Discussion for 2-7-24: The Demoiselle d'Ys by Robert Chamber
Feb 1, 2024 19:18:37 GMT
osnafrank, spideyman, and 1 more like this
Post by wireman on Feb 1, 2024 19:18:37 GMT
The discussion for Wed 2-7-24 is The Demoiselle d'Ys by Robert W Chambers. One more from The King In Yellow book of short stories. I do not think this one relates to the other 4 we read but I'm not totally sure. This one comes with a preface I found
Far less ghoulish than the more famous supernatural tales included in The King in Yellow, “The Demoiselle D’Ys” (day-MWAH-zell DEESE) still manages to pack a powerful blow of awe, mysticism, and pathos. To speak about it in advance is – like so many of Chambers’ stories – to give too much away, but there are a few bits of information that can aid a first reading. Chambers adored the Breton countryside, and side several of his best known works there. Like New York and Paris, Brittany seemed to always inspire Chambers with its history and culture. Brittany is a vast horn of land that juts into the Atlantic from France’s northwest corner. The people there are culturally Celtic, sharing more with the music, language, folklore, and customs of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland than with France proper: they speak a Celtic language (Breton), play music that harkens the hills of Ireland, and have a rich folklore of fairies, ghosts, and sunken castles.
One of the Breton legends that fascinated Chambers was the story of the City of Ys, a mythical metropolis that was built below sea level on the coast, where the sea was held back by towering dikes. Like Atlantis, Sodom, and – less mythically – Pompeii, Ys was known for its decadence and for its catastrophic destruction. The legend said that Ys was at one time the preeminent city in all of Europe, but became the site of violent orgies organized by the king’s daughter, Dahut, who was infamous for killing the men she slept with the morning after their drunken revels. One night during a terrible storm, Dahut bedded a knight dressed in red who tempted her to steal the key to the flood gates (secreted on her father’s person), handing it to her new lover as a gift. The knight turned out to be Satan himself, and he unlocked the gates, letter the pounding seas swallow Ys, which is said to still be intact under the water, where Dahut remains enthroned, a wicked mermaid.
While Chamber’s tale has little to do with the actual myth of Ys, the themes of both stories are consistent: lost innocence, broken hearts, impossible love, wrenching pathos, and mystical sublimity. Whiffs of The King in Yellow are found in the tale – references to Hastur and the heroine’s name (Jeanne D’Ys, a homonym of “jaundice”) are the most obvious – and there is of course Chambers’ favorite theme: well-suited lovers who are doomed to be torn apart.
One of the Breton legends that fascinated Chambers was the story of the City of Ys, a mythical metropolis that was built below sea level on the coast, where the sea was held back by towering dikes. Like Atlantis, Sodom, and – less mythically – Pompeii, Ys was known for its decadence and for its catastrophic destruction. The legend said that Ys was at one time the preeminent city in all of Europe, but became the site of violent orgies organized by the king’s daughter, Dahut, who was infamous for killing the men she slept with the morning after their drunken revels. One night during a terrible storm, Dahut bedded a knight dressed in red who tempted her to steal the key to the flood gates (secreted on her father’s person), handing it to her new lover as a gift. The knight turned out to be Satan himself, and he unlocked the gates, letter the pounding seas swallow Ys, which is said to still be intact under the water, where Dahut remains enthroned, a wicked mermaid.
While Chamber’s tale has little to do with the actual myth of Ys, the themes of both stories are consistent: lost innocence, broken hearts, impossible love, wrenching pathos, and mystical sublimity. Whiffs of The King in Yellow are found in the tale – references to Hastur and the heroine’s name (Jeanne D’Ys, a homonym of “jaundice”) are the most obvious – and there is of course Chambers’ favorite theme: well-suited lovers who are doomed to be torn apart.
The Demoiselle dYs.pdf (273.44 KB)
