Part 2 : The Mask

[Traveller]

Thread for discussion of The King in Yellow story 2: The Mask.

[Traveller]

Nobody here yet? Amy? Puddin? The walls are echoing...

Anyway, I shall talk myself then. ;) Besides that the opening bit is quite notorious, I noted that sculptures of The Fates are now mentioned a second time.

In the first story:
Six Ionic columns supported the roof, and the single door was of bronze. A splendid marble group of the "Fates" stood before the door, the work of a young American sculptor, Boris Yvain, who had died in Paris when only twenty-three years old.

[Traveller]

Hmmm, and although silification can apparently take less than 50 000 years, I doubt that its going to get done in just a few seconds.... ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrifa...

[Saski]

I liked the process the sculptor discovered, especially the colors, but I didn't really get the ending and the connection with what the narrator's friend had imagined (that wasn't clear, but if I leave here to look at the story again, I'll lose my post).

[Traveller]

Ok, I'm not at at the end yet, but let's put spoilers re the end in tags, ok?

I'm really liking the arty setting of this story btw! Oh, and since Chambers had actually studied art at university, this is of course a setting that he is quite at home in.

[Saski]

Whoops, sorry! I thought this was a spoiler-okay zone.

[Traveller]

Ruth wrote: "Whoops, sorry! I thought this was a spoiler-okay zone."

Well, I thought the stories were short enough for us to have only one thread for each of them, and then perhaps , do a fourth spoilerific one where we draw the threads from all the stories together. We can still post spoilers here tho- as long as we use tags. :)

Shall I make that thread already? Nah, best leave it for last, eh? Or what.

[Amy (Other Amy)]

I think one thread and use tags.

Of the four weird stories in the book, this was my favorite to read. Back to discuss later.

Edited to add: sorry shouldn't post to GR before the groggy wears off. One thread each story with tags, then a (fifth?) spoilerific one for last sounds great to me.

[Nate D]

I liked the bit here about how photography was ruining painting. I wonder if, in fact, the development if photography as a means of exactly capturing reality (subjectivity of all images aside) actually freed more painters from strict realism, since they were no longer nearly the only means of remembering physical details, and hastened along modernist developments.

Actually though, this story just didn't actually make sense to me. I'll wait until more of you have read it, but some of the motivations seem really hazy or contradictory to me. Unless we can put some of this down to the distorting effects of the King.

[Traveller]

Nate D wrote: "I liked the bit here about how photography was ruining painting. I wonder if, in fact, the development if photography as a means of exactly capturing reality (subjectivity of all images aside) actu..."
Oh, yes, indeed - I was going to study art before my father stopped me, and I got at least far enough to know that that is certainly a valid conclusion. A lot of painting that was done before photographs came along, was for the sake of portraiture and to copy 'realistic' likenesses of scenes.

Btw, don't y'all also find it a bit... interesting that Boris can plunge his hand into the pool with no ill effects, yet anything else dropped into it becomes petrified?

[Traveller]

Hmm, kinda nice story, but I can't help wondering what it has to do with the Yellow King? I must be missing something...
(view spoiler)[ So the petrification works, and then Alec reads the Yellow King book: so does that mean that all the petrified things coming alive again, was just an illusion because he is now insane?????? (hide spoiler)]

[Traveller]

Thread for next story here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Amy (Other Amy)]

Traveller wrote: "Hmm, kinda nice story, but I can't help wondering what it has to do with the Yellow King? I must be missing something..."

This one was the most enjoyable to me to read, but the most frustrating in terms of the overall Yellow King plot. I keep coming back to it to try to figure out how it fits.

(view spoiler)[Alec puts the book down before he reads the fateful second act. Is he sane? Did Boris read the play and now his art is a contagion? What was Jack so frantic about? So, so many questions with this one. (hide spoiler)]

[Traveller]

I also wondered, if, perhaps, (view spoiler)[ Genevieve might have read it. I was wondering if perhaps reading it, might have caused the fever. I mean, why the fever? What is its function in the story? Ok, an obvious plot device in the case of Alec, to obscure the rest of the story only to be gradually revealed, but why did Genevieve have a fever?
And re Jack, yes, indeed! Why did Jack not want Alec to leave the house!?!

Oh, but hang on! Earlier on, i made a note of how Alec wears self-deceit as a mask: The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord. Hmm, and elsewhere, there was also mention of a mask, So... maybe there's a twist on the self-deception theme? (hide spoiler)]

Btw, in case anybody forgot how to do spoiler tags:
Like this: < spoiler > spoiler text </spoiler>

The result will be: (view spoiler)[ spoiler text (hide spoiler)]

[Nate D]

Re: Boris reaching in -- I think he says that it's a matter of timing. He can only reach in safely just after the ray of light. But how would he have chance to discover this safely?!

And Traveler, I think you mentioned the bits of the play itself being so intriguing, and this is especially true here. Though as you say, masks become a metaphorical motif here, the actual scene in the epigraph seems much more interesting to me than most of the actual story.

I was wondering about all the other same points in regards to the actual plot that you both raise, Traveler and Amy. I better just spoiler all of this, actually:

(view spoiler)[So to try to summarize what actually happens. Alec loves Genevieve, Genevieve loves Boris. Boris seems to love Genevieve, but I don't recall much elaboration of their relationship. Alec hides his torment. And so things continue for a while. After Boris reveals his newly discovered process, the dynamic breaks down. Genevieve is unusually distant with Alec (then apologizes later), and then when Alec falls asleep in their house while working, he awakes to the sound of Genevieve in some kind of torment, playing sorrowful music, and startles her. She tries to play down whatever is going on with her.

The next day, Genevieve is ill, and while Boris and Jack experiment with petrifying, Alec reads the King in Yellow. Immediately afterwards Genevieve awakes in a delirium and "reveals her secret" and "turns their relationship upside down". And what is her secret? Apparently that she loved Alec, but I'm not sure how this would be quite so terrible as to throw everyone into such disarray -- Alec delirius with the mask that had become his face torn away (really, shouldn't that be a relief?) and Genevieve attempting to kill herself in the pool. The end is all pretty clear, unless, as you say it's all King-in-Yellow-related madness. So we end with a kind of happy ending, or maybe delusional happy ending. But I still feel like I'm really missing something in the middle.
(hide spoiler)]

I wonder, also, when Chambers was in Paris. His writing seems to bear the influence of the symbolist/decadent Parisian scene of the 1890s, which spawned a few other such horror/weird writers, in both France and England.

[Traveller]

Nate D wrote: "Re: Boris reaching in -- I think he says that it's a matter of timing. He can only reach in safely just after the ray of light. But how would he have chance to discover this safely?!

And Traveler,..."

Chambers spent some of his student years in Paris, where he studied art : Robert was first educated at the the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute,and then entered the Art Students League of New York at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Paris Salon as early as 1889.

Regarding the ménage à trois; well, from all accounts, Genevieve and Boris were settled as a couple; they shared a house together, and if not married, at least they were, you know, together.

(view spoiler)[ To me it seems rather obvious that Alec and Boris had initially competed for her hand, and that she had initially chosen Boris for reasons that might have to do with the mask of self-deception. See, this is how Chambers plays with us; we don't exactly know how far the self-deception reaches. Did all of them wear masks of self-deception, and/but in the case of Alec, the mask became part of himself like in the opening quote?

...and you are quite right, re the ending I was not sure which part -how much or all of it, was delusional or not. (hide spoiler)]

These people might also be guessing, but the site is interesting, nonetheless: http://kinginyellow.wikia.com/wiki/Th...

[Derek]

Traveller wrote: "Btw, don't y'all also find it a bit... interesting that Boris can plunge his hand into the pool with no ill effects, yet anything else dropped into it becomes petrified? "

You don't mean to say that perhaps this isn't all really happening, do you?

I'd like to point out that if you've got this far, you've caught enough fragments of the play, that none of you can be totally certain of your own sanity.

[Traveller]

Nah, I had initially missed what Nate had caught - that there is a certain moment in which it is safe to stick your hand in. I suppose I had felt it might be sloppy writing - I suppose had I written it, I would have required of him to use a sort of tongs or something to remove things from the pool, rather than just his bare hand.

[A.]

This was my least favorite of the four KIY stories, but I'm not sure I really get it.

(view spoiler)[I've been trying to figure out whether Genevieve is really alive again at the end or whether Alec is still in the grip of madness. I'm now leaning toward the latter, because the former just gives the story a sappy ending that seems way too good to be true (The unwanted Boris taken out of the way to make room for Alec and Genevieve to get together). Plus, the madness caused by reading TKIY seems to be both devastating and permanent. I can't believe Alec would just get over it and carry on life as usual.

So, in trying to figure out what's real and what's not real, this is what I get:

1. Anything that happened after Alec read TKIY is suspect. This includes not only Genevieve's resurrection, but probably also her petrification. ***It also includes the scene where Genevieve says she loves Alec more!***
2. Boris definitely died because this is mentioned in "The Repairer of Reputations." We can't be sure he really died by suicide, though, because this is something Alec hears after reading TKIY.
3. Almost all Alec's post-KIY information comes from one source: Jack Scott. Is this significant or not? Jack is the lead character in "The Yellow Sign," although this story clearly takes place before Jack reads the book. And how much of what Alec remembers Jack saying is real? Alec could have just imagined Jack said these things.
4. What's up with Boris' mention, near the beginning of the story, of a new element, a precious metal? It never gets mentioned again. Is this a dropped plot thread or something important? Chambers seems like a very thoughtful, careful writer; and he clearly loves symbolism. That makes me inclined to think the new element is important. It's a subtle symbol for something.
5. Well before Genevieve's sickness and Alec's reading TKIY, this had already taken place: "The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me." But his delirium and reading TKIY strips away that mask.
6. During his delirium, Alec says this: "Among all these, one sane thought persisted. It never wavered, no matter what else was going on in my disordered mind, that my chief reason for existing was to meet some requirement of Boris and Geneviève. What this obligation was, its nature, was never clear; sometimes it seemed to be protection, sometimes support, through a great crisis." This seems like a hugely important plot point, but I'm not sure I get it.
7. Boris carves one of the Fates to look like him. In classical mythology, the Fates are all women. I have no idea whether this is significant or not.

Okay, now I'm heading out on a limb.

1. You could say the main characters in each of the four stories have a "mask of self-deception" that gets torn away by reading TKIY. That's the whole purpose of TKIY: to strip away masks. I'll take the stories in order:
a. I think Hildred is actually deceived twice. When he's insane, he thinks he can become the Emperor of America by getting rid of his cousin; but what other self-deception did he have? I think that before his head injury and reading TKIY, he was probably already jealous of Louis' success - but this is based on my reading of the other three stories. If they weren't there, I wouldn't necessarily have caught that. Oh, and incidentally, at one point when Hildred looks in the mirror, he describes his reflection as looking pale and skeletal - like the KIY.
b. Alec describes his mask plainly. He's pretending to be okay with the fact that Genevieve chose Boris and that he can still be friends with both of them.
c. The narrator of "The Court of the Dragon" is deceived about his faith. He's been going to church for ages without really believing. Reading TKIY exposes his hypocrisy.
d. Jack Scott in the fourth story deceives himself that he can be fair in his treatment of Tillie, and he also deceives himself in thinking he's a man of the world. When he reads TKIY, he gets his eyes opened and realizes he was an innocent before and now he's not.

2. That new element Boris discovered *has* to mean something. If it's a symbol, my best guess is that it relates to the new element in the trio's relationship: that Genevieve really loves Alec more. In fact, it's possible that the new element caused the change in her.

3. The white rabbit makes me think of innocence (because of the color) and Alice in Wonderland. The characters all do go down a rabbit hole.

4. In his delirium, Alec sees "the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it." I wonder if this relates to Boris' pool. He does seem to be obsessed with it.

5. In "The Prophet's Paradise" there's a section called "The Phantom" that includes this quote: "The Phantom of the Past would go no further./ “If it is true,” she sighed, “that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together. You will forget, here, under the summer sky.” /I held her close, pleading, caressing; I seized her, white with anger, but she resisted." Then the scene repeats. What if this relates to Alec and Genevieve? If she's really dead and stays dead, then she *is* a phantom of the past that can go no further - and only wanted to be friends. But reading TKIY causes Alec to fantasize a new life for her - with him as her lover instead of Boris.

6. Petrification is a powerful symbol: things staying the same, not being able to change - but also not being able to live. I think this relates again to the quote from "The Prophet's Paradise." For Boris, petrification is a symbol of things staying the same, of Genevieve staying with him and not changing her mind. For Alec, petrification is reversible - Genevieve can change her mind. Alec imagines(?) Genevieve petrifying herself but then recovering at a time when she can love him without Boris getting in the way.

5. Alec's "one sane thought" during his delirium was that he had some responsibility to Boris and Genevieve. My guess is that's his obsessive thought and not sane at all. He's using it to justify his wanting Genevieve revived and with him because that way he can protect her and do a friendly duty to the dead Boris.

Like I said, I really don't think I get this story. But my best guess is that Boris genuinely died of a heart attack and Genevieve never chose Alec, did get petrified, and didn't recover from petrification - although I'm not entirely sure she was ever petrified. Alec could have imagined that part too. Heck, maybe she just died like Boris died. (hide spoiler)]

[Traveller]

A. wrote: "This was my least favorite of the four KIY stories, but I'm not sure I really get it. I've been trying to figure out whether Genevieve is really alive again at the end or whether Alec is still in t..."

Wonderful analysis! I am with you on all of that, except that as far as I'm concerned, EVERYTHING Alec says is suspect, because he is narrating in the past tense, so he could be viewing everything through the lens of his insanity, though I will concede that the parts he narrates, even now, of what happened before he read it is possibly /probably more trustworthy than events taking place after he read the play.

So, very important, the details you point out that have been in the other stories, since we know that info doesn't come from Alec.

Hmm, listen, we're rather paranoid about spoilers around here; just in case other people still come onto the discussion later, I wonder if you would mind putting your excellent thoughts regarding the other stories either in spoiler tags, or posting them here rather? https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , which is actually a thread created for the very purpose of pulling all the story threads together - your thoughts would be excellent material for that thread, because you seem to have gone through all this very thoroughly and and in a pretty meta manner!

I apologize if you perhaps missed that thread because we haven't posted much in it much, resulting in it being rather far down in the folder.

[A.]

Sure, no problem about the spoiler tags. I'll go back and add those in.

I'm glad my analysis makes sense to someone else. ;-)

[Traveller]

Thanks! They're actually only necessary from "Okay, now I'm heading out on a limb " :D but you are very thorough, I have noticed by now. :)

Hmm, that other thread seems to be a dud, so now I'm contemplating whether to ask you if I can discuss that bit there, or if I should do so here, also under spoiler tags. Actually, - you know what, since these are short stories, maybe we shouldn't worry about spoilers, since you're going to find out soon enough if you read them, anyway?

...but you know what, just so it makes sense to people after they had read these first 4 stories, I think I'm going to reply to you in the thread for [EDIT] all 4 stories, okay? Since your analysis after "Okay, now I'm heading out on a limb " deals with all 4 stories. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[A.]

Whatever you say. :-)