyle and the romantic subplot similar to that of Alec and Geneviève, and we have some sort of necromancy and this dread of constantly being chased, echoing the third story. The protagonist dying mid-sentence is a better touch than the editor's note found at the end of The Repairer of Reputations as it doesn't break the first person perspective and it continues in this constant uncertainty between real illness and the supernatural. Because in truth can we really trust any of these protagonists? Can we trust their grasp on reality?
THE DEMOISELLE D'YS
Now we get our first shift. There's no more King in Yellow but this is still a weird horror story. Our protagonist is Philip, a man who is traveling through a land called Kerselec, somewhere in France, a land of moors which is said to be very easy to enter but that it may take centuries to escape from. As Philip is seemingly lost, a beautiful woman wanders by, a falconer who lives in those lands. Struck by her beauty, Philip asks her for directions, they start up a conversation and he, in trying to be eloquent, insults her by claiming those moors are beautiful and cruel, like a woman. She then aims to prove him wrong by inviting him to her homestead, a reclusive place where she lives with other falconers and an old nurse. Weirdly enough, one of those falconers is called Hastur, one of the mythical places within the King in Yellow mythos, but it appears to have no relation to previous stories... As Philip is welcomed as an honored guest he falls more and more in love with the woman, whose is name revealed to be Jeanne d'Ys, a homophone for the word “jaundice” which is a liver disease that turns one's skin yellow. And stranger still, Philip notices how in that homestead everyone speaks french of the middle ages and they appear to have no technology, or indeed any knowledge, of modern times.
Eventually Philip meets with Jeanne for a little falconry lesson and decides to seize the opportunity to confess his love for her, but just then, seemingly out of nowhere, a venomous grass snake approaches. Philip embraces Jeanne and kisses her, the snake bites him on the ankle and he crushes its head in retaliation. The venom gets to him, he faints and, after an uncertain amount of time, he awakes to find the grave of Jeanne d'Ys, who died in 1573 for her love of a stranger named Philip.
This one's ending is well worth it but the thing with this story is that we have to go through quite a few pages of meandering detail to get to it. Chambers seems to lose himself in the specifics of falconry, especially with the added barrier of it being mostly in the french language, which he loved but it does make the text alienating to readers who don't speak it and thus have to constantly browse for translations. And at this point we start to notice a recurring theme among the female characters, something which will become more prominent later on because it would seem that our author is quite the bleeding heart. Lastly, there is something to be said for the feel of this story in the sense that it gives off a certain comfortable feeling, namely this idea of being peacefully welcomed into a strange but beautiful land, and of leading a simple life away from everything. In a way it's almost escapism, though like all great stories, it has to end.
THE PROPHETS' PARADISE
This is the collection of eight prose poems, serving almost as an interlude before the rest of the book. All of the stories begin with brief poems, so it's understandable why Chambers would have written more of them, but it's a bit weird to see this chapter included here. If anything it should have been included before The Demoiselle d'Ys so as to mark that division before continuing the book with stories not related to the King in Yellow. But alas, it is found here, as the sixth entry. In many ways it seems like Chambers, in being so prolific, was also rather pragmatic and figured he might as well include his poems in this book. I suppose it's a natural thing, writers often have a lot of different manuscripts and, when unable to find a home for them, they just stack them into a collection of short stories. As to the meaning of any of these poems, your guess is as good as mine.
The penultimate one sort of stands out though – it talks about a clown who is standing in front of the mirror, powdering his face. The poetical subject asks who can be more beautiful than that clown, with his pale, white mask. Death asks who can be more beautiful than himself, since his face is paler still. Then the clown, turning away from the mirror, tells death that he is very beautiful.
I mention that one because, with its mask references and pale faces symbolizing death, it clearly echoes the previous stories. But I can't say I have anymore to go on... The last poem is quite different though – love tells the poetical subject that if he loves his woman he should present her with jewels, presumably a wedding ring, since he should wait no longer. The subject does so but the woman rejects them and steps on them, asking to be taught to wait, and then she professes her love. Love then tells the subject to wait if their love is true...
As for me I just don't know, I suppose poetry isn't my strong suit. Although it's interesting to note how the penultimate poem is about death and the ultimate one is about love because those two themes are constantly intertwined throughout the book. With the exception of In the Court of the Dragon all previous stories had a romantic subplot, so it would seem that wherever death abounds, love abounds there too.
THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS
This one is similar to The Demoiselle d'Ys in that it contains no King in Yellow references but it is still weird horror. In this one we follow a painter named Severn and we quickly notice that this is the first story told in the third person. Severn is just casually working when a cat shows up at his house. He takes care of it, feeds it, even talks to it, and notices that the cat has a piece of silver and silk attached to its collar. He investigates who the cat's owner might be and concludes that it's one of his neighbors, a woman named Sylvia Elven, a woman about whom people say some nasty things that the protagonist refuses to believe. All he believes is that she is said to be very beautiful. He even claims her name troubles him like the perfume from dead flowers, perhaps a reference to The Mask. He also intimates that, like Scott in The Yellow Sign, in an older life he had a woman named Sylvia, a detail which may explain why he's so intrigued by her name.
Severn takes the cat, walks across the building complex and finds the correct door, which is initially locked but immediately opened after something moves behind it. Severn walks in and finds Sylvia sitting upright but with a distinctly pale face. She is dead... Yet, Severn calls her by name as if she could recognize him. Then the story ends as he kisses her on the lips.
Fun fact – when I first read the book and had it resurfacing in my memory after a few days, I was under the distinct impression that it was the cat who spoke... Weird...
It's difficult to decide whether the similarities with the previous stories are legitimate or just Chambers' style. The protagonist is associated with fine arts, there is yet another cat and yet another Sylvia. Do we assume those recurrences carry some meaning or it's just that Chambers would only write about what he knew and liked? It's hard to say, but the twist in this story is rather brilliant. The “dead all along” twist may not be all that original these days but bear in mind that this was written in 1895, and furthermore, we are left with the uncertainty of whether or not that Sylvia really is someone the protagonist knew or if he's just suffering from sickness and delusion.
THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL, THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS, RUE BARRÉE
Now it becomes increasingly difficult to draw out specific plot points from the book, especially when, page by page, we are given no answers as to just who or what is the King, what the pallid mask looks like, what the yellow sign means... And in these last three stories, we are horrified to find that there is no more horror.
The first one follows a young man named Jack Trent, a student of fine arts living in France during the franco-prussian war. He goes about trying to survive in a siege situation, meeting up with other characters, some friendly, others not so much, he has something of a feud with a gamin who sells rats as food, and so on. After a dinner with a whole cast of characters, perhaps too many for a short story, they receive the news that a man named Hartman, known by them but less friendly, has been accused of being a spy. It is then that Jack's paramour, Sylvia, yes, yet another Sylvia, faints. When she recovers she tells Jack that before she met him she had another man, and painfully adds that there is another life which binds her to him. Then Jack travels to the prison to testify in Hartman's favor and upon returning he is caught in a massive battlefield. He barely manages to make it through and when he returns, he finds that a shell fell in the area in which he lives. For a moment he fears that Sylvia has died... but she hasn't. She is alive and she's holding her child, whom Jack claims as his own.
In the second story we follow Hastings, yet another young american living in Paris to study fine arts. He travels around in a typical bohemian lifestyle, being complimented on his french and feeling homesick at every other turn. Aside from being an american, what mostly makes Hastings stand out is that he is rather demure and serious about his principles, thus being in stark contrast with the riotous living of his fellow students. Eventually he meets a girl named Valentine and, though initially distant, they fall in love. But Valentine is troubled due to her past, she pleads with Clifford, perhaps Hastings best friend, to keep her past hidden from him, a desperate plea that no one can't quite live up to. One day, after some friendship blooms, Valentine and Hastings get in a cab and just drive off. Valentine keeps telling him to go faster and faster, symbolically wanting to escape from her life. When they finally have to come to a halt she confesses her past to him and they forgive each other, presumably falling in love.
The last story, once again, follows an american in France, and, you guessed it, an art student. We have another cast of characters, most of them named but in such a short story and in a book with so many similarly named characters, it gets awfully confusing. For all I know some of them might even be the same ones... The protagonist here is a young man named Selby who, after a somewhat rowdy art class, takes a stroll with his friends and they see a woman walk past, a beautiful woman about whom they know nothing except that she's poor. And since they don't even know her name, they refer to her as Rue Barrée because of the street where she lives. One day, Selby sees her buying flowers and since she doesn't have enough money for the flowers she wanted, Selby feels sorry and, in an impulsive action, buys a bunch them, presumably to have them sent to her. Later on, his friend, also named Clifford, becomes enamored with Rue Barrée and asks his other friends for advice. He becomes intent on marrying her, meets with her and even proposes to her. She says no. But then, in the last chapter of the book, Selby is wandering along the streets until he happens to come upon the street called Rue Barrée. He finds her door, walks in and the two exchange mysterious glances for a couple of pages until, in an odd seduction, he takes one of her roses, she lights his pathway to the door and he leaves...
It's a strange ending but maybe it's not a complete and utter left turn to have these three stories at the end of a horror book. As you may have noticed, all previous characters have the same traits – the lifestyle, a predilection for the arts, the romance, the love for France, and so on. All those appear to be recurring themes in Chambers' writing, but on the other hand, it's just understandable that most readers would favor the first half of the book. Indeed, after a while it's like we are reading a completely different thing, which might as well be just as maddening as the proper King in Yellow.
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So that's all ten. I suppose that, like most people, I have a love-hate relationship with this book. In many ways it's fascinating, it's intriguing to piece together the stories themselves as well as the clues to the King in Yellow mythos which we only get in part, though the characters appear to have full and complete knowledge of him, a knowledge so great it drives them to complete madness. And as far as writing goes, Chambers is masterful. But on the other hand, it's frustrating how he never fully capitalizes on the greatest strength of his book. Or maybe he never thought of horror as his greatest strength or greatest interest even... Maybe that's why most of the stories have a romantic plot and it's strange how most of his female characters, if not all, are so similar. They are all caring, pretty and demure, they all act somewhat shy especially when the male lead declares his love for them. The same holds true for Constance, Geneviève, Tessie, Jeanne, Sylvia, Valentine and Rue Barrée.
As for the male leads they are fairly similar too, they are all the brooding type, the tortured artist living abroad and being complemented on his meditative demeanor and fluent french. It would seem they are substitutes for Chambers himself since he too was an american art student in France at some point... In a way, it could be said that all writing is personal, it's just one person sitting alone with his or her thoughts, struggling to commit them to the page. For that reason, writing has to be personal and subjective because all characters are inevitably filtered through the lens of the writer's experience. But for most people, and perhaps for me too, it's a bit disappointing that the book abandoned the horror stories in favor of these bohemian ones which, though fine in their own right, pale in comparison. It's almost a shame because Chambers effortlessly creates strange new worlds and interesting people but, as soon as we begin to get used to them, they disappear. Then again, that may actually be a smart thing to do when writing horror.
Having said all that, this is now one of my favorite pieces of literature, and I even wrote my first book by drawing a whole lot of inspiration from it. I have not read any spin-off books around the King in Yellow but I'm willing to bet that, though they may be interesting, they will also be deflating. Removing the mystery means adding familiarity, and familiar things tend not to be all that scary. Coming up with a background for Camilla, Cassilda and even for the King himself, though it may satisfy the curiosity of Chambers' readers, will also remove the fear... On that note, Chambers was brilliant to leave us wanting more. But maybe you don't find the book all that scary to begin with? It could be, I for one do and don't. It doesn't scare me in the typical sense, not in the same way an arachnophobic is afraid spiders. But it is rather bizarre and haunting because it's the bizarre things, it's this breakdown in logic and common sense that can, in my view, be true horror. And having read The King in Yellow three times, constantly and consistently second-guessing every instance of the word “yellow” and having even written a book inspired by it, I suppose I could say that Chambers' style, though at times frustrating, is quite effective in leading his readers to madness.
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