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The King in the Golden Mask
First published in French in 1892 and never before translated fully into English, The King in the Golden Mask gathers 21 of Marcel Schwob’s cruelest and most erudite tales. Melding the fantastic with historical fiction, these stories describe moments of unexplained violence both historical and imaginary, often blending the two through Schwob’s collaging of primary source documents into fiction. Brimming with murder, suicide, royal leprosy and medieval witchcraft, Schwob’s stories portray clergymen furtively attending medieval sabbaths, Protestant galley slaves laboring under the persecution of Louis XIV and dice-tumbling sons of Florentine noblemen wandering Europe at the height of the 1374 plague. These writings are of such hallucinatory detail and linguistic specificity that the reader is left wondering whether they aren’t newly unearthed historical documents. To read Schwob is to encounter human history in its most scintillating form as it comes into contact with this unparalleled imagination.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1892
26 people are currently reading
843 people want to read
About the author
Marcel Schwob
197 books199 followersMarcel Schwob (1867-1905) was one of the key symbolist writers, standing in French literature alongside such names as Stephane Mallarme, Octave Mirbeau, Andre Gide, Leon Bloy, Jules Renard, Remy de Gourmont, and Alfred Jarry. His best-known works are Double Heart (1891), The King In The Gold Mask (1892), and Imaginary Lives (1896).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
December 30, 2018
A beautiful collection of stories. Diverse in tone and varied in subject. Despite the frequent and welcome scent of old school decadence that perfumes many of these tales, what makes them resonant is Schwob's clear empathy. It is the unifying factor amidst so much that is unalike.
The book and the stories within are well-known for springing from sources other than their author's mind. Schwob often lifted entire sections from the archaic originals. And so they are not original - and yet they feel original, thanks to his own force of personality, visible in his elegant style, the free-floating sense of longing and melancholy, the noted empathy, and the sardonic wit.
"The King in the Golden Mask" - in his decadent court, the king masked in gold wonders what lies beneath; sadly, he comes ill-equipped for the disease called reality.
"The Death of Odjigh" - at the end of time, Odjigh the wolf-slayer searches for signs of life; happily, life will often spring from death.
"The Terrestrial Fire" - as the world burns, two adolescents flee to the sea, huddling in a barge; happily, love is born, and baptized with flame.
"The Embalming Women" - in the Libyan desert, two brothers find a strange oasis populated by odd women; sadly, a corpse's kiss is cold comfort indeed.
"The Plague" - two Florentine youths leave their plague-ridden city in search of adventure; sadly, an old jest becomes less than comic.
"The Faulx-Visaiges" - across the countryside, masked bands of men enact various depradations and atrocities; happily, torture can have therapeutic value.
"The Eunuchs" - in ancient times, drinkers of pink wine ruminate on their bucolic past lives, young and free, before slavery; sadly, what has been taken seldom returns.
"The Milesian Virgins" - in Miletus, a wave of suicides: virgins found hanging from rafters; sadly, Athena's mirror has supplanted the promises of Aphrodite.
"52 and 53 Orfila" - in an institution for seniors, passionate rivals coo and flirt over a doddering gent; happily, enforced exile remains the best way to handle a tramp, of any age.
"The Sabbat at Mofflaines" - a knight is invited to attend a merry dinner celebrating His Infernal Majesty; sadly, small minds will seek to curtail such merriments.
"The Talking Machine" - an invitation to attend upon a certain machine is issued by a talkative old crank; happily, a machine may choose to make its own pronouncements.
"Bloody Blanche" - in an evil Count's lair, a child-bride over-indulges in food and wine; happily, gouts of blood - and schadenfreude - will prove a nutritious supplement.
"The Grand Brière" - in the swampy French countryside, a hunting party sets out; happily, one member of the party finds she can hunt more than birds.
"The Salt Smugglers" - on board a slave galley, an opportunity for escapes arises; happily, for some, slavery is where the heart is.
"The Flute" - on board a pirate ship come a blind man and his eerie flute; sadly, reminders of childhood and now-empty lives will seldom turn a pirate's frown upside down.
"The Cart" - during a moonlit night, two knaves review their latest misdeeds; sadly, blood is a stain that is difficult to remove.
"The Sleeping City" - from the Jolly Roger come crew and captain, to a silent city full of once-living statues; sadly, nostalgia and tribalism will increase this city's population.
"The Blue Country" - in a dark and dreary unknown city live a lively young lass and her hunchbacked little friend; happily, a dream country can become a destination.
"The Return to the Fold" - in haughty Paris, colorful circus performers from the country invade a dance hall; happily, the countryside lacks both haughtiness and Parisiennes.
"Cruchette" - during the heat of the day, two convicts on a chain gang consider escape with a water bearer; sadly, escape from labor does not mean escape from jealousy.
"Bargette" - spying a barge heading South, a dreaming maid departs in search of flowers and other wonders; sadly, the grass is ever greener wherever we do not go.
The book and the stories within are well-known for springing from sources other than their author's mind. Schwob often lifted entire sections from the archaic originals. And so they are not original - and yet they feel original, thanks to his own force of personality, visible in his elegant style, the free-floating sense of longing and melancholy, the noted empathy, and the sardonic wit.
"He believed that all had been said, and forgotten," ... "His art was the gift of choice and amalgamation. He found the origin of all his books. He was not unaware that his were made of the debris of many others."Highly recommended for admirers of Borges and the like.
"The King in the Golden Mask" - in his decadent court, the king masked in gold wonders what lies beneath; sadly, he comes ill-equipped for the disease called reality.
"The Death of Odjigh" - at the end of time, Odjigh the wolf-slayer searches for signs of life; happily, life will often spring from death.
"The Terrestrial Fire" - as the world burns, two adolescents flee to the sea, huddling in a barge; happily, love is born, and baptized with flame.
"The Embalming Women" - in the Libyan desert, two brothers find a strange oasis populated by odd women; sadly, a corpse's kiss is cold comfort indeed.
"The Plague" - two Florentine youths leave their plague-ridden city in search of adventure; sadly, an old jest becomes less than comic.
"The Faulx-Visaiges" - across the countryside, masked bands of men enact various depradations and atrocities; happily, torture can have therapeutic value.
"The Eunuchs" - in ancient times, drinkers of pink wine ruminate on their bucolic past lives, young and free, before slavery; sadly, what has been taken seldom returns.
"The Milesian Virgins" - in Miletus, a wave of suicides: virgins found hanging from rafters; sadly, Athena's mirror has supplanted the promises of Aphrodite.
"52 and 53 Orfila" - in an institution for seniors, passionate rivals coo and flirt over a doddering gent; happily, enforced exile remains the best way to handle a tramp, of any age.
"The Sabbat at Mofflaines" - a knight is invited to attend a merry dinner celebrating His Infernal Majesty; sadly, small minds will seek to curtail such merriments.
"The Talking Machine" - an invitation to attend upon a certain machine is issued by a talkative old crank; happily, a machine may choose to make its own pronouncements.
"Bloody Blanche" - in an evil Count's lair, a child-bride over-indulges in food and wine; happily, gouts of blood - and schadenfreude - will prove a nutritious supplement.
"The Grand Brière" - in the swampy French countryside, a hunting party sets out; happily, one member of the party finds she can hunt more than birds.
"The Salt Smugglers" - on board a slave galley, an opportunity for escapes arises; happily, for some, slavery is where the heart is.
"The Flute" - on board a pirate ship come a blind man and his eerie flute; sadly, reminders of childhood and now-empty lives will seldom turn a pirate's frown upside down.
"The Cart" - during a moonlit night, two knaves review their latest misdeeds; sadly, blood is a stain that is difficult to remove.
"The Sleeping City" - from the Jolly Roger come crew and captain, to a silent city full of once-living statues; sadly, nostalgia and tribalism will increase this city's population.
"The Blue Country" - in a dark and dreary unknown city live a lively young lass and her hunchbacked little friend; happily, a dream country can become a destination.
"The Return to the Fold" - in haughty Paris, colorful circus performers from the country invade a dance hall; happily, the countryside lacks both haughtiness and Parisiennes.
"Cruchette" - during the heat of the day, two convicts on a chain gang consider escape with a water bearer; sadly, escape from labor does not mean escape from jealousy.
"Bargette" - spying a barge heading South, a dreaming maid departs in search of flowers and other wonders; sadly, the grass is ever greener wherever we do not go.
May 9, 2019
Wakefield Press has been publishing some wonderful translations of works that are under-exposed to readers of English-language books. “Overlooked gems and literary oddities,” as they put it. Their presentation is clean, tight, and, in the examples I’ve read, accompanied by erudite and insightful analyses and introductions.
Normally, I would elucidate each story in a collection, but not this time. There are 21 stories contained in this book, each of them only three or four pages long. If you’re interested in my little notes on all of them, you can find those notes in my status updates. It’s not that there isn’t something wonderful in all of these stories – there absolutely is. But the stories are so short and so concise that to mention even a sentence-worth of insight on some of them is enough to give the whole story away. I found them punchy and immersive, the perfect thing for reading a story on every lunch break at work (which is exactly what I did – one beautiful story a day for 21 working days – the perfect thing to help me through my day).
I live in a rather small home. Three bedrooms, 1200 square feet finished, one and a half bathrooms. We raised four children in this home. Now that they are (mostly) out on their own, it’s the perfect size for us. And that’s how I’d characterize The King in the Golden Mask - the perfect size, with perfectly-sized stories.
But these stories were expansive mentally, emotionally, mythically. Speaking of myth, I have to admit that my initial draw to the book was that title, evocative of Robert W. Chambers “The King in Yellow”. I noticed, as I read, that many of the themes that people often associate with The King in Yellow were present in Schwob’s book, and I wondered if aficionados of the Hastur mythos don’t conflate Chamber’s work with Schwob’s (and, frankly with Poe, as well). The themes of disease, masks, and the upending of existing social order is prominent in all three, but I feel that with the titular story of this collection, Schwob best integrates these themes and allows their mythical symbolic implications to carry the story and add a depth of internal resonance somewhat lacking in both Chamber’s and Poe’s works.
I cannot deny that a confluence of events aided me in enjoying one work in particular, the story “The Terrestrial Fire”. The imagery in this story is absolutely stunning. My reading of the story was nearly simultaneous with the announcement of the Sunn O))) LP, Life Metal. If I were to set this story to music, it would be to this album. Stunning and beautiful and horrifying, all at once. The serendipity of the timing of the album’s release and my reading of the story is Magic.
Imagery is not the sole strength of Schwob’s work, not by a long shot. What is even more compelling is Schwob’s breadth and depth. From the far-post-apocalyptic “The Death of Odjigh” to the weird-pirate story “The Flute” to the pastoral “The Return to the Fold” to the sheer medieval brutality of "The Faulx-Visaiges,” this work runs the gamut of tone, mood, and genre.
Schwob is at his best, though, when he plays the part of the ancestor to the weird tale. If, for example, I used the phrase "Shades of Carcosa," I could not use a more appropriate phrase, full of multi-layered meaning, to describe the story "The Sleeping City". Part Robert E. Howard, part Clark Ashton Smith, part Robert W. Chambers - a beautifully-wrought weird tale that precedes and possibly informs Smith and Howard’s work (Schwob and Chambers were roughly contemporaries, and I’m not sure if they knew or read each other’s works). Again, there is a certain internal resonance that Schwob’s work contains, Smith’s does occasionally, and Howard’s simply does not.
My favorite story of the collection was “The Blue Country”:
In a country town I wouldn’t be able to find anymore, the sloping streets are old and the houses are decked with slate. Rain runs along the sculpted pilotis, and its droplets all fall in the selfsame place, with the selfsame sound. The round little windows have sunken into the walls, as if to keep from being struck. There is nothing brave in these streets, save for the ivy above the doors and the moss atop the walls: the ivy’s dark and shiny leaves bare their teeth, and the moss dares consume all the large stones that sit outside its yellow velvet – but the people here are as fleeting as the shadow of rising smoke.
An uncharacteristically hopeful(?) ending (at least for all those who aren't the narrator) punctuates this sluggishly-whimsical story. I absolutely loved "The Blue Country" and even have a soundtrack recommendation to go with your grey, drizzly-day reading of this fine, dark tale. Alas, you will be done reading this tale long before the soundtrack is over. So, read it again. And again. And again.
In fact, do that with the whole collection. I will. I will. I will!
Normally, I would elucidate each story in a collection, but not this time. There are 21 stories contained in this book, each of them only three or four pages long. If you’re interested in my little notes on all of them, you can find those notes in my status updates. It’s not that there isn’t something wonderful in all of these stories – there absolutely is. But the stories are so short and so concise that to mention even a sentence-worth of insight on some of them is enough to give the whole story away. I found them punchy and immersive, the perfect thing for reading a story on every lunch break at work (which is exactly what I did – one beautiful story a day for 21 working days – the perfect thing to help me through my day).
I live in a rather small home. Three bedrooms, 1200 square feet finished, one and a half bathrooms. We raised four children in this home. Now that they are (mostly) out on their own, it’s the perfect size for us. And that’s how I’d characterize The King in the Golden Mask - the perfect size, with perfectly-sized stories.
But these stories were expansive mentally, emotionally, mythically. Speaking of myth, I have to admit that my initial draw to the book was that title, evocative of Robert W. Chambers “The King in Yellow”. I noticed, as I read, that many of the themes that people often associate with The King in Yellow were present in Schwob’s book, and I wondered if aficionados of the Hastur mythos don’t conflate Chamber’s work with Schwob’s (and, frankly with Poe, as well). The themes of disease, masks, and the upending of existing social order is prominent in all three, but I feel that with the titular story of this collection, Schwob best integrates these themes and allows their mythical symbolic implications to carry the story and add a depth of internal resonance somewhat lacking in both Chamber’s and Poe’s works.
I cannot deny that a confluence of events aided me in enjoying one work in particular, the story “The Terrestrial Fire”. The imagery in this story is absolutely stunning. My reading of the story was nearly simultaneous with the announcement of the Sunn O))) LP, Life Metal. If I were to set this story to music, it would be to this album. Stunning and beautiful and horrifying, all at once. The serendipity of the timing of the album’s release and my reading of the story is Magic.
Imagery is not the sole strength of Schwob’s work, not by a long shot. What is even more compelling is Schwob’s breadth and depth. From the far-post-apocalyptic “The Death of Odjigh” to the weird-pirate story “The Flute” to the pastoral “The Return to the Fold” to the sheer medieval brutality of "The Faulx-Visaiges,” this work runs the gamut of tone, mood, and genre.
Schwob is at his best, though, when he plays the part of the ancestor to the weird tale. If, for example, I used the phrase "Shades of Carcosa," I could not use a more appropriate phrase, full of multi-layered meaning, to describe the story "The Sleeping City". Part Robert E. Howard, part Clark Ashton Smith, part Robert W. Chambers - a beautifully-wrought weird tale that precedes and possibly informs Smith and Howard’s work (Schwob and Chambers were roughly contemporaries, and I’m not sure if they knew or read each other’s works). Again, there is a certain internal resonance that Schwob’s work contains, Smith’s does occasionally, and Howard’s simply does not.
My favorite story of the collection was “The Blue Country”:
In a country town I wouldn’t be able to find anymore, the sloping streets are old and the houses are decked with slate. Rain runs along the sculpted pilotis, and its droplets all fall in the selfsame place, with the selfsame sound. The round little windows have sunken into the walls, as if to keep from being struck. There is nothing brave in these streets, save for the ivy above the doors and the moss atop the walls: the ivy’s dark and shiny leaves bare their teeth, and the moss dares consume all the large stones that sit outside its yellow velvet – but the people here are as fleeting as the shadow of rising smoke.
An uncharacteristically hopeful(?) ending (at least for all those who aren't the narrator) punctuates this sluggishly-whimsical story. I absolutely loved "The Blue Country" and even have a soundtrack recommendation to go with your grey, drizzly-day reading of this fine, dark tale. Alas, you will be done reading this tale long before the soundtrack is over. So, read it again. And again. And again.
In fact, do that with the whole collection. I will. I will. I will!
September 25, 2017
While as stories these often feel ever so slight, barely more than historical sketches of lost times, peoples, and events in classical or medieval history, Schwob was a master at reworking found tales and settings into incandescent imagery that push these into the hallucinatory and ineffaceable. A clear influence on Borges, even the simplest of these look onwards towards his early pseudo-biographies in A Universal History of Iniquity, while the more elaborate become tightly-arranged symbolist tableaux that point forward to B.'s even greater conceptual refinements (or his countrymen Paul Willem's ethereal architectures in The Cathedral of Mist). And lastly, a certain taste for tales of horror and the weird, much in fashion in the fin-de-siecle milieu, grants these a desire to startle, making even sketches surprisingly punchy. So, despite apparent slightness, these are rich and involving. Masks, lost cities, apocalypses (my favorite: "The Terrestrial Fire"), and dreamscapes.
September 27, 2019
Many of the stories in here were just so-so for me. I kinda wish the afterward had been a forward—the adventures with pirates and thieves might've seemed more interesting than straight-ahead pulpy Poe or R. L. Stevenson. There were other stories I liked quite a bit. I'm saying it was a mixed bag. Many story collections are.
HOWEVER one story in here has become an instant all-time favorite. The Blue Country. It was like finding a sapphire in a box of marbles. I read it. I turned directly from the last word to the first word and read it again. Then I demanded that my spouse listen as I read it aloud a third time. And I got a little choked up. I mean, nothing too unmanly, just a little vocal quiver at certain spots. I can't help it, this happens when I get truly excited about a story.
Usually I'd unpack this thing. There'd be packing peanuts everywhere. But not today. I'd rather spend the time going back and reading it again. And again.
HOWEVER one story in here has become an instant all-time favorite. The Blue Country. It was like finding a sapphire in a box of marbles. I read it. I turned directly from the last word to the first word and read it again. Then I demanded that my spouse listen as I read it aloud a third time. And I got a little choked up. I mean, nothing too unmanly, just a little vocal quiver at certain spots. I can't help it, this happens when I get truly excited about a story.
Usually I'd unpack this thing. There'd be packing peanuts everywhere. But not today. I'd rather spend the time going back and reading it again. And again.
December 6, 2020
The King in the Golden Mask is a selection of Marcel Schwob’s short fiction from the 1890s. My impression of Schwob is that he was slightly strange; obsessed with scholarly pursuits, he read widely across eras and languages and seems to have spent much of his short life in libraries, bent Casaubon-style over obscure tomes. He’s comparatively unknown now but, in his day, he was also part of a broader grouping of prominent, fellow writers including Oscar Wilde and Jean Lorrain. The entries in this collection are a testament to Schwob’s extraordinary cultural connections, individually dedicated to friends from his artistic circle. But his own attitude to literature’s a difficult one to relate to, at least for a reader living in an age where authors are celebrities, praised for their characteristic styles or unique perspectives on the world. Schwob didn’t think it was possible to produce something original, it seems as far as he was concerned everything had been tried before. So, his work deliberately features direct references from material he’d encountered in his studies; a sort of magpie approach taking things from here and lifting passages from there and bringing them together in different forms. It’s a strategy I associate with areas of modern art more than writing, probably because in art it’s an established technique and in writing it’s flirting with plagiarism.
The actual stories are quite brief, true to Schwob’s beliefs, many seem like fragments of some mysterious whole, with the general feel of fables or weird, grim fairy-tales. There’s an atmosphere, not of outright horror exactly, Schwob’s mostly too restrained for that despite cruel or perverse episodes, but of general unease: an unsettling, forlorn quality, an underlying preoccupation with loss and the desolate. But there are also splashes of colour, lavish and startling scenes as well as gothic elements possibly linked to Schwob’s admiration for Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allen Poe.
A major concern of Schwob’s, highlighted in his preface to The King in the Golden Mask, is one of hidden selves, the “masks” that conceal the reality of the people beneath. In the title story a king reigns over a rigidly-stratified society, everyone has their assigned role, signalled by the design of the masks they always wear: entertainers, courtiers, priests. Even the king sports a mask that proclaims his status. But a chance incident shakes the king’s belief in his ordered existence, making him long to know what’s underneath people’s disguises; at the same time, he dreads what might be revealed once everyone’s true face is exposed. It’s one of the most powerful pieces included here.
I’m not sure what I expected from this collection but I was surprised by how much of it worked for me; how varied and accessible it was, and how frequently specific scenes left vivid after-images. Although I recommend reading it slowly, I’ve been dipping into it for a while. It’s hard to predict how anyone else might respond to this one but I really loved the sense Schwob creates of presenting readers with the traces of long-buried, half-remembered histories or legends.
The actual stories are quite brief, true to Schwob’s beliefs, many seem like fragments of some mysterious whole, with the general feel of fables or weird, grim fairy-tales. There’s an atmosphere, not of outright horror exactly, Schwob’s mostly too restrained for that despite cruel or perverse episodes, but of general unease: an unsettling, forlorn quality, an underlying preoccupation with loss and the desolate. But there are also splashes of colour, lavish and startling scenes as well as gothic elements possibly linked to Schwob’s admiration for Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allen Poe.
A major concern of Schwob’s, highlighted in his preface to The King in the Golden Mask, is one of hidden selves, the “masks” that conceal the reality of the people beneath. In the title story a king reigns over a rigidly-stratified society, everyone has their assigned role, signalled by the design of the masks they always wear: entertainers, courtiers, priests. Even the king sports a mask that proclaims his status. But a chance incident shakes the king’s belief in his ordered existence, making him long to know what’s underneath people’s disguises; at the same time, he dreads what might be revealed once everyone’s true face is exposed. It’s one of the most powerful pieces included here.
I’m not sure what I expected from this collection but I was surprised by how much of it worked for me; how varied and accessible it was, and how frequently specific scenes left vivid after-images. Although I recommend reading it slowly, I’ve been dipping into it for a while. It’s hard to predict how anyone else might respond to this one but I really loved the sense Schwob creates of presenting readers with the traces of long-buried, half-remembered histories or legends.
July 7, 2019
Marcel Schwob’s tales in The King In the Golden Mask are terrifying, exciting and awe-inspiring; Some reads like historical fiction, others like fantasy or horror stories, melding genres and impressions with masterful prose which draws the reader into these strange and captivating stories. A curious sense of time and place permeates these tales, some of them read as historical accounts, while others seem to be set in a time and place all of their own. The people who inhabit his stories move through their respective worlds either embroiled in violence, madness or passion, and their tales often read as accounts of real people who suffered tragic or ironic fates, rather than someone moving to the whim of the authors fancy. The sense of mystery lingers heavily over many of these tales, things are often not explained, and Schwob writes as if they never needed to be in the first place.
December 17, 2018
there is a full post of my thoughts on this book at my reading journal:
https://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/201...
There are twenty-one stories in this volume, each dedicated to a different friend, ranging from science fiction-ish to contes cruels to the out-and-out weird. Honestly, I loved them all, and on the whole, the entire collection is just beautiful both in terms of writing and in what Schwob is able to bring out in each story. I won't go into them but I will share a rather eye-opening experience about myself in reading "The Plague" that sort of sideways makes the point of the book. Consider the seriousness of the spreading of the plague in Medieval Europe for a moment, the fear that everyone had that they would become its next victim, and at the end of this particular story, I actually had to stop and reflect on my reaction when I didn't know whether to laugh or to be horrified. That's the sort of writer he is and when a story can make me go inward to try to examine myself, well, that's power.
You could read this book in one sitting, but don't. Take the time to go through it slowly and think about it. If you're in it looking simply for horror or weird stories, you're reading it for the wrong reason. This book is a really a work of art between two covers, and those don't come along every day. Highly, highly recommended for the thinking reader, and for people who appreciate the beauty found in the written word. You'll certainly find it here.
https://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/201...
There are twenty-one stories in this volume, each dedicated to a different friend, ranging from science fiction-ish to contes cruels to the out-and-out weird. Honestly, I loved them all, and on the whole, the entire collection is just beautiful both in terms of writing and in what Schwob is able to bring out in each story. I won't go into them but I will share a rather eye-opening experience about myself in reading "The Plague" that sort of sideways makes the point of the book. Consider the seriousness of the spreading of the plague in Medieval Europe for a moment, the fear that everyone had that they would become its next victim, and at the end of this particular story, I actually had to stop and reflect on my reaction when I didn't know whether to laugh or to be horrified. That's the sort of writer he is and when a story can make me go inward to try to examine myself, well, that's power.
You could read this book in one sitting, but don't. Take the time to go through it slowly and think about it. If you're in it looking simply for horror or weird stories, you're reading it for the wrong reason. This book is a really a work of art between two covers, and those don't come along every day. Highly, highly recommended for the thinking reader, and for people who appreciate the beauty found in the written word. You'll certainly find it here.
September 10, 2019
All of the stories in this volume are extremely short. But the atmospheres are so pungent, and the worlds they create so intense and strange, that they are much more immersive than page length alone would lead you to expect.
The stories are hard to summarise. In some of them not much happens at all, and in others the events are so apparently random that they can't really be said to comprise a plot. The point is simply to experience them. You have to read them for yourself, not look at other people's reviews.
But the collection is also more than the sum of its beautiful parts. Schwob did not believe that there was any such thing as originality: everything has already been said; everything that is said is already a quotation. As a reflection of that belief, parts of these stories were put together Frankenstein-style, made of chunks lifted from other sources – a technique that obviously looks forward to cut-ups, Oulipo and the like. It's the expression of a world view that Schwob outlines in the preface:
"If you can suppose a God that is not your own person and a speech quite different from your own, conceive that God is speaking: the universe, then, is his language. It is not necessary that he speak to us. We cannot know with any certainty whom he addresses. But his things venture to speak to us in turn, and we, who are a part of them, seek to understand them [...]. They are but signs, and signs of signs. Just like us, they are masks upon eternally occulted faces."
That's from 1892. In your (occulted) face, Roland Barthes!
The stories are hard to summarise. In some of them not much happens at all, and in others the events are so apparently random that they can't really be said to comprise a plot. The point is simply to experience them. You have to read them for yourself, not look at other people's reviews.
But the collection is also more than the sum of its beautiful parts. Schwob did not believe that there was any such thing as originality: everything has already been said; everything that is said is already a quotation. As a reflection of that belief, parts of these stories were put together Frankenstein-style, made of chunks lifted from other sources – a technique that obviously looks forward to cut-ups, Oulipo and the like. It's the expression of a world view that Schwob outlines in the preface:
"If you can suppose a God that is not your own person and a speech quite different from your own, conceive that God is speaking: the universe, then, is his language. It is not necessary that he speak to us. We cannot know with any certainty whom he addresses. But his things venture to speak to us in turn, and we, who are a part of them, seek to understand them [...]. They are but signs, and signs of signs. Just like us, they are masks upon eternally occulted faces."
That's from 1892. In your (occulted) face, Roland Barthes!
December 7, 2024
Bowled over by the beauty of the language, the breadth of imagination, moreover the visionary modernity of something written in 1898.
January 3, 2020
Extremely creative stories. Maybe a little like Borges- there's a similar sense of a pitiless logic snapping into place with the last sentence, or at least in some of the stories there is, but with more playfulness and perverse glee. Yes, Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) takes you to some strange places, including "The Sleeping City" where even the birds hang motionless in the air, yet some of the stories I found difficult to connect with. Characters are essentially meaningless here. I would liken the stories to sketches or prose poems, each with its own mood; some of these moods I was drawn into, some of them not so much.
That being said, there are two stories- "The Terrestrial Fire" and "The Flute"- in which the language is breathtaking, and which I think should be recorded as spoken word tracks by Werner Herzog on some Tangerine Dream-like album of ambient music. I also enjoyed "The Plague", "The Salt Smugglers", "The Sleeping City", "The Blue Country", "The Return to the Fold" and "Cruchette."
July 11, 2017
A strange and haunting collection of stories, each a fever dream, most often with a curious sense of irresolution and moral ambiguity. A major influence on Jorge Luis Borges and beloved by the Surrealists, Schwob was fascinated by the bizarre and the occult, and employed a variety of obscure historical documents in his work, incorporating and reworking the original texts in a kind of appropriative palimpsest that looks forward to post-modern fictional strategies. The result is compelling, the often hallucinatory imagery leaving a vivid and often disturbing impression. Kudos to the Wakefield press for issuing this handsome, and well translated and edited edition! I eagerly look forward to their forthcoming reissue of Schwob's "Imaginary Lives" in a new translation, apparently now in the works.
July 17, 2017
Nice, compact collection of precise, diamond cut stories, some more engaging and satisfying than others. They are all eerie and vaguely sinister. They look, in my mind's eye, like sets in a Jodorowsky movie. My favorite: "The Embalming Women."
January 1, 2022
This is one of those books whose cover is better than its contents. With the exception of the title story, which was rather transcendental, and maybe a couple of others out of politeness, I found these stories rather boring and insignificant. I mean, not only did I prefer the author's introduction more than the stories themselves, but I just finished the book and I've already forgotten what most of the stories were even about.
This isn't to say that the stories are bad, by the way—they're not. They're just not good. If there is one Schwob to be read, though, it's The Book of Monelle, which is quite wonderful.
This isn't to say that the stories are bad, by the way—they're not. They're just not good. If there is one Schwob to be read, though, it's The Book of Monelle, which is quite wonderful.
April 1, 2019
It's a little hard to give this one 4 stars, but 3 doesn't seem enough, so there you go. The first time the entire collection has been properly published in English, this 1892 volume of stories casts a dark, surrealist spell. The strongest stories feel like twisted fairy tales, concluding most often with murders, suicides, or at the very least depressing acceptance of failure. In one of the lightest, a young girl hitches a ride on a barge in search of the world of wonder of which her father has told her, only to return home some time later, disappointed at the real world outside her village. The title story is certainly one of the best, a parable of sorts about a king, hidden away and ignorant of the truth about why the ruling class all wear masks. Not all of the stories work: some of them are almost willfully opaque or impressionistic, and don't leave much behind when you're done. But for the most part, I enjoyed this (and more than I enjoyed Schwob's "The Book of Monelle"). If you like morbid, surreal stories then I imagine this should be on your to-read shelf.
September 4, 2020
This is an amazing book that captivates you from beginning to end. Each short story is indeed short, maximum 5-6 pages long, and their content can truly be called revolutionary and bold, by fin-de-siecle standards. This entire collection is imbued with Schwob's personal philosophical ideas and delvings, and it is highly intriguing how he fuses all of his anxieties into a literary collage that flirts with idealism, transcendentalism, the Gothic, fantasy and horror elements at the same time. What is more, a sense of pseudo-history or unearthing of the actual history of the world permeates Schwob's work, granting The King in the Golden Mask with the title of a proto-modernist work.
Totally worth one's time.
Totally worth one's time.
January 8, 2018
A collection of older weird short stories translated from French, they’re impressive in how modern they feel in spite of their age. The most interesting thing to me was how abrupt the stories ended in this one – where I’m used to a more drawn-out narrative, many of these simply come to a logical conclusion and we move on. It was a nice addition to already-unsettling stories.
This is worth a look, especially if you’re as interested in the evolution of the weird branch of horror fiction as I am.
This is worth a look, especially if you’re as interested in the evolution of the weird branch of horror fiction as I am.
September 26, 2018
A fascinating little volume that sits like a pivot between gothic literature of the 19th century and modernist and post-modernist writing of the 20th and 21st. A series of brief, often macabre, tales, sometimes constructed, like a palimpsest, from original sources. Schwob's levelling of paraphrase, quotation, and re-use, with the original voice of the author, provided an impetus for many later writers, including Borges and Calvino among others. Highly evocative, strange, and darkly beautiful, a unique reading experience that has evoked images in my mind which will stay there for a long time.
July 15, 2018
...and five stars for Wakefield Press for bringing out so much Schwob in English lately. Most of his best stuff had been (long) out of print in the US; a lot was just sitting untranslated. Problem solved.
Schwob is drop-what-you're-doing mandatory reading for anyone who's gotten lost in Borges, Galeano, Calvino, Bolano; Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch, Froissart; or Burton, Gibbon, Johnson, Diderot; out-of-date biographies, old encyclopedia entries, incorrect or obsolete histories.
Schwob is drop-what-you're-doing mandatory reading for anyone who's gotten lost in Borges, Galeano, Calvino, Bolano; Herodotus, Livy, Plutarch, Froissart; or Burton, Gibbon, Johnson, Diderot; out-of-date biographies, old encyclopedia entries, incorrect or obsolete histories.
May 4, 2021
It is a great feeling when you open a book that is such a gem you wonder where it has been your whole life. Schwob's collection of stories borrow from fables and myths to construct a porto-surreal (these were written in the late 19th century) vision of masquerades, plagues, kings, strange cities and other bizarre locales. It's no wonder that Roberto Bolano, Jorge Louis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Alfred Jarry and more praised his work. It is visionary and unique.
June 14, 2022
Few authors become favorites based solely on a single book, but that's what happened here reading The King in the Golden Mask. I plan on devouring as much of Schwob's bibliography as I can get my hands on.
January 17, 2025
This little volume of short stories is brimming with flashy and untimely ideas. Here and there, in a particularly vivid description of the natural world, or in an intense passage that immortalizes a character's acts and seals their fate, one catches a waft of Bruno Schultz, Pierre Michon or even Celine and Lovecraft. Schwob writes like a lesser prophet whom, in the passage of literary history, the Almighty has perhaps unfairly brushed aside.
September 16, 2021
I know that I make a mull of it by reviewing. Expressing oneself wasn't in our curriculum during formal education years, and it comes as a challenge to portray my expressions, understanding and thought that have arisen. Please understand my review with this view.
Putting that aside, I will highly recommend The King in the Golden Mask. Each piece of story was like a plunging into abyss. You'd expect nothingness whereas there is wholeness unknown to us. All story is rich with imagination and has life of its own.
Given that I didn't notice any repeat, double usage both in words and context. That show how much Marcel Schwob is an accomplished creator through his 20 short stories (if I have counted correctly).
Putting that aside, I will highly recommend The King in the Golden Mask. Each piece of story was like a plunging into abyss. You'd expect nothingness whereas there is wholeness unknown to us. All story is rich with imagination and has life of its own.
Given that I didn't notice any repeat, double usage both in words and context. That show how much Marcel Schwob is an accomplished creator through his 20 short stories (if I have counted correctly).
December 24, 2016
Голяма част от сюрреалистичните истории на Марсел Швоб звучат като умело разказани приказки, които обаче са подходящи по-скоро за възрастни заради твърде натуралистичните описания на някои места. Освен че е добро въведение в творчеството на автора, този сборник ще бъде особено интересен на запознатите с френската литература от края на 19-ти и началото на 20-ти век. Всяка история е посветена на автор от периода (и съвременник на самия Швоб) и съдържа алюзии и интертекстуални препратки към творчеството му, които, предполагам, специалистите ще оценят. Поздравления за Калоян Праматаров за добрия превод и изчерпателните бележки под линия.
November 23, 2022
Schwob's mosaic method of composition is fascinating and produces uniquely compelling results. He would inlay portions of manuscripts by slaves, soldiers of fortune and other figures of ancient and medieval societies that one rarely hears from directly into his own tales set in those periods. I can't think of another writer who has worked this way in prose fiction. He is an incomparable stylist and doesn't shy away from the atrocities of the past. Cervantes was a galley slave-- but never wrote about the experience, to my knowledge-- Schwob vividly brings the experience of one of those rowers to life, in language like a jewelled tapestry.
February 13, 2018
Glittering, dense little stories. Like some other late 19th/early 20th stuff (Machen, e.g.) it has this weird sensory intensity that almost overwhelms you at times. Great translation, it seems. Lovely little book, physically, too, nice print, nice pages, striking cover design.
Supposedly an influence on both Borges and Bolano so, you know, I had to read it. But it's its own thing.
Supposedly an influence on both Borges and Bolano so, you know, I had to read it. But it's its own thing.
August 21, 2016
Me ha sorprendido este autor, desconocido para mí. Aunque algunos de sus cuentos han envejecido bastante mal tiene otros que son realmente buenos.
February 8, 2025
"As masks are the sign that there are faces, words are the sign that there are things. And these things are the sign of the incomprehensible."
Picked this up thinking it would be an answer for where the apparently unexplained genius of 'The King in Yellow' came from (given name, timing and geography). It turned out there isn't really a connection between these books, but this was instead an influence on even greater genius like Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. A pleasant surprise.
Interesting introduction to the French tradition of "cruel tales" or "conte cruels" which did accurately describe a lot of these stories. Unhappy, strange endings, often devoid of cautionary-tale morals, stories that made me wince. Incredible feats of imagination (sometimes combined with historical inspiration), and nice scene setting in this very varied set of stories.
I only realised once I got to the story but I had read 'The Talking Machine' before as part of a Tales of the Weird collection. This was a great cautionary story to re-read, interesting parallels with the modern world and the kind of technology we have today...
The other standout stories were the title story, 'The Death of Odjigh', 'The Embalming Women' and 'The Sleeping City'. Loved how the title story explored the nature of reality, perception and symbolism. The plot itself was also very interesting, with the pseudo-science/urban legend element being a nice twist. Some amazing imagery in 'The Death of Odjigh' and 'The Embalming Women', as well as throughout the stories, which often ended in a powerful image. And a great, heartache-inducing final story in 'Bargette', with an interesting message about appreciating or not appreciating what you have.
Great introduction and afterword, really helps put these stories in context. And very interesting that an author this influential was concerned with the idea that he was being unoriginal, or thought that everything had already been said.
Some quotes I liked:
"At that time, the human race seemed close to perishing. The orb of the sun was as cold as the moon. An endless winter caused the soil to crack. The mountains which had erupted, spewing the earth's flaming entrails into the sky, were now grey with frozen lava. The lands were riveted by parallel or starry trenches; tremendous crevasses, suddenly yawning, engulfed the things above as they collapsed, and one could see, moving toward them in heavy sideslips, long queues of glacial erratics. The dark air was sequined with transparent needles; a sinister whiteness hung over the land; the universal silver glow seemed to sterilize the world"
"The incantations of the women can make the moon fall into a mirror case, or dunk it, when full, into a silver bucket with sopping stars, or fry it like a yellow jellyfish in a pan"
"In this region the night is transparent and blue, cool and dangerous to the eyes, such that, on occasion, this nocturnal blue light fills the pupils in six hours and the afflicted can no longer see the rising sun" (!!!!!!!)
"Nobody knew if they could speak. They sprang from mystery and massacred in silence"
"Toward the middle of the night wails broke out, and at first one believed them oppressed by heavy thoughts, nightbirds of the brain"
"Speech cannot be lost... perhaps, at the far reaches of the world, its vibrations give birth to other universes" (!!)
"I opened throats in the dissecting rooms; I listened to voices, cries, sobs, weeping, and preaching; and I measured each mathematically... I broke my own voice in my efforts; and so long have I lived with my machine that I speak without dynamics... for dynamics belong to the soul, and I have suppressed mine"
"Some bouquets of grey plants sprouted on the slope of the cliff; tiny creatures, brown, round or long, with fine shivering wings of gauze, or high articulated paws, whirred around the hairy leaves or made the ground shiver in certain places"
"I... who have no motherland, nor memories to help me endure the silence as my thought stays awake, I fled the Mates of the Sea in terror, away from this sleeping city; and despite the sleep and frightening weariness taking hold of me, I am going to try and find, through the undulations of golden sand, the green Ocean which tosses eternally and shakes up its foam"
"She thought about how she had been tricked. For even though the sun was tossing its joyous rings on the floor through the little browned windowpanes, despite the kingfishers cruising over the water and the swallows shaking dry their sopping beaks, she had not seen the birds that live on flowers, or the grapes that grew on trees, or the enormous nuts filled with milk, or the frogs that howled like dogs"
Picked this up thinking it would be an answer for where the apparently unexplained genius of 'The King in Yellow' came from (given name, timing and geography). It turned out there isn't really a connection between these books, but this was instead an influence on even greater genius like Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. A pleasant surprise.
Interesting introduction to the French tradition of "cruel tales" or "conte cruels" which did accurately describe a lot of these stories. Unhappy, strange endings, often devoid of cautionary-tale morals, stories that made me wince. Incredible feats of imagination (sometimes combined with historical inspiration), and nice scene setting in this very varied set of stories.
I only realised once I got to the story but I had read 'The Talking Machine' before as part of a Tales of the Weird collection. This was a great cautionary story to re-read, interesting parallels with the modern world and the kind of technology we have today...
The other standout stories were the title story, 'The Death of Odjigh', 'The Embalming Women' and 'The Sleeping City'. Loved how the title story explored the nature of reality, perception and symbolism. The plot itself was also very interesting, with the pseudo-science/urban legend element being a nice twist. Some amazing imagery in 'The Death of Odjigh' and 'The Embalming Women', as well as throughout the stories, which often ended in a powerful image. And a great, heartache-inducing final story in 'Bargette', with an interesting message about appreciating or not appreciating what you have.
Great introduction and afterword, really helps put these stories in context. And very interesting that an author this influential was concerned with the idea that he was being unoriginal, or thought that everything had already been said.
Some quotes I liked:
"At that time, the human race seemed close to perishing. The orb of the sun was as cold as the moon. An endless winter caused the soil to crack. The mountains which had erupted, spewing the earth's flaming entrails into the sky, were now grey with frozen lava. The lands were riveted by parallel or starry trenches; tremendous crevasses, suddenly yawning, engulfed the things above as they collapsed, and one could see, moving toward them in heavy sideslips, long queues of glacial erratics. The dark air was sequined with transparent needles; a sinister whiteness hung over the land; the universal silver glow seemed to sterilize the world"
"The incantations of the women can make the moon fall into a mirror case, or dunk it, when full, into a silver bucket with sopping stars, or fry it like a yellow jellyfish in a pan"
"In this region the night is transparent and blue, cool and dangerous to the eyes, such that, on occasion, this nocturnal blue light fills the pupils in six hours and the afflicted can no longer see the rising sun" (!!!!!!!)
"Nobody knew if they could speak. They sprang from mystery and massacred in silence"
"Toward the middle of the night wails broke out, and at first one believed them oppressed by heavy thoughts, nightbirds of the brain"
"Speech cannot be lost... perhaps, at the far reaches of the world, its vibrations give birth to other universes" (!!)
"I opened throats in the dissecting rooms; I listened to voices, cries, sobs, weeping, and preaching; and I measured each mathematically... I broke my own voice in my efforts; and so long have I lived with my machine that I speak without dynamics... for dynamics belong to the soul, and I have suppressed mine"
"Some bouquets of grey plants sprouted on the slope of the cliff; tiny creatures, brown, round or long, with fine shivering wings of gauze, or high articulated paws, whirred around the hairy leaves or made the ground shiver in certain places"
"I... who have no motherland, nor memories to help me endure the silence as my thought stays awake, I fled the Mates of the Sea in terror, away from this sleeping city; and despite the sleep and frightening weariness taking hold of me, I am going to try and find, through the undulations of golden sand, the green Ocean which tosses eternally and shakes up its foam"
"She thought about how she had been tricked. For even though the sun was tossing its joyous rings on the floor through the little browned windowpanes, despite the kingfishers cruising over the water and the swallows shaking dry their sopping beaks, she had not seen the birds that live on flowers, or the grapes that grew on trees, or the enormous nuts filled with milk, or the frogs that howled like dogs"
April 7, 2025
Apocalyptic and cryptic like Talmudic homiletical lit (though sometimes the stories are quite straightforward, like the title story), makes it almost hard to believe these came from the imagination of a late 19th century writer and are not in fact discovered allegories from some anonymous medieval scribe
October 16, 2025
Read most of it. The first four stories are very good but after that it's mostly just slop. This author oscillates between excellent science fiction and fantasy and completely mundane whatever fictions. No creative stamina, imo, they just end suddenly too.
Honestly... he'd be a lot better if he just wrote genre novels, I think. This is an author who really needed to become Brandon Sanderson
Honestly... he'd be a lot better if he just wrote genre novels, I think. This is an author who really needed to become Brandon Sanderson
May 23, 2025
Reminded me a lot of the legend Heinrich Von Kleist- taking these sort of popular myths/fears/folktales and twisting them into a something darker and yet somehow more real. Definitely tapered off closer to the end and the stories became more predictable.
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