Biased, myopic novel of the Paris CommuneThe Paris Commune of 1871 is unofficially the fourth French Revolution, following the Revolutions of 1793, 1830, and 1848. Probably due to its short duration, it is more commonly referred to as a rebellion or failed revolt. A cadre of working-class radicals seized control of Paris, drove the official Third Republic government out of town, and established their own revolutionary government in the capital city. This historic event provides the narrative foundation for the novel The Red Republic, published in 1895, by American author Robert W. Chambers, probably best known for his book of horror stories The King in Yellow.
Philip Landes is an American studying art in Paris. He is not a starving artist, however, but rather inexplicably wealthy, and seems never to have worked a day in his life. While socializing in a cafe with friends, he runs afoul of some boorish ruffians. Landes is then contacted by some out-of-town visitors, the father and sister of a deceased friend, asking for his assistance in depositing a fortune in diamonds into a Parisian bank. When would-be diamond thieves kill the father and kidnap the daughter, Landes suspects those same good-for-nothing ruffians with whom he clashed in the first chapter. Before he can set things right, however, the Commune seizes control of Paris, armed conflict breaks out in the streets, and noble citizens are rounded up in droves to be shot. Wouldn’t you know it, some of the leaders of the Commune just happen to be those same thieves and scoundrels that Landes is pursuing, thus making him a man marked for death.
The period of violent class struggle that took place in France from the late 18th to the late 19th century is a fascinating era in European history that has made for some great literature. French authors have written many memorable novels set during the French Revolutions, most of them sympathetic to the working class and Republican left (the works of Balzac being an exception). British authors, on the other hand, tend to side with the monarchy and the aristocracy. The American Chambers, however, makes those Brits look positively liberal by comparison. Chambers has no sympathy for the working class whatsoever. They are merely rabble and trash who should be bowing to the authority of gentlemen. The Communards are depicted as thugs, thieves, and sadists, the motivation for their coup being the furtherance of their criminal activity. In Chambers’s view, the political basis for the Commune is irrelevant and therefore not discussed.
Amid this biased view of the revolt, Chambers sets a rather hokey romantic melodrama. Long passages of the novel are spent among lovers lounging and flirting in a luxurious apartment while war rages outside. The plot is a meandering and disorganized series of captures and escapes. Though Chambers is obsessed with the variety of military uniforms, which he constantly describes, his confusing prose sometimes makes it hard to tell who is fighting on which side. Chambers makes little attempt to educate the reader. He writes as if his audience already knows every detail of this conflict, every minor historical personage, and every street in Paris. That’s excusable for a French author, but for an American, it just seems like a snooty way of saying “Anyone who’s anyone, myself included, studied in Paris.” A few real people from history appear in the book, like Adolph Thiers and Raoul Rigault, leaders of the Third Republic and the Commune, respectively. Mostly, however, the cast of characters consists of a jumble of nondescript dandies and cartoonish villains whose only distinguishing characteristics are their surnames. The best thing this novel has to offer are a few isolated scenes of shockingly gory warfare.
The best novel about the Paris Commune is Emile Zola’s The Debacle (a.k.a. The Downfall), published in 1892. In terms of historical realism and just general literary intelligence, it makes The Red Republic seem like a children’s book by comparison.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
Adventures in paranormal zoology
American author Robert W. Chambers is best known for his book The King in Yellow, a collection of short stories mostly of the macabre horror variety. His book In Search of the Unknown, published in 1904, shows a more lighthearted side to Chambers. This work is ostensibly a novel, but it reads more like a collection of short stories that have been cobbled together, not entirely successfully, into one continuous narrative.
The narrator of the book is a Mr. Gilland, who in the opening chapter begins his new job at the Bronx Park Zoo as general superintendant of the water-fowl department. The first assignment he’s given is in response to a man who claims to have two specimens of the extinct bird the great auk living in his pond. Gilland is sent to investigate the claim, and, if the auks do in fact exist, bring them back alive for the zoo’s collection. Over the course of the book, Gilland undertakes a few other scientific investigations, each of which brings him into contact with strange zoological anomalies. These include extinct species found alive, fictional species invented by Chambers, mythical creatures, and previously undiscovered humanoids. In each adventure, Gilland manages to fall in love, and his often fruitless wooing of the women in question provides comic relief.
In Search of the Unknown is science fiction in the most literal sense, in that it’s not about speculative visions of outer space or the future, but rather about a scientist and the practice of science. In addition to hunting for mysterious species, Gilland has to contend with other hazards of the profession, such as professional rivalries, contentious scholarly conferences, conflicts with management, and the difficulties involved with hiring assistants, outfitting expeditions, and collecting and transporting specimens. This uncommonly professorial take on sci-fi is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the book. The formula of Chambers’s plots, however, is less satisfying. Each adventure starts with hints of an unusual creature, followed by two or three chapters of the characters mostly bickering with each other until finally the monster shows up briefly at the end.
At about the halfway point, the book really takes a turn for the worse. Gilland is returning home to New York after just having completed a mission in the Everglades. On the train he meets a fellow New Yorker named Harold Kensett. Kensett, a writer, then proceeds to narrate a story about his own encounter with a bizarre animal. Little does the reader know at that point that Kensett will be narrating the entire second half of the book. This abandoning of one hero with whom the reader has become invested only to switch horses midstream amounts to an unforgivable narrative choice. The only possible reason that would come to mind for Chambers doing so is that these were pre-written short stories that were rather lazily slapped together into a poor excuse for a novel. What’s worse is that Kensett’s final adventure in the book is a terrible story that doesn’t at all fit with the rest of the book. Instead of zoological sci-fi, Chambers delivers yet another Victorian tale of supernatural spiritualism that would have been more at home in The King in Yellow.
In Search of the Unknown shares the main same flaw as The King in Yellow: inconsistency. It is difficult to recommend a book when only about half of it is good. Still, even if Chambers’s writing isn’t quite in the same league with someone like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this work provides some worthwhile entertainment for fans of century-old science fiction.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R266DK0UXLR8YT/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm
Only the macabre first half is worthwhile
The King in Yellow, a book of short stories by American author Robert W. Chambers, was first published in 1895. The collection is an oddly inconsistent mix, divided roughly in half between weird horror stories and more traditional romantic tales of American artists living in Europe. The book is largely remembered today for those stories in the former category. If Chambers had maintained the macabre atmosphere and style of the first five stories throughout the book, The King in Yellow would have been a much more cohesive and successful collection of fiction.
The first four stories are all linked by references to “The King in Yellow,” which is a play, also printed in book form, set in the mystical realm of Carcosa. From its description, which includes a sky full of black stars, this Carcosa would appear to be some sort of parallel universe. We are given very little information about this mysterious land, other than the names of people or places within it, like the oft-mentioned Lake of Hali. It seems that anyone who reads this strange book suffers from insanity or visions of death. “The King in Yellow” may also refer to an actual being, likely a supernatural one, who seems to be ushering in a Carcosan takeover of our world.
The first story, “The Repairer of Reputations,” is a mindblower. Set in the 1920s, it presents a dark, dystopian view of a future America. Chambers nonchalantly mentions the most bizarre imagery as if it were commonplace, like a man with artificial ears, a murderous cat, or a publicly funded system of suicide centers. Along with the bizarre title character, the narrator seems to be planning a coup to install the Yellow King, or a puppet ruler in his service, on an imperial throne. It eventually becomes apparent that the narrator is mad, as his tale blurs the line between reality and insanity. Years ahead of its time, this story reads like some weird movie by David Lynch. The next two entries, “The Mask” and “In the Court of the Dragon” follow along the same lines, but to lesser effect. However the fourth story, “The Yellow Sign,” is a masterpiece of creepiness in which an artist and his model are being stalked by a man who may be a corpse.
The next entry, “The Demoiselle d’Ys,” is a more predictably gothic horror tale, like one of Poe or Conan Doyle’s lesser efforts. After “The Prophet’s Paradise,” an assortment of brief, forgettable prose poems, the last four stories are all tales of American artists living in France. “The Street of the Four Winds,” about one such artist’s relationship with a stray cat, is quite similar to “The Woman and the Cat” by French author Marcel Prévost, but I couldn’t tell you which came first. “The Street of the First Shell” is a meandering drama set in Paris during the siege of the Franco-Prussian War. Some of the blunt and gritty wartime scenes presage A Farewell to Arms, but it’s mostly a soap opera. “The Street of Our Lady of the Fields” is a terribly slow, pointless, and mean story about an American artist, newly arrived in Paris, who falls in love with a loose woman but is too naive to realize it. The following story, “Rue Barrée,” though somewhat more interesting, is essentially the same subject matter, though the woman in question’s only sin is her status as a working girl. Despite Chambers’s pretensions toward the bohemian lifestyle, these artist stories are really hopelessly preoccupied with classism and aristocratic condescension (on the part of the Americans, oddly). The last few stories are also plagued by dumb, inconclusive endings.
If you like horror stories, the first four or five pieces in The King in Yellow are certainly worth a read, but there’s little to recommend in the book’s dull latter half.
Stories in this collection
The Repairer of Reputations
The Mask
In the Court of the Dragon
The Yellow Sign
The Demoiselle d’Ys
The Prophet’s Paradise
The Street of the Four Winds
The Street of the First Shell
The Street of Our Lady of the Fields
Rue Barrée
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R2QHUCICEYHD2F/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_rdp_perm
