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. ( )

The Cream of the Jest, James Branch Cabell's greatest work, straddles the historical fantasies of his mature "Biography of the Life of Manuel" and the early romantic comedies set in his home state of Virginia, turn of the century.

It might best be thought of as a work of metafiction, and one of the most readable of the genre. It is also one of the few book-length self-described "comedies" that also fits easily within the domain of the "novel." Others of his book-length fictions less closely resemble novels and more closely resemble romances and mythic "anatomies." ( )

Cabell's prose is a wonder, I smiled and even laughed aloud at various turns, and marked worthy aphorisms almost every third page. The tale is ironic and witty, and while on the surface it prompts some good-natured eye-rolling, really it hides a satisfyingly solid account of life and myth. The metaphysics and esotericism are not spelled out, but there nevertheless.

The premise is an author, Felix Kennaston, writes an accomplished fantasy novel and ends up "dreaming" his way to that world, stepping into the role of his protagonist, Horvendile. It is literally dreaming, though: Kennaston does not step through another dimension or find himself bodily in another world. In fact, Kennaston takes pains to afford himself eight hours of sleep each night so as to better visit the other world, and even ends up writing a second novel based on the "stories" he dreams himself into. There is a framing device that complicates this a bit, but in general it affords Cabell an ideal forum for social commentary and metaphysical exploration. Done with whimsy & wit throughout, the plots of the two worlds intertwine until the very end.

Cabell's writing is often categorised as fantasy. It is that, I suppose, but not like Tolkien or his hordes of imitators. There's an ironic distance, and the plot reminds me of a Homer Pyle adventure. There are sprites and goblins, but relayed the way Shakespeare might, not in a deliberately realist fashion.

Cabell uses leitmotifs in the way of a film score: a melody punctuates certain situations, and often closes a chapter or scene. One is the phrase "the universe would seem to fold about him, just as a hand closes", used whenever Horvendile exits a dream. Another refers to Ettarre's "innumerable evasions", and Kennaston says "we touch mystery everywhere" at least twice, though both occur near the end of the book.

The title is a pun, and also another leitmotif: the phrase deliberately surfaces throughout the book, usually by the protagonist. The pun comes in at the end, when Kennaston's inspiration for the Sigil of Scoteia is revealed.

Though this is part of the Biography of Manuel series, it was the first I've read, and the series is not one of serialised adventure so much as a thematic meditation on myth. Definitely, I will read others. ( )

One of my favorite books. ( )