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kyleofbooks 's review for:
The King in Yellow
by Robert W. Chambers
Initially, I went into this with low expectations (it’s hard not to notice the low GR rating), and so maybe that was why I ended up enjoying this one more than I thought I would.
The King in Yellow is comprised of ten short stories. The first 5/6 of which mainly deal with the aforementioned: the titular “King in Yellow”— a play that, if read, drives the reader mad— as well as the dreaded “Yellow Sign”.
Each of these stories surprised me- they were macabre and quite unsettling. I should mention how creeped out I was by a few of them; even more-so than some of the genre fiction I’ve read in recent memory. That is truly a great feat for a book that was written 150+ years ago. Of the first six shorts, the two in particular I liked the most were “The Mask”— weird science and madness— and “The Demoiselle d'Ys”— a superbly crafted ghost story.
It was only when I began the last few stories that I became confused. Gone was The King in Yellow motif and the eerie themes of the previous shorts. The remaining stories, in fact, were more romantic in nature. There was one that dealt with the Paris Siege of 1870, though, which I found thrilling, and a few love stories that worked better than many modern romance novels... and Mr. Chambers mananged to do it all in half the pages. Each of these drifted between America and the demimonde of Paris, where artists and bohemians reigned, so the characters that populated it were romantics in-and-of themselves to begin with. It was a drastic shift in tone I wasn’t expecting, but enjoyed nonetheless.
So, on the whole, I liked more of the stories than I didn’t (I’d say 7/10). If anything, I’m pleasantly surprised to find this odd collection exceeded my expectations.
The King in Yellow is comprised of ten short stories. The first 5/6 of which mainly deal with the aforementioned: the titular “King in Yellow”— a play that, if read, drives the reader mad— as well as the dreaded “Yellow Sign”.
Each of these stories surprised me- they were macabre and quite unsettling. I should mention how creeped out I was by a few of them; even more-so than some of the genre fiction I’ve read in recent memory. That is truly a great feat for a book that was written 150+ years ago. Of the first six shorts, the two in particular I liked the most were “The Mask”— weird science and madness— and “The Demoiselle d'Ys”— a superbly crafted ghost story.
It was only when I began the last few stories that I became confused. Gone was The King in Yellow motif and the eerie themes of the previous shorts. The remaining stories, in fact, were more romantic in nature. There was one that dealt with the Paris Siege of 1870, though, which I found thrilling, and a few love stories that worked better than many modern romance novels... and Mr. Chambers mananged to do it all in half the pages. Each of these drifted between America and the demimonde of Paris, where artists and bohemians reigned, so the characters that populated it were romantics in-and-of themselves to begin with. It was a drastic shift in tone I wasn’t expecting, but enjoyed nonetheless.
So, on the whole, I liked more of the stories than I didn’t (I’d say 7/10). If anything, I’m pleasantly surprised to find this odd collection exceeded my expectations.