Paperback, 272 pages
Langue : English
Publié 6 août 2007 par IndyPublish.
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. The book is named after a play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed horror stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, S. T. Joshi and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural. There are ten stories, the first four of which ("The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign") mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it. "The Yellow Sign" inspired a film of the same name released in 2001. The British first edition was published by …
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. The book is named after a play with the same title which recurs as a motif through some of the stories. The first half of the book features highly esteemed horror stories, and the book has been described by critics such as E. F. Bleiler, S. T. Joshi and T. E. D. Klein as a classic in the field of the supernatural. There are ten stories, the first four of which ("The Repairer of Reputations", "The Mask", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign") mention The King in Yellow, a forbidden play which induces despair or madness in those who read it. "The Yellow Sign" inspired a film of the same name released in 2001. The British first edition was published by Chatto & Windus in 1895 (316 pages).
Déu els digué: arrancada de cavall i arribada d'ase
Déu els digué: arrancada de cavall i arribada d'ase
Sur le papier, j'aime beaucoup le fil du livre interdit et maudit, qui rend fou ceux qui ont le malheur d'en parcourir les mots, et qui réapparaît à chaque nouvelle, traçant un lien ténu mais bien présent entre des histoires a priori indépendantes. Et cette question permanente : est-ce bien le livre qui rend fou ses lecteurs ? Ou n'est-il que le catalyseur d'une angoisse déjà présente ? Mais dans les faits je me suis senti un peu frustré, comme si on avait entrouvert la porte à de belles possibilités de récit fantastique, pour au final ne terminer le recueil qu'avec des nouvelles d'étudiants américains en art à Paris qui m'ont passablement ennuyé et m'ont paru répétitives (au point que j'ai lu en diagonale plusieurs passages).
Une belle promesse dans les quelques premières nouvelles, donc, et qui aurait eu une influence importante sur d'autres auteur.rice.s du fantastique, mais semble …
Sur le papier, j'aime beaucoup le fil du livre interdit et maudit, qui rend fou ceux qui ont le malheur d'en parcourir les mots, et qui réapparaît à chaque nouvelle, traçant un lien ténu mais bien présent entre des histoires a priori indépendantes. Et cette question permanente : est-ce bien le livre qui rend fou ses lecteurs ? Ou n'est-il que le catalyseur d'une angoisse déjà présente ? Mais dans les faits je me suis senti un peu frustré, comme si on avait entrouvert la porte à de belles possibilités de récit fantastique, pour au final ne terminer le recueil qu'avec des nouvelles d'étudiants américains en art à Paris qui m'ont passablement ennuyé et m'ont paru répétitives (au point que j'ai lu en diagonale plusieurs passages).
Une belle promesse dans les quelques premières nouvelles, donc, et qui aurait eu une influence importante sur d'autres auteur.rice.s du fantastique, mais semble n'être qu'une courte expérimentation de l'auteur qui s'est arrêté avant d'ouvrir son univers au complet (à la Lovecraft).
In the autumn of 1998, I found myself walking the oak-lined streets of an old city, on a sultry subtropical night. I looked up through the narrow alley between the branches, and saw the rubicund light of Aldebaran gleaming at me. I was at a dead-end in my studies, and knew it, and had no better plans. At the moment the star's light fell on me, I felt a change; my frustration with my life slipped away, replaced by a bittersweet longing for another life I had known only in my dreams. It was soon after that I came into possession of a small press's library-bound edition of The King In Yellow. I had heard it mentioned, of course, in Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature", but in those days, the book was not widely reprinted, nor well-known outside of the small weird fiction community.
Oh, the poisonous beauty …
In the autumn of 1998, I found myself walking the oak-lined streets of an old city, on a sultry subtropical night. I looked up through the narrow alley between the branches, and saw the rubicund light of Aldebaran gleaming at me. I was at a dead-end in my studies, and knew it, and had no better plans. At the moment the star's light fell on me, I felt a change; my frustration with my life slipped away, replaced by a bittersweet longing for another life I had known only in my dreams. It was soon after that I came into possession of a small press's library-bound edition of The King In Yellow. I had heard it mentioned, of course, in Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature", but in those days, the book was not widely reprinted, nor well-known outside of the small weird fiction community.
Oh, the poisonous beauty of it! The hints that lead you on to a precipice over the cloud-waves of Hali, and leave you there, unsatisfied and precarious!
I'll not spoil the experience for you, except to note that the Paris art student stories of the second half of the book, so often thought to be out of place in this collection, actually have subtle ties to the better-known horror stories.
The King in Yellow is a collection of various short stories.
The first few start off amazingly, detailing the madness and strangeness of the King in Yellow. However, after that, the stories don't really focus on it as much. There is still strangeness, and skilled writing of course, but I just didn't enjoy them quite as much.
Overall, they're great stories though, and I'd recommend reading at least the first few.
The King in Yellow is a collection of various short stories.
The first few start off amazingly, detailing the madness and strangeness of the King in Yellow. However, after that, the stories don't really focus on it as much. There is still strangeness, and skilled writing of course, but I just didn't enjoy them quite as much.
Overall, they're great stories though, and I'd recommend reading at least the first few.
