The King in Yellow Book

Can art drive a person insane? Could there be a book, or a film, or a piece of music that vibrates against the cortext in a certain way, or opens great gulfs of revelation so profound and so shattering that you could never be exposed to it without being changed forever? If the truth of such a piece got out, wouldn't anyone and everyone want to be exposed to it, scoffing and thinking that they, above all else, would be well equipped to handle any dangers, and yet feeling inescapably drawn to find out just what it is that makes such a thing work so potently on the human psyche?

Of course, these vistas, this mind-altering vibration, could never, ever be described. They could only be experienced. And having had the experience, you would have to dissemanate it to others. You wouldn't even have to try. If you had the presence of mind to warn your friends against it, even that warning would plant the seed of gnosis, and before you could say "Tears shall dry and die in dim Carcosa", they would be turning those mouldering pages, their eyes soon wide, staring into nothingness, but seeing....what?

It's the idea of the King in Yellow that's so powerful and sticks with you long after you've finished Robert Chambers's odes to the play that nobody's ever read and remained untouched. Throughout the first four stories of this book, you'll get tantalising glimpses of the first act of the play, which is apparently harmless. The second act is what shakes everyone to their very foundation, and Chambers wisely does not give us a taste, for anything he could say would pale in comparison to what we might imagine, even if that imagining is but the faintest dark inkling.

The first story in this series, "The Repairer of Reputations", is one of my favourite short stories, rivalling, I think, the best of Poe and many other writers. It's strange and electrifying; set in New York of 1920 (twenty-five years after this book was written), and the future depicted is very odd indeed. The USA seems to have become a fascist state, and the tale begins on the eve of the opening of the first Suicide Chamber, little gas chambers to be set up all over the country where people will be permitted to cleanly destroy themselves if life becomes too difficult for them. In just a few pages, Chambers paints a sharp and eloquent picture of this altered, would-be-future new York, and it is here, among the clean streets and pristine boulevards, that our narrator resides. He's just recovered from an injury (falling from his horse, he says), and during his convalescence had little better to do than to read the now infamous The King in Yellow. He believes he's made a sterling recovery, but his friends are convinced that he's not a well man. Throughout the story he rails against comrades and family, secretly plotting to undermine the order of things with the mysterious and bizarrely freakish Mr. Wilde. Their "Reputation Repair" service is designed to make them a good deal of money...but to what end? Well, you simply have to read the story to find out. Then read it again to pick up on the little details you might have missed the first time. It's really good stuff; definitely an unsung classic of the highest order.

The next few stories also deal with the play The King in Yellow in one way or another. "The Mask" is my second favourite tale, and its romantic and tragic and haunting, and set around the time when the play first emerged into the world. You may need to read the ending twice to realise what is going on. Just remember that anyone who has claimed to have read the play has perceptions that should not wholly be trusted.

While I don't think Chambers ever manages to equal the glory of the first two tales, he does come pretty close at times. "The Court of the Dragon" is a short little piece with some extremely evocative writing. "The Yellow Sign" is a little more of a standard horror, but it still makes sense in the context of the play and the maddening effects it has apparently had on the world.

From this point, things move into other territory as the concept of the play is abandoned and we get stories of mysterious love, possible time travel, war-torn France and even a very short and effective ghost story. The last of these is "The Street of the Four Winds", and it's really very good. The image of the young artist taking in this cat and trying to find out where it belongs is evoked so well that I found the story imprinted forever in my memory.

This book has had a quiet, profound influence on many things, I feel. The most obvious would be H. P. Lovecraft and his Necronomicon, but the idea of books that rend the mind is a potent one that's burrowed into the literary conscious and has even showed up in a number of movies, too. One might even say that something like Borges's "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a perfect extension and elucidation of this very idea. In a way reading The King in Yellow makes me sad, because it seems that Chambers, upon receiving some literary success, became rather neutered and churned out a lot of average schlock that's of little consequence, even if perhaps fun to read. If nothing else (and it is many things), The King in Yellow is proof that the best work is produced in times when there can be no room for complacency and no substitute for the fire of strange passions, and and that the contentment of a fine house and back-patting acolaides are seldom the elements that conspire to create great works.