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The King in Yellow

Started by Deepthroat Chopra, June 05, 2007, 12:02:41 AM

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Deepthroat Chopra

Just starting to read The King in Yellow, some Gothic horror from the late 19th Century. It, allegedly, inspired Lovecraft and too many things since. It makes a significant appearance in "The Invisibles" by Grant Morrison as one of the latest manifestations of the legend.

"The King in Yellow":

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8492

And just in case, it's not somewhere already, Lovecraft's collection:

http://rca.snm-hgkz.ch/lovecraft/html
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Skunk Ape

The King in Yellow is an odd little collection.  The first half is pretty good, imaginative, supernatural horror ("Repairer of Reputations" is pure gold). Then the stories just turn into accounts of the lives and relationships of a bunch of artists and scholars, which is fine, but if you're gonna meander, fucking meander.  That random switch midstream just kills any momentum or mood that the horror stories may have generated.
Behead the optimist.

nurbldoff

Some of Chambers' stuff in "the king in yellow" is excellent but I agree that again some is just pointless. I should check out some more of his writings. On a related note, I found Machen's "the great god pan" to be similar in atmosphere to the good Chambers stuff, if anyone is interested... both seem quite obvious inspirations for Lovecraft.
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