Order to read Cabell

Having started reading Cabell based on a brief mention of Beyond Life in Vardis Fisher's God or Caesar. I of course started with Beyond Life then checked Wikipedia to see what to do next, I then ordered Figures of Earth, and the Silver Stallion. After reading figures of earth I discovered the Silver Stallion website and started to reconsider the order I was reading in. To cut this little rambling short, do you think I should continue in the order of the Biography of Manuel or jump around all willy nilly.
Thanks
Also I have greatly enjoyed Cabell thus far, I have read Beyond Life and Figures of Earth twice.
It's good that there is a community keeping this relatively forgotten author remembered, at least among a few.

(Edit- Added touchstones)

I don't think there's any essential reading order. I've wondered about the sequencing of the Storisende Edition volumes, which seem to reflect neither their historical pseudo-chronology nor the order in which they were written or first published.

I have not read even a quarter of the Biography (Life of Manuel), but thus far it's been willy nilly and I have not yet found myself needing to change that approach. It would appear there will be shadings and insights and tropes and recurring themes no matter which sequence is taken.

Great to have another member of the Rabble among us, MrNon.

>2 paradoxosalpha:
For the most part the order of the Storisende volumes 2 thru 16 do "reflect... their historical pseudo-chronology". Vols 1 and 17 exist out of any history, in LitCrit land, while 18 is a potpourri. Two of the Lichfield books do overlap -- the final events of Cords of Vanity occur off-stage about 3/4 of the way thru Rivet in Grandfather's Neck.

No hard and fast reading-order rules, but some sequences may illuminate. Now that you've read Figures of Earth, the obvious next volume is The Silver Stallion, which is its direct sequel. Then comes Jurgen, sort of. Jurgen is sometimes called the third volume of the 'Jurgen trilogy' which begins with FoE and SS. But if I were to bind them as a trilogy in, say, a Library of America volume I would make them chronological as written: Jurgen, Figures, Stallion. The events of Jurgen do take place after the other two (well, again, sort of: the events of Jurgen take place shortly before the final chapter of Stallion, in which Jurgen's 'odd dream' is referenced). My reason for this is that the rather brief appearances of Jurgen himself in Figures and Stallion depend for much of their effect on our already knowing who Jurgen is and what he is like.

Domnei is in a significant way a kind of prequel to Cream of the Jest, even though that is out of Biography order..

>1 MrNon:

I'd not heard of Vardis Fisher, though a band I know regularly uses the phrase Peace Like A River and I wonder now if they're alluding to his work. That reference and a title like My Holy Satan help to pique a certain level of interest.

No reviews or descriptions of either novel on LT. What do you think of Vardis's fiction, in particular his Testament of Man series?

Of his fiction work I've only read Dark Bridwell. Although most of his books are on my reading list as my local community college library has all of his books. They being only 20 miles from the site of his former home. His Testament of Man series is certainly on my reading list though, considering he did spend the better part of his career writing it. Based only on Dark Bridwell and God or Caesar though I quite respect him as an author, although that might just be the Idaho wilderness that me and Vardis are so fond of clouding my view.

Thank you all for helping me decide what to read next, onto the Silver Stallion.

I usually prescribe "The Music from Behind the Moon" as the starter, then to follow up with (in order) FoE, SS, Jurgen, tHP, tRiGN, tCotJ ...

Catch others as catch can.

I did not read them in this order, I can assure you. I started with tCotJ, and it is still my favorite.

I highly recommend a handful of non-Biography Cabell, too. But here it depends on interest.

And by the way, "willy nilly" doesn't mean, really, what you intend. Try "helter skelter." The origin of willy nilly is fascinating. I discovered it by accident.

I started with "Jurgen", mostly because it was the best-known of his romances, and easiest to obtain. After that, I switched to reading in chronological order; especially with an author so obsessed with his own biography, it's rewarding to see how he develops his idea and his philosophy from year to year.

So "Domnei" is a good starting-point, and "Something about Eve" a good endpoint. But as others have said before, it's up to your tastes. Only "Figures of Earth" and "The Silver Stallion" are really closely connected in terms of characters, era and plot.

I offer MY advice in decision-tree format:

http://wirkman.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/img_4459.jpg

Please pardon my visual style. I have never made a graphic quite like this before, and my aesthetic sense may not be quite up to the professional level. I use rudimentary tools.

>9 wirkman:

Brilliant idea! I hate seeing Straws and Prayerbooks buried so far down the list, since it is such a touchstone for me, and I really think that the individual essays are very accessible. But I think I see your logic: It's sort of a sequel to Beyond Life, which I'd only inflict on someone who's really committed themselves to getting at Cabell's project in a deep way.

Nicely done!

Makes me want to start reading Cabell!

I'm circling back around and just reading the Bio in order. At Domnei right now, which I've never read (though I have read Music... which it is bound together with). Several I haven't read coming up as well! Amazing to see this stuff in Cabell's preferred context.

I find that pairing odd: could two stories be more different?

I have not read Domnei in ages. I have never read the first version, The Soul of Melicent.

What do you think?

Caution: I think that the final version of Music from Behind the Moon, in The Witch-Woman: A Trilogy About Her, is the one to read....

I'm currently reading The Soul of Mervisaunt, the 1911 Harper's magazine short story that was later revised into the second half of The Soul of Melicent. There's no Count Emmerick, no Bellegarde or Storisende, and Mervisaunt doesn't have any sisters named Dorothy or Ettarre but it does begin "It is a tale which they narrate in Poictseme...". I wonder if this was Cabell's first use of that formula.

http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/contribution_periodicals/harpers/pdf/har...

>14 wirkman: I find that pairing odd: could two stories be more different?

I read the same bundled edition, and noted in my review a rationale for pairing these very different stories:

"Music" is less embroidered, more fabulous {than Domnei}, averaging a page per chapter, and treats of different characters but the same dynamic of chivalric love. Here it is Madoc pursuing another of Dom Manuel's daughters, the youngest, Ettarre. I thought I read somewhere, perhaps of another edition of "Music", that it represented not chivalry but poetry. Clearly here it stands in for another tale of domnei, but the hero is a poet, so perhaps they are not so far apart.

They are very different in style, to be sure, but they treat of the same theme.

I'm curious how the "Millicent" and the Witch-Woman variants differ from this one.

I first read "Music" in the Witch-Woman trilogy, so it'll be interesting to compare it with this one (which is the Storisende).

As for Domnei, I'm loving it. Demetrios is such a good character, and I'm glad he and Perion get such thorough treatment beyond the Silver Stallion's several anecdotes. I love tracing Flamberge through the series from the beginning, as well.

My memory has it hat Domnei is an actual romance, while The Music from Behind the Moon is Menippean satire.

Some interesting thoughts on Rivet from this apparently well-known Sf writer:
http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2018/04/something-about-cabell/

>19 Crypto-Willobie:
Cabell does win new readers, however slowly. The quote he pulled from Rivet certainly is a zinger.

Seems as appropriate as anytime to note a Cabellian epigraph to the third volume of the compiled Sandman comics:

"I do not know whether you know all that is to be known concerning small mirrors ... but of this: silence." --Arthur Machen, in a letter to James Branch Cabell, 17. February 1918.

Gaiman cheekily adds a second epigraph, also from one author to another, but doesn't mention it's a fictional conversation between his characters. (I also thought the quote itself was stolen from Hemingway or another name, but haven't been able to confirm that: "Writers are liars.")

While I liked WJW’s short notice of the book, isn’t it strange that he doesn’t really get to the theme of the story, the embedded philosophy? Instead, he concentrates on a political-cultural observation. It is certainly interesting. But I had forgotten it because it was orthogonal to the main trajectory of the book.

Odd, also, don’t you think, the lack of reference to the Hans Christian Anderson tale?

Yeah, I guess the Anderson source didn't sink in. Btw, I bought a cheap paperback of that other Rivet, just to have it.

I will say that that "political-cultural observation" is something that stuck in my mind, though not in such detail.

I haven't read Rivet yet, or any of the non-Manuel novels, but I inferred that WJW dismissed the theme / embedded philosophy along with the other books:

On rereading Cabell I was reminded of my impressions when I was a teenager, which was that he loved repeating his thesis a little too much. A good reader would catch it the first time; every other reader would catch it on the second go-round; and after that it became just a little tedious.

Does Rivet provide a different theme here, or is WJW "justified" in thinking it old hat and so not worthy of further comment?

The theme of personal limitations — note the book’s subtitle — is surely universal. The comedy is how our limitations allow us to go about living, and perhaps forgiving and certainly tolerating, others’ foibles and limitations.

I like to think of it as the perfect illustration of what Thomas Sowell calls the “constrained vision” of human nature.

WJW’s characterization of Cabell’s overarching vision of the human cosmos is not quite right: “humanity is moderately ridiculous, human endeavor is pointless, and ... human ambition is delusional (but necessary).” He also muses that this philosophy might require one to have lived through the ruins of the Confederacy for that to make sense.

Hardly. All I need to do is observe the people around me.

That being said, Cabell does not believe that human endeavor is, uh, pointless. Arguably, the message of The Cream of the Jest sets that to rest. Still, it is true that our “points” — our ends — are not wholly capable of instantiation, and cannot be of cosmic significance other than as reflections of the cosmos. They definitely have personal significance, though, as one realizes at the end of The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck.

And that has to be enough.