Cabellian Harmonics

SnakThe Rabble Discuss Cabell: James Branch Cabell &c

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Cabellian Harmonics

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1mkjones
Redigeret: aug 16, 2009, 6:49 pm

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good book about the fiction of Cabell? I see that my school library has some by Joe Lee Davis, Carl Van Doren, and Sir Hugh Walpole, but the one that looks most intriguing is Cabellian Harmonics by Warren A. McNeil, and that one is sadly missing.

At one time I was quite interested in the notion that all of Cabell's books could be classified by three separate attitudes towards life: the chivalrous, the gallant, and the poetic. The chivalrous attitude asserts life is a test (where one seeks to become admirable), the gallant attitude feels life is a toy (where one enjoys life while it lasts), and the poetic attitude views life as raw material (where one creates something more durable than life).

2paradoxosalpha
aug 16, 2009, 5:33 pm

Well, Cabell's own book of literary theory is Beyond Life, and that's where you'll find him outlining his ideas of chivalry, gallantry, and romance.

3Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 16, 2009, 6:28 pm

I just finished Beyond Life, and while it took some effort -- there's no plot, just a buncha talkin' -- I was impressed. Sometime one sees a (brief) list of Famous Quotations from Cabell, but it seemed to me that a full 10% of Beyond Life could be used for the second edition of Great Cabell Quotations.

As to critical assessments by outsiders there were a lot produced in his heyday; I confess I have read none of them, though I own a few. There are several more recent ones that may serve your purpose:
James Branch Cabell: The Dream and the Reality (1967) by Desmond Tarrant
From Satire to Subversion: the Fantasies of James Branch Cabell (1989) by James D. Riemer
James Branch Cabell: Centennial Essays (1983) edited by Inge and MacDonald
I have two of these and am looking for the third but haven’t read them (!)

(I should perhaps explain that my own Cabell heyday was in the years around 1980. I read then 10 or so of his key books and spent money accumulating others, but, as is the way with book-nuts, moved on to a dozen other interests. However, I always esteemed him and, still having the books I got then, I decided to do it right and start from the beginning (Beyond Life) and (re-)read them all. I’ve now done a bit of research in bibliographies and on the net, and am currently reading (along with Figures of Earth) Edgar E. MacDonald’s biography James Branch Cabell and Richmond-in-Virginia (1993). So I’m in a weird place Cabell-wise – reasonably knowledgeable in some areas as I’ve been hitting the books, and a raw beginner in other areas as until about 6 months ago I’ve paid him very little attention for 25 years. And… I hereby apologize once and for all for talking too much!)

4paradoxosalpha
aug 16, 2009, 10:32 pm

Crypto-Willobie, what did you think of the Tarrant? I read it a while ago, and took away practically nothing of note. (The MacDonald bio OTOH, was rather illuminating.)

5Crypto-Willobie
aug 16, 2009, 11:30 pm

Ah, but I haven't read it yet. I intended to follow up the biography with a critical book, probably that-- I got it cheap. (I'm reading the Biography in parallel.) Anyone read the Riemer? I'm getting it from an academic library as soon as I can get over there...

6paradoxosalpha
aug 17, 2009, 9:52 am

Oops, as I reread your 3, I see that you disclaim having read it. I actually got more value out of the slender little James Branch Cabell by Carl Van Doren (1932 rev. ed.).

7Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 18, 2009, 4:46 pm

Has anyone read Michael Swanwick's book about Cabell What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage? I see that wirkman has reviewed it; and btw he has a number of good Cabell reviews up on LT.

8paradoxosalpha
aug 18, 2009, 7:32 pm

wirkman has sold me on Swanwick. Duly wishlisted.

9Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 20, 2009, 7:10 am

mkjones-- did you get any of the Cabell critical books out of the library? I've just looked at my copy of the Joe Lee Davis book, in the Twayne series, and I must have read at least some of it long ago, as I find some of my own notes in it. At a quick re-glance it looks pretty good, And your statement above "At one time I was quite interested in the notion that all of Cabell's books could be classified by three separate attitudes towards life: the chivalrous, the gallant, and the poetic," almost sound as if you've ssen it too since three of Davis's chapter headings are 'The Way of Chivalry,' 'The Way of Gallantry,' and 'The Way of Poetry.'

I really like Davis's bibliography too which offers comments on previous works. He calls Cabellian Harmonics 'pedestrian but valuable'; but the book he really seems to like is Jesting Moses: A Study in Cabellian Comedy (1962) by Arvin R. Wells.

10mkjones
aug 20, 2009, 10:56 am

paradoxosalpha, a note I wrote long ago, used to compose my above post, has Beyond Life and Preface to the Past written at the top, and so I believe I have read those. Since I don't really remember anything from them, I should plan a reread at some point.

And Crypto-Willobie, no, I haven't made it to the library yet. But thanks for mentioning Tarrant, Riemer, and MacDonald, because they are also there. There's also one by H. L. Mencken. There are many more books of biography and criticism than I initially thought!

Perhaps many of these critiques don't go beyond what Cabell already wrote about his three "ways", but I would like to investigate. The book by Davis does sound like a good start. Too bad that Swanwick book is so expensive!

Along with my note, I had also drawn a diagram involving the three attitudes locating many of Cabell's books on a sort of triangular coordinate system. Besides the works, an element paradigmatic of each attitude is a female character: Ettarre, Dame Melicent, and Dorothy a Desiree.

Which makes me think of another topic that can wait...

11Crypto-Willobie
aug 20, 2009, 11:57 am

Speaking of Cabell diagrams, perhaps you've seen this very interesting page which includes a diagram: http://www.cadaeic.net/cabell.htm
And a Cabell tattoo!

12Crypto-Willobie
aug 20, 2009, 2:58 pm

Here's something else that Joe Lee Davis lauded in his bibliography-- Edmund Wilson's mid-50s reappraisal "The James Branch Cabell Case Reopened." Here is is at Googlebooks: http://books.google.com/books?id=TnFWZw0vkGcC&pg=PA291&lpg=PA291&dq=... , and as a bonus you get Wilson's 1958 eulogy of Cabell, as well as his infamous anti-Tolkien diatribe "Oo Those Awful Orcs!" in which he states his preference for Cabell to Tolkien.

13Crypto-Willobie
aug 23, 2009, 8:34 am

>10 mkjones: Too bad that Swanwick book is so expensive!

It is so on Amazon, where it is $30 plus 3.99 postage.

However, if you go here: http://avramdavidson.org/wreckage.html you can read a bit more about it, as well as get it for $20 including postage from wessells@aol.com

14mkjones
aug 23, 2009, 6:10 pm

Thanks for the research, Crypto-Willobie! I emailed to ask if they still have copies available; they do, but they're asking $28 now. I guess that includes postage.

Anybody on this group read books by Michael Swanwick? I believe I've read The Iron-Dragon's Daughter and Stations of the Tide.

Swanwick's blog, with an article on the book, can be found at

http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-can-be-saved-from-wreckage.html

15Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 23, 2009, 8:33 pm

That's odd -- I just emailed wessels late Saturday night and he replied early this morning, just before I posted here; and he told me $20 -- $15 for the book and $5 for the postage. I've already put a check in the mail. I guess we'll see.

16mkjones
Redigeret: aug 25, 2009, 9:32 am

Yes, you were right about the price. Thanks. I've sent in my check for purchase.

Swanwick also has a monograph (also available from Wessells) about Hope Mirrlees, author of Lud-in-the-Mist. I would recommend that novel for anyone who enjoys JBC.

17wirkman
aug 28, 2009, 2:54 am

Cabell wrote a second literary testament, Straws and Prayer-Books, which I deem wittier and more concise than Beyond Life: Dizain des Demiurges. I highly recommend it.

18paradoxosalpha
aug 28, 2009, 9:40 am

Straws and Prayer-Books is in fact so consonant with my own way of looking at literature, that I hardly even think of it as positing a theory. You're right: it's far more readable than Beyond Life. It isn't so trained on the Chivalry-Gallantry-Romance complex, though.

19Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 28, 2009, 1:36 pm

I never got to Straws and Prayer-books the first time around but will do so vaguely soon, as I'm rereading the entire BotLoM, this time in Storisende order. I'm just now beginning to re-read Silver Stallion so (since my reading is of course not limited to JBC) it may be up to a year or two until I reach Straws. Anglemark tells me he's going to read them all soon as well, but in order of publication -- since it's a late entry either way, perhaps we'll reach it at about the same time.

I just got a copy of Jesting Moses which, at a glance, looks to be pretty good. Will eventually report back.

20mkjones
aug 28, 2009, 4:16 pm

Why the title Straws and Prayer-Books? It's always put me off, somehow, like calling something "Ravens and Writing-Desks". What could those two things have in common? Does the book reveal the secret?

21Dragonfly
aug 29, 2009, 11:13 am

I see that Cabell's papers are at Virginia Commonwealth University. Does anyone know if his personal book collection was preserved or if there's a "Dead People's Books" type project for him?

22mkjones
Redigeret: aug 29, 2009, 5:59 pm

Now that would be interesting! But I have no idea...

23Crypto-Willobie
Redigeret: aug 29, 2009, 7:59 pm

According to Wikipedia's fairly good Cabell article: "In 1970, Virginia Commonwealth University, also located in Richmond, named its main campus library "James Branch Cabell Library" in his honor. In the 1970s Cabell's library and personal papers were moved from his home on Monument Avenue to the James Branch Cabell Library. Consisting of some 3,000 volumes, the collection includes manuscripts, notebooks and scrapbooks, periodicals in which Cabell's essays, reviews and fiction were published, his correspondence with noted writers including H. L. Mencken, Ellen Glasgow, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser, correspondence with family, friends, editors and publishers, newspaper clippings, photographs, periodicals, criticisms, printed material, publishers' agreements and statements of sales." So it looks like his library is there with his papers.
Apparently among these are the 'working copies' of his own books which he used for final revisions when preparing the Storisende edition. Some details concerning these can be found in James N Hall's very useful Cabell bibliography.