On Paths Unknown discussion

Thread for discussion of In the Court of the Dragon.

This was the most frustrating of the stories to me. I'm interested to see what connections the rest of you see.

Not much, actually. I remember suddenly it was over and I was like, huh, what, is that it?

Hmm, so (view spoiler)[ wherever he goes, he cannot escape from the "King in Yellow" - not even in a church, which is where he went to try and escape from his yellow-ish thoughts in the first place, it seems.

Well, the "figure of 'death'" which haunts him, anyway, which I'm not sure now is actually the King in Y, is certainly one of the denizens of Caracosa, in any case. I feel as if Caracosa is starting to stand as a sort "city of Insanity" perhaps a place similar to hell. (hide spoiler)]

Discussion thread for part 4 here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hmmm, yeah. Somewhat underwhelming. I do like the (view spoiler)[vision of Caracosa at the end though. Spires that loom up behind the moon? Wonderful. And very Lovecraftian. (hide spoiler)]

I am starting to find him rather delightfully playful. Definitely Borgesian and Lovecraftian, except that Borges and Lovecraft are probably Chambersian! :D

EDIT: Oh, btw, I noticed that in this and the next story, horse-carriages are still used. Would these 2 stories not be set in the future, or did Chambers really foresee people using horse-carriages forever, I wonder?

Traveller wrote: "Oh, btw, I noticed that in this and the next story, horse-carriages are still used. Would these 2 stories not be set in the future, or did Chambers really foresee people using horse-carriages forever, I wonder? "

I noticed that too and had to check my dates, because there again we find the delights of reading a text from 1895 that imagines the future 1920s: the first modern automobile was built in 1886, but the Model T (the first car that was affordable to a large number of people) was not built until 1908. So a mixture of cars and horse drawn conveyances probably seemed perfectly likely to him at the time.

(view spoiler)[I am still wondering what the vague thing was that he suddenly starts feeling guilty for. ("There began to dawn in me a sense of responsibility for something long forgotten.") In the end I thought it was just an atmospheric touch, since I couldn't connect any person in this story to the previous two.

Glancing over this one again, the 'oh, I was dreaming' ending was what I found frustrating (along with the lack of a clear connection, as the other stories have such), but the vision of Carcosa really is quite wonderful. (hide spoiler)]

I've decided this one is pretty much a resting beat; it gathers together and introduces information that does not have much impact at the time, but just holds it in place to be given full impact in the next story.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Oh, btw, I noticed that in this and the next story, horse-carriages are still used. Would these 2 stories not be set in the future, or did Chambers really foresee people using hor..."

...and yet in many ways, that relentlessness of whoever the person the protagonist keeps seeing is, does tie in for me with the next story. I think Chambers wants to give a feeling of: "You can't escape, no matter what you try!"

(view spoiler)[ ....but did he really dream in the "usual" way? Dream? Delusion? Remember, in this one, at the start of the story, he had already read the play, even before he entered the church for the first time. ...or is this story perhaps trying to give us a "circular" feel? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Did he maybe actually really go out and run back to the church? ...and only once, or....? (hide spoiler)]

Traveller wrote: "...and yet in many ways, that relentlessness of whoever the person is, does tie in for me with the next story. I think he wants to give a feeling of: "You can't escape, no matter what you try!""

Yes, definitely on the relentless pursuit.

(view spoiler)[I found this passage (immediately after he awakens) to be key:
Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him--they had changed him for every other eye, but not for mine. I had recognized him almost from the first; I had never doubted what he was come to do; and now I knew while my body sat safe in the cheerful little church, he had been hunting my soul in the Court of the Dragon.

I honestly took that last statement to be exactly true: he fell asleep in church but his soul was pursued (and caught) by this entity. So many questions that will not be answered: Who does the narrator become in the KIY mythos? Who is this villain that he had apparently vanquished before? Is this madness or is this a story consuming the world? I lean toward the latter. You can definitely see the seed idea for Lovecraft's Necronomicon here (from what I know of it; I've only read one small collection of Lovecraft's stuff. I'm about to take another crack at it thanks to KIY, I think). (hide spoiler)]

Yeah, he definitely seems to have built an only hinted at world, and it is that vagueness that makes it so both maddening and effective...

As for the circularity, it starts at the very beginning already, with the organist coming in/going out at the same places repeatedly...

I have a very weird theory about this story. I could be totally off-base here, but this is what I got out of it.

(view spoiler)[The most significant points of the story for me are these:
1) After reading The Yellow Sign, he narrator can't take worship seriously and makes fun of it (until the stranger scares him out of making fun of the service)
2) This quote about his life in The Court of the Dragon: "Five flights up are the ateliers of architects and painters, and the hiding-places of middle-aged students like myself who want to live alone. When I first came here to live I was young, and not alone."
3) "The Dragon" is one alternate name for Satan.
4) The grand finale of the story is this: "Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard his voice, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me in waves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!""
5) The stranger had the narrator at his mercy, but he didn't hurt him; he just sent him back to church.

It seems to me that reading The King in Yellow basically caused the narrator to lose his faith. Also, while living in The Court of the Dragon he went from young and innocent to older and cynical - and he lost someone, apparently due to some kind of "weakness." The stranger seems to be haunting him because of that weakness. Now, the person the narrator lost could have been a lover, but I don't think it was. According to the finale, the narrator now sees an unnamed "him" differently than everyone else does because Death has changed the unnamed "him" in their eyes but not in his. The narrator alone still recognizes "him" from his pre-Death appearance. Now, how does that relate to the story's final statement that "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God"? To me, this statement makes it seem like the narrator is going to be punished by the Living God by being sent into eternal death. And it's the King in Yellow who tells him this. Remember that the King in Yellow is said to wear a pallid mask, and the stranger's face is white - a reflection of that mask (Then, of course, there's another story in the book that's actually titled "The Mask." It's an important theme through all the King in Yellow stories.)

Now here's my theory, which as I said is very, very weird. I'm fully prepared to have someone knock it down. I think the narrator lost faith in God and in Jesus specifically, but in the world of the story, God *is* real (thus the "Living God*). The problem is that a shaky faith in God and no faith in a resurrected/changed Jesus, the narrator is left with the stern and scary deity of the Old Testament. That means the angry stranger who keeps following him but never actually harms him is the Jesus he rejected, who's angry because he's connected to the angry Old Testament God - and yet he's trying to call the reader back to church or else damn him to hell if he won't go back. (hide spoiler)]

this is a fascinating theory and not one that I have even remotely considered. much food for thought. thanks for writing it up in such detail!

A. wrote: "I have a very weird theory about this story. I could be totally off-base here, but this is what I got out of it. The most significant points of the story for me are these:
1) After reading The Yell..."

Yes, fascinating theory in its intricate detail! Thank you for posting it!

The narrator alone still recognizes "him" from his pre-Death appearance..."

Hmm, okay, so you are saying he is now dead?

There are 2 things that I'd like to point out though:

Firstly, I don't see where there are any clues that anything points to Jesus specifically. Yes, indeed there is the statement about the Living God; and that could indeed be a reference to the Christian God, but the story doesn't specifically say.

Secondly, reading the play makes you insane, it doesn't kill you; so what the narrator is telling us could all be a manifestation of his insanity.

I do agree with you that the insanity definitely manifests around religion, though, and to me it seems to indicate the kind of living hell you would live in if your religion ceased to bring you the comfort and protection you had always felt it had given you in the past.

Traveller wrote: The narrator alone still recognizes "him" from his pre-Death appearance..."

Hmm, okay, so you are saying he is now dead?

I'm saying that if the stranger is Jesus, he's a version of Jesus that wasn't resurrected and the narrator recognizes him because the narrator doesn't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Meanwhile, the people who do believe, don't recognize the stranger. BTW, this tallies with some stories in the gospels where people don't recognize the resurrected Jesus at first because he's changed.

You're right that the story never specifically mentions Jesus or clearly implies the stranger is Jesus. But the narrator is Catholic and the church is Catholic. Plus, "Living God" is a frequently used term for the Hebrew/Christian God. I don't have enough knowledge of any other religions to say whether they use the same term or not.

Yes, you're exactly right that what the narrator says could be a manifestation of his insanity. It could be manifesting as the stereotypical Catholic guilt. ;-)

As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, this would also mean that the idea of God being real could also be in the narrator's head and that the story itself isn't necessarily saying God exists.

A. wrote: "I'm saying that if the stranger is Jesus, he's a version of Jesus that wasn't resurrected and the narrator recognizes him because the narrator doesn't believe Jesus rose from the dead. Meanwhile, the people who do believe, don't recognize the stranger.."

Phew, okay... I can't dispute the conclusion since it is based on a possibly hypothetical premise, and I must admit it bends my mind a little... :P

Yes, you are quite right about the Living God, and there I didn't mean any 'real-world' religions, but I was thinking along the lines of Lovecraftian alien gods (Although since Chambers predated Lovecraft, Lovecraft's gods can and must be seen as Lovecraft's own interpretation, of course) - I merely meant in the sense that this Living God could be part of the Yellow King world/mythos, OR it can be an inversion of the Catholic worldview as a result of the narrator's insanity.


..but since Chambers left everything so vague, all of our theories can only be speculation; to an even greater degree than is usually the case when trying to interpret fiction.

..and that is what makes this mythos so rich for me - there are so many interpretations of it, including your own very interesting one, A.!

I'd love to hear what you think of the other stories - The Mask, for example : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I was actually just getting ready to go read the comments on the other stories when I saw you'd added this here. :-)

A., I love all your wonderful detailed thoughts on these stories. I won't be on GR much today, but I'll try to get in here tonight and post thoughts, probably over in the thread for all four KIY stories, https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" is Hebrews 10:31 (Douay-Rheims translation). Interesting, from your theory, that Hebrews chapter 10 is directly on point to the grace and resurrection available through Christ, and how terrible it would be to turn away from that and lose it (and therefore have no hope afterward of salvation). Here is verse 23 to 31:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering (for he is faithful that hath promised), And let us consider one another, to provoke unto charity and to good works: Not forsaking our assembly, as some are accustomed; but comforting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins, But a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries. A man making void the law of Moses, dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses: How much more, do you think he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

https://www.bible.com/bible/55/heb.10...

Other translations are available by a nice drop down click at the link for those like myself who find Douay-Reims (as I understand it, the Catholic equivalent of the KJV, which would have been in use in Catholic churches in Chambers' day) an unwieldy rendering.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" is Hebrews 10:31 (Douay-Rheims translation). Interesting, from your theory, that Hebrews chapter 10 is directly on point to the grace and resurrection available through Christ, and how terrible it would be to turn away from that and lose it (and therefore have no hope afterward of salvation). Here is verse 23 to 31:

Oh, how cool! And I've also just remembered that the priest was beginning a sermon about having no need to fear: “My children,” said the preacher, “one truth the human soul finds hardest of all to learn: that it has nothing to fear. It can never be made to see that nothing can really harm it.” The narrator definitely can't be made to see that nothing can really harm him!

Hey, what is the internet but a wonderful place! You guys are totally on the ball.

Okay, I'm also going to comment in the thread that Amy mentioned - glad to get some confirmation on that.
(This one : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )

A. posted a huge-ass analysis in an earlier thread - it's really huge - I do think that thread is going to be best to reply to it - I'll copy her analysis there, as soon as I can find my copy of the book, argh!

A. wrote: "Oh, how cool! And I've also just remembered that the priest was beginning a sermon about having no need to fear: “My children,” said the preacher, “one truth the human soul finds hardest of all to learn: that it has nothing to fear. It can never be made to see that nothing can really harm it.” The narrator definitely can't be made to see that nothing can really harm him!"

That's another excellent point. I am still turning this over; I need to reread all four of the first stories in the book, but I don't have space in my schedule right at the moment. I made a jab at getting down my thoughts here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'd love to know what you think.

Okay, Amy, I'll make a response on the other page. :-)