På dette site bruger vi cookies til at levere vores ydelser, forbedre performance, til analyseformål, og (hvis brugeren ikke er logget ind) til reklamer. Ved at bruge LibraryThing anerkender du at have læst og forstået vores vilkår og betingelser inklusive vores politik for håndtering af brugeroplysninger. Din brug af dette site og dets ydelser er underlagt disse vilkår og betingelser.
elenchus: Anatole France and James Branch Cabell broadly share a stylised prose and a winking social commentary, hidden in tales of adventure and whimsy. A place to start is France's The Revolt of the Angels and Cabell's The Silver Stallion, if you like either it's a good bet you'll enjoy further reading in their respective bibilographies.… (mere)
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. ( )
Cabell’s The Silver Stallion is a cycle of novellas set against a backdrop of adventure and magic, after the manner of Camelot. It’s also: a commentary on the Christ myth (simultaneously sincere and satirical); a meditation on mortality, or more precisely on aging and forgetting; and an outline of Cabell’s own framing mythology (the Biography of Manuel), showing how Manuel’s life and actions took on mythical status after his passing, and exploring the implications for companions and community. A facet of that framing myth is the life of Jurgen, a side character here but given star treatment in Cabell’s most popular novel. So there’s a lot going on, though each story is easily appreciated on its own, for humour and fantastic settings as much as for Cabell’s metaphysical and social musings.
As in Cream of the Jest, these stories are told in a dry, naturalist style, a far cry from the fantasy of Disney, or Rowling, or online RPGs. Most of the magic occurs off-stage, and is remarked as matter-of-factly as a hedge or the day of the week. No dramatic fireballs or tense standoffs between battling wizards. The fanciful names appear to be a creative admixture of Old English, Old French, Latin, all tweaked by Cabell’s own predilections, and superior to most writers this side of Tolkien. Cabell’s language and turn of phrase, in fact, are as much a reason to read the book as the stories themselves.
Well worth dipping into again, whether from beginning to end or just to read a single story. ( )
This is not a novel. It is not a romance. It is a collection of short stories carrying on a story from the first in the conceived fictional timeline, "Figures of Earth." These are some of Cabell's most fantastic tales, and the book is one of his best. This edition (Ballantine Adult Fantasy, 1969; reprint of the Storisende edtion), even at inflated scarcity-based prices, is justified by the tale of Donander, the ninth tale included, and the most cosmically comic. Cabell's invention was unmatched by any other's, and his prose beats all contenders. ( )
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
"Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made clear as crystal."
Tilegnelse
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
TO CARL VAN DOREN
Could but one luring dream rest dead forever As dreamers rest at last, with all dreams done, Redeemers need not be, and faith need never Lease, for the faithful, homes beyond the sun.
Victoriously that dream -- above the sorrow And subterfuge of living, -- still lets fail No heart to heed its soothing lure. ... To-morrow Dreams will be true, and faiths and right prevail.
Out of the bright -- and, no, not vacant! -- heavens Redeemers will be coming by and by, En route to make our sixes and our sevens Neat as a trivet or an apple-pie.
Første ord
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Herewith begins the history of the birth and of the triumphing of the great legend about Manuel the Redeemer, whom Gonfal repudiated as blown dust, and Miramon, as an impostor, and whom Coth repudiated out of honest love: but whom Guivric accepted, through two sorts of policy; whom Kerin accepted as an honorable old human foible, and Ninzian, as a pathetic and serviceable joke; whom Donander accepted whole-heartedly (to the eternal joy of Donander), and who was accepted also by Niafer, and by Jurgen the Pawnbroker, after some little private reservations: and hereinafter is recorded the manner of the great legend's engulfment of these persons.
Citater
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
"The Morvyth that I see, and in my manner worship, can be no man's wife. All poets learn this truth in their vexed progress to becoming realists." [Gonfal wooing Morvyth, in "The Mathematics of Gonfal", p. 51]
And Gisele continued, with that resistless and devastating onflow which is peculiar to tidal waves and the tongue of her who speaks for her husband's own good. ["Toupan's Bright Bees", p. 69]
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label." [Coth, in "Coth at Perutsa", p. 129]
"You progress speedily!" answered Sclaug. "That is very nice."
"Well," Kerin admitted, "such is one way of describing the matter. But no doubt other things are equally true: and optimism, anyhow, costs nothing." ["What Saraide Wanted", p. 221]
"Nothing," returned the gander, "nothing in the universe, is of importance, or is authentic to any serious sense, except the illusion of romance. For man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. These axioms -- poor, deaf and blinded spendthrift! -- are none the less valuable for being quoted."
"Nor are they, I suspect," replied Kerin, "any the less generally quoted for being bosh." ["What Saraide Wanted", p. 226]
Sidste ord
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen VidenRedigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Meanwhile (among so many perplexities) it was certain that Poictesme, along with the rest of Christendom, had now its wholly satisfactory faith and its beneficent legend.
)
)
)
Google Books — Indlæser...
Musings on The Silver Stallion
1
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. (