I’ve pretty much read one book over the course of the semester. This book has been an experiment for me; an attempt to read an older book. Because of being this book was written in the late 19th century, The King in Yellow shows a different culture than modern day. Some colloquialisms used are very different, especially the meanings of words. Similarly, the grammar of the book is much different and takes more time to parse.
In the short story, “The Repairer of Reputations”, the main character, Castaigne, got into an accident, rendering his brain and psyche insane. As this story is the first person, the damaged nature of Castaigne’s brain causes the narration of the story to be rather unreliable. He watches his boss get beaten up by a cat and then tries to kill his friends and family for his “cause”. It was very shocking and confusing to read. The story ends with Castaigne in a psychiatric hospital, showing that the whole story didn’t actually happen and instead it was all in his head.
The first story stunned me, so I was quite hesitant to read the second story. However, this second story was a lot less gory than the first. It details a trio, cursed by a love triangle, and what happens to them. This story had some very cool science fiction events and interesting links to the other stories of the book. The play mentioned in both stories is of the same name as the actual book. It draws people to madness, as shown in the other 2 main stories.
There is another story in this book that stood out to me a lot. ”The Demoiselle Dy's” is a love story that has a tragic end. A man gets lost in the forest and travels back in time hundreds of years. He stumbles upon a woman and they fall in love. As the story progresses, the man meets two of the important recurring characters of the book and the woman teaches the man falconry. At the end, something happens, and he returns to the present time. He looks down and sees her grave that said she died several hundred years prior. There was also a freshly warm glove next to this grave. This book was a really interesting read and was pretty entertaining. If you have time to read it, I strongly recommend you do!