Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
Audiobook update: I listened to the audio-version of this as read by Stefan Rucnicki. I haven't really cared for his readings of LeGuin's work, but his voice seemed suited to something darker and weirder. It was, and I'm not sure going through again helped me connect the pieces together much better. Still, not a bad audio edition.
Original review:
Overall, I mostly think I need to read the whole thing again to try and pick apart the threads that bind the stories together. They're rather obvious in the first half or so, where the King in Yellow gets explicit mention, but become more tenuous as the volume progresses. I think the links are intended to be there, as there are disquieting details even in the "romances" toward the end. Overall, 3 tentacles and 2.6 stars.
The Repairer of Reputations (3.5 stars, 3 tentacles) - I'd read this one as a standalone before, and found it making much more sense on a second read. There is a rather big question, as to whether the POV character was seeing real things that others could not, or if he simply had oddly consistent hallucinations. And I find myself puzzling over the cat. It puts me in mind of the cat in Catch-22. only with deliberate malignance, instead of accidental suffocation, but I keep thinking it's probably symbolic in some fashion. The best I can come up with is that it attacks when its caretaker is mad, and not when he's closer to sane? That feels like a stretch even to me. I have not read the rest of the volume, and I'm curious about the later stories.
The Mask - (4 stars, 1.5 tentacles) A story that could have ended tragically, and it actually seems weird that it didn't. Okay, mostly didn't. It was fairly obvious early on that, but I did not expect . Interesting twist. I also note that the King in Yellow was only mentioned briefly, but there was a weird focus on people's dreams.
In the Court of the Dragon (4 stars, 4 tentacles) - Odd tale of being stalked in a dream, and finding oneself in the lands (hands?) of the King in Yellow. Unclear if this is simply madness brought on by reading the play, or actual transition.
The Yellow Sign (3.5 stars, 4 tentacles) - Tale of an object leading to dreams leading to reading the King in Yellow leading to madness. Well-crafted, and I suspect one detail——influenced several of Lovecraft's fictional sentients.
The Demoisille d'Ys (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) - Much tamer than the last entry. I find myself wondering what the first "time-travelling romance" might have been. Pretty sure Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court predates this one. Here, my first thought was a Garden of Eden metaphor, since it's a snake that removes the would-be hero from his paradise, but the snake is described as having an arrow-like symbol on its head, which is probably why most depictions of "the yellow sign" have at least some part that looks arrow-like, though the story does not specify that this is the yellow sign. Side note: I find the whole "pining away to death because her first crush didn't work out" thing unbearably tedious.
The Prophets' Paradise (2.5 stars, 3 tentacles) - Oddly palindromic series of vignettes. I need to reread it and see if it makes any more sense when I'm more awake.
The Street of the Four Winds - (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) Feels oddly parallel to Repairer of Reputations, in that there's a cat and a death, but this cat is something of a ghostly messenger, and is well-treated. Presumably this is not supposed to be coincidental, but some sort of destiny/psychic-cat thing.
The Street of the First Shell - (3 stars, 2 tentacles) - Horrific due to the war going on, and the weirdest element is the recurring street urchin. There is a moment of madness, I think, where someone rushes out to fight in a battle, with no training and no idea what's going on. Now that I think of it, this contrasts interestingly with Repairer, where the POV character thinks he's in charge of a coming conflict, but seems to have no idea what's going on in reality. Then there's the street urchin, who keeps appearing at odd moments: first killing a rat to sell its meat, then attacking Trent with a noose (presumably to rob him), then carving a note where the first shell hit. I find myself wondering if this was a representation of the King in Yellow.
The Street of Our Lady of the Fields (3 stars, 1 tentacle) - The weird here is eluding me, as it's strongly implied that Valentine's "secret" is that she's engaged (or married) to someone else [she might instead be a prostitute, but that doesn't really fit what she says]. Her secret could have been something much darker, or weirder, but I don't think that's the intended reading. If the book is intended to have a palindromic structure, this one should parallel The Mask, which sort of fits. Her secret is the "mask", and there's a love triangle, influenced by a dream. * shrugs *
Rue Baree (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) - This ends oddly, and without anything that felt like a resolution to me. I'm comparing its structure to Repairer, on the palindromic structure hypothesis, and not coming up with much. In Repairer, the protag has a violent secret task aimed at the lone-female; here, the protag send a secret, expensive, gift instead. In repairer, it ends with the protag being locked up for madness; here, it ends with the protag breaking into Rue's rooms, being given one of her precious (gifted) roses, and leaving again. I need to think more (and probably reread the whole thing at some point).
Original review:
Overall, I mostly think I need to read the whole thing again to try and pick apart the threads that bind the stories together. They're rather obvious in the first half or so, where the King in Yellow gets explicit mention, but become more tenuous as the volume progresses. I think the links are intended to be there, as there are disquieting details even in the "romances" toward the end. Overall, 3 tentacles and 2.6 stars.
The Repairer of Reputations (3.5 stars, 3 tentacles) - I'd read this one as a standalone before, and found it making much more sense on a second read. There is a rather big question, as to whether the POV character was seeing real things that others could not, or if he simply had oddly consistent hallucinations.
Spoiler
There's the diamond coronet and safe, which his cousin saw as being of brass and a breadbox, and then there are the Repairer's wax ears, which he nonetheless scratches, using a hand with no fingers. And, now I come to think of it, Vance. POV character searched for the cat, and didn't find it, and somehow missed seeing a person?The Mask - (4 stars, 1.5 tentacles) A story that could have ended tragically, and it actually seems weird that it didn't. Okay, mostly didn't. It was fairly obvious early on that
Spoiler
the lone female character would wind up in the marbelizing solution, one way or anotherSpoiler
that the marbelization was only temporaryIn the Court of the Dragon (4 stars, 4 tentacles) - Odd tale of being stalked in a dream, and finding oneself in the lands (hands?) of the King in Yellow. Unclear if this is simply madness brought on by reading the play, or actual transition.
The Yellow Sign (3.5 stars, 4 tentacles) - Tale of an object leading to dreams leading to reading the King in Yellow leading to madness. Well-crafted, and I suspect one detail—
Spoiler
the walking corpse with the too-soft body and easily broken off bitsThe Demoisille d'Ys (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) - Much tamer than the last entry. I find myself wondering what the first "time-travelling romance" might have been. Pretty sure Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court predates this one. Here, my first thought was a Garden of Eden metaphor, since it's a snake that removes the would-be hero from his paradise, but the snake is described as having an arrow-like symbol on its head, which is probably why most depictions of "the yellow sign" have at least some part that looks arrow-like, though the story does not specify that this is the yellow sign. Side note: I find the whole "pining away to death because her first crush didn't work out" thing unbearably tedious.
The Prophets' Paradise (2.5 stars, 3 tentacles) - Oddly palindromic series of vignettes. I need to reread it and see if it makes any more sense when I'm more awake.
The Street of the Four Winds - (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) Feels oddly parallel to Repairer of Reputations, in that there's a cat and a death, but this cat is something of a ghostly messenger, and is well-treated.
Spoiler
After the cat's mistress dies, the cat goes off to a nearby apartment, which turns out to belong to a former paramour of said mistress.The Street of the First Shell - (3 stars, 2 tentacles) - Horrific due to the war going on, and the weirdest element is the recurring street urchin. There is a moment of madness, I think, where someone rushes out to fight in a battle, with no training and no idea what's going on. Now that I think of it, this contrasts interestingly with Repairer, where the POV character thinks he's in charge of a coming conflict, but seems to have no idea what's going on in reality. Then there's the street urchin, who keeps appearing at odd moments: first killing a rat to sell its meat, then attacking Trent with a noose (presumably to rob him), then carving a note where the first shell hit. I find myself wondering if this was a representation of the King in Yellow.
The Street of Our Lady of the Fields (3 stars, 1 tentacle) - The weird here is eluding me, as it's strongly implied that Valentine's "secret" is that she's engaged (or married) to someone else [she might instead be a prostitute, but that doesn't really fit what she says]. Her secret could have been something much darker, or weirder, but I don't think that's the intended reading. If the book is intended to have a palindromic structure, this one should parallel The Mask, which sort of fits. Her secret is the "mask", and there's a love triangle, influenced by a dream. * shrugs *
Rue Baree (3 stars, 2.5 tentacles) - This ends oddly, and without anything that felt like a resolution to me. I'm comparing its structure to Repairer, on the palindromic structure hypothesis, and not coming up with much. In Repairer, the protag has a violent secret task aimed at the lone-female; here, the protag send a secret, expensive, gift instead. In repairer, it ends with the protag being locked up for madness; here, it ends with the protag breaking into Rue's rooms, being given one of her precious (gifted) roses, and leaving again. I need to think more (and probably reread the whole thing at some point).
Interesting to read - I didn't realise that HP Lovecraft was quite so derivative of an even earlier writer. But its hard for something not to be a little dated after 120 odd years ;P
2.5 rounded down
The first four stories of this collection are good, the first and fourth are even great, and I would definitely recommend any weird fiction or horror fan to give them a read. But then the last six stories came in, the poetry one didn't interest me much, although I still did end up liking 'The Demoiselle d'Ys' and 'The Street of the Four Winds', even though they felt out of place next to the other four. Then the last three came in, and I absolutely hated them, it might be because I went in with expectations of stories relating to the king in yellow and stories that were just, atmospheric and creepy. But they were so boring and long I couldn't manage to do anything more besides quickly scimming them.
The King in Yellow upsets me because it has so much potential to do interesting things and then Chambers just doesn't do anything with it. The first four stories obviously inspired many, to do betters things than Chambers did, and sometimes even improve on the source material.
The first four stories of this collection are good, the first and fourth are even great, and I would definitely recommend any weird fiction or horror fan to give them a read. But then the last six stories came in, the poetry one didn't interest me much, although I still did end up liking 'The Demoiselle d'Ys' and 'The Street of the Four Winds', even though they felt out of place next to the other four. Then the last three came in, and I absolutely hated them, it might be because I went in with expectations of stories relating to the king in yellow and stories that were just, atmospheric and creepy. But they were so boring and long I couldn't manage to do anything more besides quickly scimming them.
The King in Yellow upsets me because it has so much potential to do interesting things and then Chambers just doesn't do anything with it. The first four stories obviously inspired many, to do betters things than Chambers did, and sometimes even improve on the source material.
slow-paced
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I can say I liked half of the stories and didn't enjoy the other half. Some deal directly with the king in yellow, which got me excited, some just name drop it in what feels like a justification more than a normal thing to just do. It's definitely different than anything I usually read, so that was nice.
I really enjoyed the first five stories, but found the rest to be so boring that I caught myself skimming paragraphs.
Damn, Chambers almost throws as much French into his writings as does Nabokov. Bit of a mixed bag, both in terms of quality and in horror. Some of the pieces were closer to straight relationships or dramas. Perhaps The Demoiselle D'Ys would be my favourite, though some of the early stories did have some level of 'unnerving, nameless dread'. Though I think 'cosmic horror' is very much pushing it.
The first four stories are great, the rest are mid to miserably boring. Why.