James Branch CabellCritiques

"Ah, your highness, let us not speak of my death, for it is a death which you would deplore."
"Would I deplore your death?" Orléans' head was now cocked until it lay almost on his left shoulder. "It is a fact of which I am not wholly persuaded."

This book collects the prefaces to all of the books in Cabell's Storisende edition of his work. As such, I didn't think at first that it would be worth getting. But the Storisende edition itself has its prefaces printed in difficult-to-read italics -- and it's also difficult to find every last volume -- so I decided to try it. It provides a more or less coherent summary of what Cabell thought he was doing with each of his books. Or, at least, what Cabell says he was trying to do; he is nothing if not an unreliable narrator. Perhaps it's better to say that it works as a coherent plan of the Storisende edition and why he laid it out as he did. He also succumbed to the urge to re-revise, apparently, in that he added some material that had been printed elsewhere. If someone is going to read all of Cabell, it's a useful book.

A one act play Cabell adapted from one of his short stories (Balthazar's Daughter), done for some local theatre. Apparently it was heavily rewritten with input from the actors and producer. I'm not sure which book the original story is collected in but i have read it and this is pretty similar to my recollection.

However there was an odd emphasis on the heroine being horrified by the fact the Duke was slightly dark skinned.. maybe i'm giving Cabell too much credit but i don't think that is in his solo version.

Still i wouldn't really recommend this even for the Cabell enthusiasts since its repeated elsewhere and in a purer Cabellian fashion.

"...where she would tantalize me nightly, from her balcony, after the example of the Veronese lady in Shakespeare's spirited tragedy, which she prodigiously admired.
As concerns myself, a reasonable liking for romance had been of late somewhat tempered by the inclemency of the weather and the obvious unfriendliness of the dog; but there is no resisting a lady's commands..."

Yet another in the long line of Cabell’s historical romance short story collections. Its all filigree and artificiality but completely self-aware both from the authorial point of view and that of its characters who are generally quite practical at heart regardless of their pretensions for high romance.

Each story is presented like a scene from a play to add to the idea of life as stage sort of thing. Unlike most of Cabell’s story collections which are spread throughout time this one is much more connected with each tale leading on from the one before.
So a side-character in one will be the main character in the next, or the villain in one might be the hero in the following.
Personally i prefer the more historically spread collections but this format does allow you to see a different perspective on some of the previous stories and characters.

I think its probably the nicest of Cabell’s works. Usually the ratio of sweet to bitter in Cabell’s books is about 50/50 or worse but this is more like 80/20.
Its very nicely written but its happily-ever-afterness did start to grate on me a bit, of course my favourite Cabell so far is Figures of Earth, probably his bitterest work :P .

After i finished the final proper chapter it was still going to be 4-stars but probably the Cabell work i would have least liked to reread.
However the afterpiece really brings everything together and actually makes me want to reread the whole thing again keeping in mind the effect of the whole rather than seeing it as a series of tales.

"...and my children will be reared on moral aphorisms and rational food, with me as a handy example of everything they should avoid. Deuce take it, Amalia," he added, "a father must in common decency furnish an example to his children!"

"is it not strange an all-wise Creator should have been at pains to fashion this brave world about us for little men and women such as we to lie and pilfer in?
Was it worth while, think you, to arch the firmament above our rogueries, and light the ageless stars as candles to display our antics?"

So this is pretty straightforward stuff. Its a comedy romance with plenty of misunderstandings, reminded me of some of the Shakespeare comedies.

None of which is stuff i actually like. However it is pretty well written and the author does everything with a wink in his eye. Apart from the comedy/romance the only theme if the problems of money but it isn’t dwelt on that much.

I’ve had worse reading experiences with Cabell, this is light and easy and quite compelling in the 3rd quarter.
In the end though i’m not sure i’d recommend it too much and i’ve dropped my score due to comparing it to Cabells other books due to its simplicity.

I just found out the version of Cream of the Jest i bought (ballantine 1972) has a copy of this included, so i guess me reading it as a separate thing is rather pointless now.

I hadn't actually read it before though as i read an ecopy originally and havn't had a chance to reread using my purchased copy.

Essentially its the appendix to the Biography of Manuel. My second favourite book appendix after Lord of the Rings :P .

A one act play Cabell adapted from one of his short stories (Balthazar's Daughter), done for some local theatre. Apparently it was heavily rewritten with input from the actors and producer. I'm not sure which book the original story is collected in but i have read it and this is pretty similar to my recollection.

However there was an odd emphasis on the heroine being horrified by the fact the Duke was slightly dark skinned.. maybe i'm giving Cabell too much credit but i don't think that is in his solo version.

Cabell's most notorious novel because of its obscenity association. Beyond that an exposition of accepting things just because that's the way they are. The story involves Jurgen, the last person in Poictesme to see Dom Manuel (with the grim reaper), or did he? Anyway, he has gotten on in age to eight and forty years and wishes he could do it all over again, this time rightly. He gets his wish, but does it all the same again and settles in the end content for the way things are. Along the way we visit heaven and hell and most places in between along with a bunch of new and recurring characters from the Biography of Dom Manuel.

Coth, Jurgen's father and a Knight of the Silver Stallion, meets Jurgen in hell (he's only there because he was burdened with a conscience in life) and does not recognize his own son. He constantly taxes the demons that torment him with the need for new and more painful tortures because he is not content with the way things are in hell. This gives you just a flavor of Cabell's irony. This and so much more as Jurgen plies his lance, sword, and scepter in the dark to find a woman more beautiful than his wife Lisa or his boyhood love Countess Dorothy.

Bawdy and picaresque Jurgen deals with one of Cabell's three philosophies, that of gallantry (chivalry and poetry being the others).

There are more than 25 slightly connected works in the Biography of Dom Manuel, so there is much more Cabell to savor beyond Jurgen.

Cabell is a bit of an acquired taste but once you get used to the scent and flavor you want to keep coming back. Imagine Mark Twain writing fantasy and you are close to the idea. Cabell's oeuvre was the saga of Dom Manuel who's mother on her death bed him to "make a figure of himself in the world." The idiot strove to do just that, out of clay, bronze, sand, and glass; you get the idea. His picaresque adventures and conquests lead him to become legendary, saintly, messianic, despite being ugly, crippled, a letch, and not very bright. Through uncanny good luck he departs this mortal coil a veritable god. That's all in Figures of Earth. In The Silver Stallion and 22 odd novels, stories, and poems Cabell tells of the world that the fool begets.

Stallion is the second novel in the "series" and tells the story of the breakup of Manuel's Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, sort of Cabell's Knights of the Round Table with Dom as the departed Arthur.

Ribald, witty, smart, dirty, blasphemous, and deliciously wordy the fate of the Fellowship as they go their separate ways is told in ten delicious "books" of mock gospel. Full of euphemism, double entendres, the prose is just a delight.

This is the third Cabell I've read and I can't recommend it highly enough.

...and he made her a fair husband, as husbands go.

Another collection of little historical romance sketches from the worlds most cynical romantic or romantic cynic.
For Cabell enthusiasts perhaps a bit overly familiar in places but still pretty enjoyable. For non-Cabell converts you really need to be in the right frame of mind for these kinds of florid, whimsical, laconic pieces. But the cynical edge keeps them from being twee.

The first and last entries are about some of Cabells own creations but three of the other items might be of broader interest. One with an appearance by Philip Marlowe, another about shakespeares Falstaff and a third involving a Fool, a Witch and a Kingship (technically a Marquis-ship) which clearly had a influence on Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.

Overall perfectly enjoyable but it doesn't have the pop of some of Cabells other books.. or i might just not have been in the right mood for it to really hit the spot. Cabells works always require a bit of a collaboration on the readers part.

"But I cannot put aside the thought that I, who for the while exist in this mortgaged body, cannot ever get out to you. Freydis, there is no way in which two persons may meet in this world of men: we can but exchange, from afar, despairing friendly signals, in the sure knowledge they will be misinterpreted.
So do we pass, each coming out of a strange woman's womb, each parodied by the flesh of his parents, each passing futilely, with incommunicative gestures, toward the womb of a strange grave: and in this jostling we find no comradeship.
No soul may travel upon a bridge of words. Indeed there is no word for my foiled huge desire to love and to be loved, just as there is no word for the big, the not quite comprehended thought which is moving in me at this moment. But that thought also is a grief—"

Wow that was depressing, amongst many other things. An early fantasy comedy satire, but also heavily allegorical. This is the closest of Cabells works to his famous book Jurgen (great novel, even if it did have a bit of a limp, insider joke :P ) which was banned for indecency but cleared after a trial.

I hadn’t checked the dates of the work so assumed this was an early one but it became clear from the plot that this was written after Jurgen. Indeed you could see it as a direct response to that work. Now that i think about it there’s a bit where Manuel becomes old really quickly and that might be a reference to the trial over Jurgen, maybe it prematurely aged the author.

Anyway aswell as a great bit of fantasy as i mentioned it has a lot of allegories going on and certainly didn’t decipher all of them, only close friends of Cabell could work them all out not that you need to decipher them. You can read this on many levels.

However the main allegory is pretty obvious. This book is about what do you do after you become successful? And related topics. What should an artist sacrifice for their art? How do you react to the growing obligations of life and family and the expectations of others?

There’s so much here and its a real delight, but also really depressing (for me) because its so truthful. But that's just me, if your an optimist this will probably just be delightful for you.

I think this might actually be better than Jurgen, but not quite as fun :) . Oh and this one isn’t naughty, in fact its very unnaughty.
I don’t think Cabell censored himself out of fear of another obscenity trial but rather because he wanted to rebel, against the rebels. His audience wanted him as the poster child for naughtiness so he did this (mostly) very clean book instead, at least that's my theory.

Almost exhausting in its brilliance.

"And he found it, as many others have done, but cheerless sexton's work, this digging up of boyish recollections. One by one, they come to light—the brave hopes and dreams and aspirations of youth; the ruddy life has gone out of them; they have shriveled into an alien, pathetic dignity. They might have been one's great-grandfather's or Hannibal's or Adam's; the boy whose life was swayed by them is quite as dead as these."

I really liked that. My 3 stars is more a general survey of quality than a reflection of personal enjoyment. Its a sort of anti-romance, like '500 Days of Summer' or maybe just a realistic romance like 'When Harry Met Sally'.
Its kind of funny, but not a comedy, did remind me a bit of Jeeves and Wooster at times though.
Set in the deep south of america after the civil war, set amongst the dying aristocracy of the former slave owners. Or rather their descendents and while it doesn't tackle racism head on it gives a good idea of the sort of stubborn minded traditionalism which inevitably tends to create such thinking.

The rivet in the title is really a metaphor for peoples inability to change both on a social and a personal level. The book is very bookish... :P i mean its the sort of writing which doesn't care about normal conventions and might be more appreciated by fellow authors or at least people who read a lot, than average readers.

Overall its a whimsically depressing book about peoples general lack of ambition.
"for it would mirror the life of Lichfield with unengaging candor; and, as a consequence, people would complain that my tragedy lacked sustained interest, and that its participants were inconsistent; that it had no ordered plot, no startling incidents, no high endeavors, and no especial aim; and that it was equally deficient in all time-hallowed provocatives of either laughter or tears."

"When the gods of Hellas were discrowned, there was a famous scurrying from Olympos to the world of mortals, where each deity must henceforward make shift.. Eros went to the Grammarians. He would be a schoolmaster...
teaching dunderheaded mortals the First Conjugation.
...and ever since this period has the verb 'to love' been the first to be mastered in all well-constituted grammars, as it is in life.

"Heigho! it is not an easy verb to conjugate. One gets into trouble enough, in floundering through its manifold nuances, which range inevitably through the bold-faced 'I love', the confident 'I will love', the hopeful 'I may be loved', and so on to the wistful, pitiful Pluperfect Subjunctive Passive, 'I might have been loved if'...

This is probably the weakest Cabell i've read so far although i was still sorely tempted at times to give it 4 stars.
It follows a young man/writer and his various love affairs. It smacks a bit too much of biography in places, its sporadic and each love is like a short story by itself. However there is a lot of variety in the female characters with one even being an author writing under the penname George, not sure if that was a reference to George Elliot.

I think i missed about 15% of the text as the conversations were sometimes hard to follow and between the style, slang and era specific references it can be hard to parse.
HOWEVER, there is also a lot of sections i liked and the usual high amount of quotable lines. Not recommended as a starting point for cabell but still entertaining.

Note: There were a number of references to Setebos and i finally rembered thats a name i actually know. Setebos is the god Caliban created for himself in the Tempest, yay me, i'm erudite ;) .

I really wanted to give this 2 stars, at least grading on a curve, but that would be dishonest. So i'll simply have to state that this is the LEAST engaged i have ever felt reading Cabell.

I'm sure this is a fine example of what its attempting, which was a medieval/fantasy? romance thing. But i just did not care. Everything past the 60% mark was a little better but any praise i had to give up for the ploting was done begrudgingly.

This feels like it is to Cabell what the Silmarillion is to Tolkien... scratch that.. not the entire Silmarillion but like one of those stories they took from it, [b:The Children of Húrin|597790|The Children of Húrin|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390692771l/597790._SY75_.jpg|5725966] for example.

Even when told with Cabells usual verve, its just so straight forward. It has neither the ribauld satire of [b:Jurgen|1110887|Jurgen (The Biography of Manuel, #7)|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328865792l/1110887._SY75_.jpg|1598851], the 'inspired by true events'angle of [b:The Certain Hour|8129303|The Certain Hour|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348518403l/8129303._SX50_.jpg|12996642] nor the weird fiction element of [b:The Cream of the Jest|1661275|The Cream of the Jest|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347690740l/1661275._SY75_.jpg|3001394].

Still well written in the details but for me its best aspect was that it was short.

A tale of an author who starts dreaming about one of his creations and starts wondering about the nature of reality. Decent enough for the most part, picks up quite a bit towards the end.

to write perfectly of beautiful happenings

Ok so only 5 stars because i'm grading on a curve but still, i was going to rate each idividual story but found they were all 4 stars except for maybe one which was 3.

It starts with an essay about why its so hard to get good writing published and basically sets out that this work isn't for a general audience, which i would agree with. It also isn't like most short story collections. To put it in musical terms most collections are basically greatest hits, unrelated singles, but this is a proper album where all the songs/stories compliment each other.

The theme is the life of poets and the influence for their work and since Cabell beleives that all poetry is inspired by love/lust, we get a collection of historical romances.
However that description is poor and suggests a lack of variety. I was constantly surprised by the way things went in these tales, theres darkness and realism lurking under the surface of most of the stories and one is flat out supernatural.

Shakespeare and Alexander Pope, are a couple of our protagonists and i spotted William of Orange and a Medici in the background. These would make a great anthorlogy show like 'Urban Myths' :) . I can't speak to the historical veracity but there might be grains of truth here and there.
The last story features John Charteris an entirely fictional writer who appears in various of Cabell's books.

Lyrical, historical, romantic,intriguing, unpredictable, vivid and delightful. The second best of Cabells works i've read to date (behind [b:Jurgen|1110887|Jurgen (The Biography of Manuel, #7)|James Branch Cabell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328865792l/1110887._SY75_.jpg|1598851]).

"What is man, that his welfare be considered?-an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with the archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts..."

Wow... that was uplifting and depressing in equal measure. With a frame of fiction, the opinions expressed being attributed to John Charteris a recurring fictional author in various of Cabells works. But once inside the frame we have a non-fiction examination of realism vs romanticism which morphs and expands until all of human endeavour is weighted in the balance.

I'm not a fan of non-fiction much but as usual Cabells beautiful wordplay and esoteric knowledge, his sarcasm and intelligence, honesty and blatant lies all add to an essay which is eminently readable albeit very highbrow.

Aswell as occasionally confusing on a sentence basis due to Cabells erudition, it also gets pretty confused on an idea basis. I found it quite jumbled as to which side Cabell was promoting at various times but that wasn't entirely my fault. Ultimately the author doesn't have any more answers than the rest of us regarding the point of life or art but he does ask beautiful questions which is quite enough.

If you want to know if this book is for you just check out some of my updates, i really wanted to just quote every line.

"Yet more clearly do I perceive this same man is a maimed god... He is under penalty condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate infinity with a yardstick; and he very often does it..."

Had to read this to see the inspiration for Heinlein's "Job: A Comedy of Justice".

Here Cabell suggests that all of us would be no better off than Jurgen, were our heartfelt desires granted and we found ourselves in our ideal circumstances. And yet, these dreams and ideals are not a waste of time, rather they are the very core of what is needed for our best life. Squaring that circle is left to each reader, though it appears there are far fewer Cabell readers today than when he wrote the book.

There is a mimetic element to the story: I experienced some of Jurgen's lack of satisfaction or discontent as I proceeded through the various episodes. Recognition of this effect actually lifted my spirits: Cabell may well have attempted this deliberately, and such a literary effect is thematically fitting. The double entendre for which Jurgen is notorious certainly is evident throughout, and it was becoming a bit tiresome until I noted my flagging interest was parallel to Jurgen's almost exactly.

Worth revisiting, as are all of Cabell's efforts I've read so far, but I suspect it never will be my favourite. Possibly it is because the plot and prose are so very richly embroidered. Though initially it was difficult to get a handle on Cabell's many and distinct motifs, in other writings they spool out more leisurely and with more space to develop. I might enjoy Jurgen best as recapitulation, after having read the rest of the Biography.

This is my own Amazon review of this edition:

According to Amazon's listing this is an "Annotated" edition of Cabell's Jurgen. However it is not what any normal (or honest) person would mean by "annotated". There are NO ANNOTATIONS to the text -- no glossary, no explanatory notes, no footnotes, no endnotes. The text is preceded by a 7-page potted biographical introduction to Cabell and his career, followed by a single paragraph headed "PLOT".

There are ten or so illustrations -- very small, black and white, and poorly reproduced -- scattered amongst the first 90 pages but then there are no illustrations at all in the 260 subsequent pages.

So, here is the text of Jurgen, which is eminently worth reading. But you could get a better reading experience by purchasing one of the many second-hand McBride editions of Jurgen available on-line for a reasonable price, and then for your "annotation" just read the Wikipedia article on Cabell.

A middle-aged pawn broker, encounters a magical/pagan deity and is granted a do-over..He uses it as he wishes, and the world is relatively unchanged by his actions...perhaps he is a bit improved...perhaps not. Cabell's prose is not my favourite style, yet the book is famous. I think I read the 1928 reprint, as the Dover edition came out after my recorded reading.

This is a set of essays that Mr. Cabell places in the mouth of an avatar, John Charteris. They are more than a little pretentious, but Mr. Cabell had no great need to publish for money, and indulges himself. I find them amusing.

Cabell's major work, being the basis of all further references to the career of Dom Manuel the Redeemer, of Poictesme, the former herder of swine. There is also found some matter referring to his three major loves. The tale is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always cleverly phrased.

A fantasy about...love and the many layers which may be engaged in a single narrative. A story of how a person can be a driver of a situation, and its recorder. It also includes the "Lineage of Lichfield," useful for organizing the Canon.

Part of the Biography of Manuel the redeemer of Poictesme, fairly engaging. It tells of what happened to the companions of Manuel's prosperity.