The King In Yellow

An unsettling play changes the lives of those who read it for the worse. A man thinks himself the lost king of America and plots murder and exile for his family and friends. A sculptor finds a chemical that instantly transmutes flesh to stone, and suicides when his wife throws herself into a pool of the stuff. A man is followed by a malevolent organist for no reason, only to find that he was being stalked by The King himself in his dreams. A "coffin worm" of a man haunts a group of acquaintances, decaying rapidly when he dies. The last 4 stories all involve love, but do at least involve some sort of horror (or at least discomfort). Finding an old lover dead after many years; facing the gruesome reality of raising your future wife's son by another man (coupled with the horror of war); falling in love with a prostitute; falling in love with a closed-off young woman who cannot requite your feelings. These love stories are more or less effective. My main issue with the final 4 stories is that none of them relate to the main themes or include the King or the play. It makes the book unsuccessful in some way, as though Chambers couldn't fill out the conceit, and tossed in whatever was around to meet the publisher's page requirement. It's always hard to tell how frightening (or otherwise impactful, offensive or titillating or whatever) a novel from the past is. This one isn't super effective today, but certainly was at the time. Part of this may also be that grand cosmic and psychological horror doesn't bother me much, having swallowed too much Lovecraft as a youth. Nowadays I am much more scared by things that might actually happen to me, like mass murderers and cancer. The technique of connected short stories influenced Lovecraft among others, and this structure helps to keep the reader a bit off balance throughout. There is a discomforting sentence in the first story where the author states that the Jewish and black populations have been driven out of America, bringing the nation to a united and happy state, but as this occurs during a section that is clearly parodying utopianism I don't know if Chambers is serious about it. The writing carries a decadent quality, not as overripe as something like Huysmans' 'A Rebours,' but fluid and florid. Chambers comes up with some astonishing metaphors, as when during a discussion between strangers in a pension, "...Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr. Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the entente cordiale was established, and Susie and her mother extended a protectorate over what was clearly neutral territory." I was very disappointed that the name Jean d'Ys, being such a fantastic pun, was wasted on a time travel story with a beamingly healthy young love interest. Overall I enjoyed the book very much, but I find it far from perfect. This one will likely stick with me for a while.

R.I.P. Robert Chambers; you would've loved House of Leaves.

It was interesting to read something that so strongly felt dated (women kind of exist as tools to push the plot along with no agency of their own) and yet simultaneously contemporary (freaky, difficult-to-describe events that go beyond just a simple monster or threatening individual; kinda reminded me of China Miéville). Having already sampled some of Lovecraft's works, I could clearly see the influences in this book. Also the audiobook version narrated by Peter Yearsley was sufficiently creepy and nailed the unsettling tone.