Conference noted::sf

1160.0. "James Branch Cabell" by VERGA::KLAES (Quo vadimus?) Tue Aug 24 1993 18:49

Article: 337
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews #13: James Branch Cabell
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 23 Aug 93 23:14:34 GMT
 
		Belated Reviews #13:  James Branch Cabell
 
James Branch Cabell wrote over fifty books between the 1910s and the 1950s.
Most of them tie into his ambitious fantasy cycle about Manuel the Redeemer,
a thirteenth-century pigherd who rose to become a count, and his descendents.
His books are ambitious, literate, imaginative, playful -- needless to say,
most of them weren't selling very well.  Luck came ironically disguised as
the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which had him hailed into
court on obscenity charges for his publication of "Jurgen", in 1919.  (I
don't believe "Jurgen" has been out of print since.)  The resulting notoriety
made Cabell a best-selling author for a while, and when it eventually died
down, it left behind people who knew and appreciated Cabell's work.
 
I'm going to confess straight off that I'm not a proper Cabellian:  The
true Cabellian has hunted down and read his obscure works as well as his
better known ones.  Aside from "Jurgen", I've only read the group of six
books reprinted by Del Rey about twenty years ago.  Cabell's best books are
"Jurgen", "Figures of Earth", and "The Silver Stallion".  (You should try
one of them.  They may be read in any order.)  If you like those, try the
other books in that set, "The High Place" (**), "The Cream of the Jest" (**+),
"Something About Eve" (**), and "Domnei" (*).  If you like *those*, you too
can become a true Cabellian:  If bookstores fail you, there's always the 
modern miracle of interlibrary loans.
 
"Jurgen" (***+) is my favorite of Cabell's books.  It begins with good
intentions:  Jurgen, a middle-aged pawnbroker with a poetic flare, finds
reason to praise the Devil at length (more to irk the monk with whom he
argues than out of conviction), and the Devil tries to show his gratitude
by carrying off his shrew of a wife.  Jurgen appreciates the thought, but 
feels it his duty to rescue her.  Armed with a rejuvenated body, the
wisdom of age, and a gorgeous shirt, he makes his way through a world of
myth -- both Christian and Pagan.  (Maybe I should qualify the comment
about wisdom.  Would you accept a shirt from a centaur named Nessus?)  A
certain equanimity, a sense of proportion, see him through his travels.
 
The universe this high comedy describes is a droll one, ruled by beings who
are very powerful -- but not necessarily very bright.  Jurgen himself achieves
the fantasies of youth -- Guenevere and Helen of Troy, a crown, even a papacy
of sorts -- but being a middle-aged pawnbroker at heart, he is unable to take 
these fantasies seriously enough to lose himself in them.  He spends time in
heaven and time in hell (readers of the comic book "Sandman" will recognize
Cabell's influence) and finds that both are well enough in their own ways.
(My favorite part of the book is the manner in which he manages to travel from
hell to heaven without, as it were, a visa, by virtue of a good understanding
of How Things Work.)
 
"Figures of Earth" (***+) tells the story of Manuel, the swineherd, who
rises to become Count Manuel of Poictesme, in thirteenth-century France,
and eventually Manuel the Redeemer.  The motto on his coat of arms is
"Mundus Vult Decipi" -- the world wishes to be deceived.  It's appropriate.
Manuel himself doesn't need to do much deceiving.  Indeed, he's a remarkably
passive hero.  He does as he is told, he goes where he is sent, his actual
loves don't seem to touch him very deeply.  But the world takes itself
seriously, and insists upon casting him in an appropriately heroic role.
 
"The Silver Stallion" (***+) follows "Figures of Earth" though it doesn't
hurt to read it first.  After Manuel's death or disappearance (only the young
Jurgen saw him go, and he got thrashed for telling tales) Manuel's 
subordinates are summoned by Horvendile and sent a-questing.  (Horvendile is
either the power behind the greatest powers in the universe or a minor 
meddler.  Cabell provides support for both interpretations.)  This book
follows the several adventures of these Lords.  Over time the absent Manuel
himself acquires a mythic significance which many find convenient to accept,
some (as we are told at the start of the book) sincerely, some from policy,
some as a joke, some because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
 
I'm going to end this review with a digression about Tolkien, which may
seem an odd way to end a review of Cabell.  People who grew up reading modern
fantasy tend not to realize how different it is from pre-Tolkien fantasy, or
how much 95% of the fantasy they've read owes to Tolkien.  (Peter David has
a wonderful anecdote of hearing a kid in a bookstore tell his friend not
to bother with "Lord of the Rings" because "it's a Terry Brooks ripoff.")
 
The best-selling fantasies today are almost all set in a homogenized,
generic, pseudo-medieval world.  Cabell's fantasies, like those of
William Morris, of Lord Dunsany, of many of their contemporaries (not all, 
but I don't want to interrupt a perfectly good peroration just to get the 
facts straight), were rooted in the middle ages.  There's a difference.  
They were written by people who grew up with Mallory and Arthur, Ariosto and
Roland, rather than with Tokien and Gygax.  (That Cabell's books play off
of the earlier conventions doesn't make this less true.)
 
If you're newly come to the works of the earlier fantasists, and they're
not what you've come to expect of fantasy, give them a chance.  In one
respect you may find them dry and unimaginative, lacking in the clever
novelties that distinguish modern fantasies from each other.  At the same
time, they draw upon a rich cultural continuity which too many readers know
only at second or third hand.  You may also find the characters somewhat 
shallow:  They don't spend much time emoting, overcoming angst or childhood
traumas, or achieving triumph through self-knowledge.  Is this bad?  I'm
inclined to acknowledge the fact that conventions change, and enjoy the
older conventions, at least as a change of pace.
 
%A  Cabell, James Branch
%T  Jurgen
%T  Figures of Earth
%T  The Silver Stallion
 
Standard introduction and disclaimer for Belated Reviews follows.

Belated Reviews cover science fiction and fantasy of earlier decades.
They're for newer readers who have wondered about the older titles on the
shelves, or who are interested in what sf/f was like in its younger days.
The emphasis is on helping interested readers identify books to try first, 
not on discussing the books in depth.
 
A general caveat is in order:  Most of the classics of yesteryear have not
aged well.  If you didn't encounter them back when, or in your early teens,
they will probably not give you the unforced pleasure they gave their
original audiences.  You may find yourself having to make allowances for
writing you consider shallow or politics you consider regressive.  When I
name specific titles, I'll often rate them using the following scale:
 
**** Recommended.
***  An old favorite that hasn't aged well, and wouldn't get a good
	reception if it were written today.  Enjoyable on its own terms.
**   A solid book, worth reading if you like the author's works.
*    Nothing special.
 
Additional disclaimers:  Authors are not chosen for review in any particular
order.  The reviews don't attempt to be comprehensive.  No distinction is 
made between books which are still in print and books which are not.
 
-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com
 
Roses red and violets blew
  and all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew -- Edmund Spenser