The Blog In Yellow

I've always wondered at the dreams Lovecraft had which inspired so many of his stories. I tried to sleep most of the day to visit my own realm. I didn't fi d much, so I'll try again. 

One of the foundations of the King in Yellow is the titular sign that appears to be a strange question mark with several extentions in various directions. The short story starts with our narrator Mr. Scott and his relationship with his model, Tessie. One of the aspects I've noticed in the stories relating to the King is the subtle hints toward the character's fate. Scott is an artist who uses lauduam to dye his paintings. This might be an incorrect connection, but i thought i should put it in here. Lauduam has a yellow tint to it when light is shone through the bottle. The substance itself is rust brown. I don't know if the artists of the time would use this mixture on paintings but the yellow tint seems to a hint to the King's coming. It's like the characters have unknowingly doomed themselves. At the same time, the Food and Drug act of 1906 limited the use of the drug. Beforehand it was unregulated to a dangerous degree though I doubt Chambers was making a comment...

This short story is one of the stranger ones in the series. Our narrator is enjoying a service at a church when he notices the organ player looking at him with a withering glare. The narrator leaves only to have the player follow him into the court of the dragon which seems to be a street corner. Suddenly the man wakes up back in church with no one the wiser and the organ player no longer having such a hideous look. Suddenly reality is ripped apart as the King in Yellow draws through and quotes  Hebrews 10:31 as he holds the narrator in his grasp. "What a terrible thing it is to be in the hands of the living God." At least, thats the way i like to read it. The real act of the King breaking i to reality is more tame. I've researched this phrase from the Bible and it can mean to "be in awe" instead of "be afraid." Also, "living God," can be interpreted as the "immense power and awesomeness of God." I've noticed that the Bible has ...

I thought I'd do something different today; a movie review. I hyped myself up for Hostile Dimensions. Found footage films are a dirty pleasure of mine and the concept of the film was interesting. Despite the obvious indie film vibe the film gave off, I still held hope for this film. I was wrong. This film is awful. It never manages to go deep enough to shake off the amateur feel in it. The story follows a film maker and her friend as they try to locate a missing girl who fell into another dimension via a door. Specifically, a door unattached. A threshold and a door without a wall. The pair team up with a professor, who looks younger than them, who explains that this is a wolf door, a portal to alternate dimensions. At no point  does the film establish our protagonists to the missing girl. Why do they care that a radom girl went midsing? What is their connection? It doesn't matter as the missing girl somehow finds her way out without their help. But that's the least of the s...

Jumping across the pond, this story takes place in Paris, France. Alec, the protagonist is in love with Genevieve who is engaged to painter Boris. Boris claims he has discovered a crystalline solution that turns living things into marble. The opening interested me the most. Boris demonstrates the solution to Alec and claims that it will never find its way out of his home for fears of what it would do to the world of sculpting. Doris also shows a large vat of the solution and from that point, any reader could tell where the story was going to go. Genevieve falls in and Boris kills himself in grief. In a creepy twist, Alec keeps the statue for several years. Of course Genevieve returns to life and of course they live happily ever after. The story brushes Boris aside as almost a "too bad" kind of phrase. One interpretation I've read is that the mask is represented by Alec's hidden love, a type of mask he uses to hide his true feelings. This story is more reflective of Ch...

The first story stars and finishes like a Lovecraft story. The slow build up and descent into insanity had me questioning the protagonist's point of view. Was the crown real or scrap? Was the cat a cat or some rabid animal?  Our protagonists insanity and irritation creates a lethal mixture that distances him from others to the point of breaking. But  the lack of answers only leads me to more questions. Who are these people that Mr. Wilde has conscripted into his uprising? Wilde keeps a list of people he's "repaired" but we are never told if these people are real or a figment of his insanity. Meanwhile our protagonist seems to be drinking the same kool-aid as Wilde and is prepared to inherit the throne of America. It is another theme I wished the author had dived into. What is this uprising about? I couldn't find any info on the political climate around Robert Chambers time but the book was written in the shadow of the post civil war in 1895. The story is set aroun...

Last week I finished Robert Chambers classic. By "finished," I mean I stopped reading the last four parts that have thin ties to The King in Yellow. Most of the later stories seem to tie into Chamber's romantic works.  I wanted to wait a bit before I laid out my thoughts, so this will be in parts. Overall, i can see how it influenced Lovecraft. The themes about theatre seem to be lost on him, but the idea of a written work that drives you insane are present. The stories in Yellow seem to become less and less horror and more tragic in nature. It seems this book was a collection of storolies with only a few threads tying them. 

One of the authors that influenced Lovecraft was Arthur Machen.  Machen's works include The Great god Pan, a story that has been a cornerstone of Stephen King's stories. Machen mainly deals with how  madness can spread like a disease. We only need to look toward our conspiracy theories to see how bad ideas can take hold. But what about Lovecraft? While he nicknames Shub Niggurath by "Pan," Machen's influence seems to be a forgotten foundation in the Lovecraftian universe. But look closely and I think you'll see Lovecraft nipping Machen's outcomes in the bud. Many of Machen's stories end with the protagonist alive and free to infect others with their craziness. Lovecraft often kills his characters or puts then in jails or asylum. There his character's tales become tall tales, local gossip by a man in a looney bin. Who would believe a man claiming thete was a whe city beneath his house or that a couple of archeologists saw a city older than mankind? ...

I lamented about Lovecrafts passing before he was able to add to his works but perhaps that is the blessing. The torch has been passed for generations. Even today I find works about Lovecraft. Books, tv shows, games, all created in awe of this man's work. The mystery behind these myths causes us to seek answers. We seek to fill the void Lovecraft left behind. Maybe so.eone will come along and complete the series, a troubling day, because if we accept the answers then there is no longer a mystery. There will be nothing left for us to unfold. Let's hope the mystery remains a mystery forever, at least until the gods wake up.

I'm not going to claim that my readings of Lovecrafts works are perfect, but as I reread stories I read in highschool, I noticed the pantheon lacks a death god. Specifically, a death and an aftelife god. No Hades awaits the characters in the stories. Even death does not bring peace. The Yithians have chosen to prolong their existence and have planned to host in new bodies after the earth falls to the cockroaches. There appears to be an avoidance of death. Perhaps in Lovecrafts world, death is the end. But the lynchpin of Lovecraft's stories comes from the Nad aran himself who says "That is not dead, which can eternal lie. And with strange eons, even death may die." Is that wishful thinking on Lovecrafts part? "Even death may die?" Can death die? Perhaps there is hope in that phrase. Perhaps there is relief at the end. But Lovecraft was not one who lived in hope. I think that is why there is a lack of a death god. The gods are unconcerned with the ways of man...

Given the turbulence in Lovecraft's childhood, from the passing of his grandfather and subsequent move to his father's incarceration in an asylum, a theme of the unknown future pops up in his stories. The aftermath of his characters discovering the horrorific makes the reader wonder what happens next. The fate of the character is usually spelled out: death or insanity, but it leaves a lingering question of what happens next. At the end of Call of Cthulhu we know that the sunken god will rise again, but when? How? Why? And what happens to earth when it happens?

Like most horror protagonists, Lovecraft's characters often fail in their adventure or are changed forever. Looking back at Lovecraft's life, I've noticed a theme of defeat in his life. His father was whisked away to an asylum and his grandfather died when Lovecraft was still a teenager. This theme pervades his work. Perhaps we are unable to stop things like the march of time or the inevitably of death. Look at Call of Cthulhu. Our protagonist Thurston is unable to stop Cthulhu and dies at the hands of the cult. A common theme in horror, but the defeat extends beyond his own death. The fate of the world could rest with the knowledge Thurston might be able to provide, yet he hopes that his manuscript and discoveries will die with him. But why? Is there no hope to fight against these monsters? Love craft is saying there is no hope. How do you fight a god? All we can do is wait. The ultimate defeat.

I watched a short video by Extra History about the effects syphilis might have had on Lovecraft's life. The video suspects that Lovecraft's father was affected by the disease which put him in a mental hospital where he died. Later, his mother would go to an asylum and die. Lovecraft must have feared that he too would lose his mind. At the time we lacked proper medication for such a disease. You can clearly see the effect this would have had on Lovecraft. The fear of inheritance. The same fear affects one of my characters. He (or she, I haven't decided) fears what looks back at him in the mirror even though he or she is considered by the school, to be beautiful. What happens when the looks fade? Will I have any worth? What about my mind? Do I slip away, bit by bit until the asylum calls for me? 

Lately I've been feeling like a detective. I keep digging more and more into the thoughts and philosophies that shapped Lovecraft and Chambers. It feels like I'm tracing back into time, it's an interesting feeling. It's one that I remember from my college days. I've decide to write everyday on this blog if I can help it.