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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2327 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 2025

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So, what are you reading?

Still on the Iliad, Dialectic of Enligthenment and McLuhan's Classical Trivium. Dipping into the Metalogicon.

The King in Yellow, sort of a pre Lovecraft, Lovecraftian set of weird short stories.

Is it any good?

Three stories in. It's interesting because Chambers (the author) took the Ambrose Bierce idea of Carcosa, and developed it into his story cycle, but then I think because of Chambers doing this then Carcosa was later used by other writers including Lovecraft, Gaiman, and even George RR Martin (as well as Nic Pizzolatto in True Detective season 1). The stories so far are not bad but more freaky and evocative than anything else.

The last three stories are probably the weakest, if you find The Street of the Four Winds too twee, you might want to skip to the last one. It wasn't really written as cosmic horror so if that's your hook you'll find them annoying. What I love about the king in yellow is because I see it as kind of an attempt to explain the philosophy that everything is narratives in narrative form.

Interesting, I actually preferred the last few stories over the first few ones, which is a bit like the opposite of most people. Perhaps I'm too much of a softie but the more romantic and human theme of them left more more fulfilled at the end of the story compared to, for example, In the Court of the Dragon.

I do feel like it's self consciousness that made me flinch from those stories when I first read the book, although it was also the fact that I was going in thinking it was the precursor to Lovecraft and assuming that meant tentacles. They've grown on me since, I connect particularly strongly with Hastings in Our Lady of the Fields, but they do feel out of place in the modern context of the King in Yellow. Maybe it's the non-western elements of your upbringing? I still think back fondly on one of my best friends from primary school - a Bangladeshi guy named Raymond - for convincing me that romance is an important part of stories, I would have missed out on a lot of excellent poems and great stories, and a lot of flirting with ladies, if I hadn't listened.

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