The King in Yellow

I decided to read The King in Yellow for three reasons. First, True Detective repeatedly alluded to The King in Yellow. Second, it was free on Amazon. Third, it is always available on my phone in case of a book emergency. Call me a philistine, but I didn’t enjoy this classic. The King in Yellow is a book of ten short stories of wildly varying quality. It is dated and not in a good way. For example, once a character says that he or she loves another character, it isn’t unusual for everyone to fall dramatically ill or melodramatically die. They make Romeo & Juliet seem like reasonable young people with excellent communication skills. In some stories, madness is the point if the unreliable narrator or character read or possess a fictional play called The King in Yellow. I don’t think that I would mind all the allusions to madness, dramatic love or sinter death if the stories were written more clearly. I hope that I’m not similarly disappointed when I finally tackle H. P. Lovecraft.