My Fellow Cabellians
ForumThe Rabble Discuss Cabell: James Branch Cabell &c
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1dscottn
Greetings. My name is Scott. I have been out of touch with other Cabell readers since about 2001 or 2002 and have reread Cabell rarely since then. Late August, trying to locate a reference I had seen years ago on either the VCU or UV website, I instead found the Silver Stallion webpage, this group, and Library Thing. It is hard to express how happy I was to find other Cabellians, however since joining medical crises in my family have kept me from saying hello.
Although an avid reader and collector of books since childhood, I did not really discover Cabell until I was pretty much out of College. A handful of mentions of him in secondary literature convinced me that he would very much be to my taste and about '79 I began gathering Cabell books and reference material which piled up for my reading list. I read just one or two books (Jurgen and Figures of Earth, I'm pretty sure) and decided I needed to locate as much of the Biography as possible before starting to seriously read them, sure that I would enjoy and understand them better that way.
In November 1980 I was laid off from work for the entire month. I decided to go to a family cabin in the mountains to try and finish my thesis while I wasn't working. I took my pile of Cabell books for recreational reading. I had read the 1932 Van Doren book to prepare. I was dropped off with a pile of groceries and a few boxes of books to stay without a car several miles from the closest town.
That month I read, in Storisende order, Beyond Life, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, Domnei, The Music From Behind the Moon, Chivalry, Jurgen, The Line of Love, The High Place, Something About Eve, The Certain Hour, The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck, The Eagle's Shadow, Cream of the Jest, Lineage of Lichfield, Straws and Prayer Books, The Way of Ecben, and These Restless Heads, along with Cabellian Harmonics. Although productive, I did not finish my thesis on the Vishnu Purana, a Hindu mythological text. When I returned home to Santa Cruz, I decided to get really serious about studying and gathering Cabell material. That was the beginning of my fascination with James Branch Cabell.
Although an avid reader and collector of books since childhood, I did not really discover Cabell until I was pretty much out of College. A handful of mentions of him in secondary literature convinced me that he would very much be to my taste and about '79 I began gathering Cabell books and reference material which piled up for my reading list. I read just one or two books (Jurgen and Figures of Earth, I'm pretty sure) and decided I needed to locate as much of the Biography as possible before starting to seriously read them, sure that I would enjoy and understand them better that way.
In November 1980 I was laid off from work for the entire month. I decided to go to a family cabin in the mountains to try and finish my thesis while I wasn't working. I took my pile of Cabell books for recreational reading. I had read the 1932 Van Doren book to prepare. I was dropped off with a pile of groceries and a few boxes of books to stay without a car several miles from the closest town.
That month I read, in Storisende order, Beyond Life, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, Domnei, The Music From Behind the Moon, Chivalry, Jurgen, The Line of Love, The High Place, Something About Eve, The Certain Hour, The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck, The Eagle's Shadow, Cream of the Jest, Lineage of Lichfield, Straws and Prayer Books, The Way of Ecben, and These Restless Heads, along with Cabellian Harmonics. Although productive, I did not finish my thesis on the Vishnu Purana, a Hindu mythological text. When I returned home to Santa Cruz, I decided to get really serious about studying and gathering Cabell material. That was the beginning of my fascination with James Branch Cabell.
2Crypto-Willobie
Tell us more!
And if you're on Facebook there's this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/160416098307
And if you're on Facebook there's this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/160416098307
3elenchus
Especially interesting would be any linkages or insights from Hindu tradition and mythology to Cabelliana, whether in his writings or his life. I would not be surprised to learn they exist.
4dscottn
Beyond Kalki, the Avatar of Vishnu? I am working on another post, but we suddenly have another family medical episode happening, not an emergency but it needs to be worked on. I am transcribing a short Cabell article from a 1971 literary history book that might have not been seen by others here; it is certainly not in Maurice Duke. Hopefully that will not get me in trouble with LT. These past few months have been a nightmare with triplets for me. I went through a phase of obsessive-compulsively inputting books to LT to keep my mind from imploding, but lost my momentum and so many books added from Amazon, Overcat, etc. are incorrect and screwed up, I feel I now have 2000 odd entries that need to corrected, categorized and tagged. I am looking forward to participating here and getting to know y'all better. Thank you for the Facebook link. -Scott
5Crypto-Willobie
>5 Crypto-Willobie:
I input most of my Cabell books from Virginia Commonwealth University, and some from University of Virginia, both of which are on th epossible-source list.
I input most of my Cabell books from Virginia Commonwealth University, and some from University of Virginia, both of which are on th epossible-source list.
6dscottn
I remember the piece which convinced me that I would like James Branch Cabell. There is a good chance that none of the rest of you have ever seen it, so I have transcribed it to post. I have tried to be exact, but had to correct a misspelled Freydis and the italicization of titles and bold type didn't take in the paste. This is the Cabell entry from “History of American Literature: From 1910 to the Present” by Martin S. Day, Doubleday & Co., 1971, pp. 88-91.
A MASTER OF FANTASY
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958). The scion of a distinguished Richmond family, Cabell considered himself first a Virginian and secondly a writer. While still an undergraduate at William and Mary (A.B., 1898), he published verse and taught French and Greek to lower classmen. From 1898 to 1901 he worked on newspapers in Richmond and New York. For the next ten years he worked as a professional genealogist in this country and in Europe. Rather astoundingly, from 1911 to 1913 he worked in West Virginia coal mines.
Cabell's most acclaimed works are fantasies, of which he wrote a long, interconnected series. The imaginary locales of his plots, Poictesme and Storisende, are marvelously conceived microcosms in which various adventurous and romantic episodes comment allegorically on art, morality, love, and other human affairs. V. L. Parrington praised him as “a self-reliant intellectual rich in the spoils of all literature,” and his perverse originality endeared Cabell to such men as H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. Indeed, he is a prime exemplar in American literature of the comic myth-maker. Although he enjoyed an enthusiastic following during his most creative years—the scandal over unaccustomedly outspoken sexual suggestiveness in Jurgen (1919) put him in the spotlight—the later tendency for a time has been to consider him something of an anomaly. The realistic trend of this country's literature found it difficult to accommodate a writer to whom life is a wild and wondrous game to be played by a gentleman gambler. Yet his skill as a stylist, his imaginative inventiveness, and his refreshing disregard for the tribulations which are the theme of the realists and naturalists give him a very distinctive place in American literature and point to the likelihood of continued renewed interest in his writings.
Biography of the Life of Manuel is the collective title that Cabell chose for the eighteen-volume Storisende edition of his works (1927-30). The apparently redundant words in the title indicate a study of a life stream of vital force. Dom Manuel is a swineherd in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Poictesme (combining the names of the real French places Poitiers and Angoulême) located, he indicates, between France and Spain. As a count in later volumes, Manuel founds the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, which resembles Arthur's Round Table. Manuel is not the paragon of Tennyson's Idylls but an Everyman, a fusion of coarseness, practicality and occasional lunacy, wisdom and nonsense. He is quester for the right way of life, and out of his blunderings and strivings emerges a myth. Maps of Poictesme can be filled in as fully as those for another imaginary land, Yoknapatawpha County; and genealogies—Cabell was a professional here—can stretch from the eleventh century to the present, since Cabell's later novels, including those set in Virginia, follow descendants of Manuel.
In their wide ranging, the volumes of the series play numerous variations on a group of three philosophies.
The first, the “chivalric view,” interprets life as spiritual testing. At its best the chivalric ideal represents a “vicarship,” in that men conceive themselves earthly maintainers of divine order. Hence the tradition of public service by the aristocrat. To women is accorded what Cabell called domnei: the respect properly shown to noble ladies as exemplars of beauty and virtue. Strength of will is the most prized human quality.
The second, the “gallant view,” considers life a sportive toy to be enjoyed to the utmost. This hedonistic ideal produces consummate manners and libertine morals. The gallant praises intelligence above all other human attributes.
The third, the “poetic view,” deems life the raw material challenging men to creativity. For the poet, imagination is the transcendent faculty of man.
The organization of the Storisende edition does not follow the chronology of initial publication but essentially this three-fold approach of Cabell. Thus Chivalry (1909) is fifth in the collected series and keynotes this major consideration of the middle of the series. The Certain Hour (1916) is the eleventh volume and lengthily examines the poetic view of life, which dominates the latter portion of the series. Of course, the three different drives appear in every book, and the thoroughly skeptical Cabell will not let any of these approaches gain complete domination.
Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances (1921), a chivalric view, is second in the collected series. The subtitle reveals the theme attendant upon Manuel's quest. His chivalric goal is on the level of monster killing and maiden rescuing, but the naïve knight-at-arms finds the world quite otherwise than it seems. All experience is ambiguous. For example, a wizard provides Manuel with a magic sword to rescue an imprisoned princess; actually the princess is the wizard's wife, he is bored stiff with her, and convention of course prevents him from getting rid of her except by a traditional romantic champion to bear her off. Freydis is the ideal is the ideal female to whom Manuel can display domnei, but he cannot forever endure her and finally accepts misery in order to get back the bossy Niafer. In his palace at Storisende, Manuel belatedly realizes that this supposedly solid, real world is mere deceptive appearance.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919), a gallant view, number six in the collected series, is Cabell's best-known work. Its initial fame arose from the attempts by moralists to ban the book. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice shut down publication for eighteen months until a jury in 1922 absolved Cabell of obscenity. The objectionable passages no longer seem sensational, and now Jurgen can be appraised solely on the basis of its art, which stands high.
A middle-aged Poictesme pawnbroker, Jurgen, out of whimsical perversity defends the Devil (Koschei) who as a favor spirits off Dame Lisa, Jurgen's loquacious wife. Gradually coming to yearn for Lisa's return, Jurgen undertakes an odyssey to find her. The Centaur Nessus gives him a bright shirt that restores his lost youth. As a young man of twenty-one, Jurgen has titillating adventures with Queen Guenevere ( faith), Queen Anaïtis (Morgan Le Fay, or desire), and Queen Helen (vision). In Hell he marries a vampire. In Heaven he conducts metaphysical arguments with the God of his grandmother. Eventually he persuades Koschei to restore Lisa, and Jurgen resumes his wonted existence as a middle-aged pawnbroker.
Jurgen is catapulted into situations satirically echoing many of the Western myths, notably his visit to the land of Cocaigne, his relations with Dorothy la Désirée, and his reunion with Lisa. The ironic subtitle means that Jurgen finds all of life a gross injustice. Through most of the novel he pursues the gallant way of life but with insuperable handicaps. He retains his middle-aged mind and memory while enjoying a vigorous, youthful body. The combining of the two ages in Jurgen produces not happiness but an intensified bitterness and skepticism. Eventually he concludes that we can only accept our beleaguered lot and live with actuality in the here and now.
The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasion (1917), a poetic view, number sixteen in the series, deals with an American, Felix Kennaston, who escapes a disenchanting marriage and the ennui of his existence through a magic talisman, the “sigil of Scoteia,” He is transported back in time to the land of Storisende, where he once bore the name of Horvendile and loved an idealized woman, Ettarre, an “ageless, lovable, and loving woman of whom all the poets had been granted fitful broken glimpses.” She bears him company as he explores many other romantic periods of history, but remains inviolate and incapable of being possessed. At last Kennaston's periodic journeys to Storisende are terminated when upon the death of his wife, Kathleen, he discovers to his amazement that the sigil of Scoteia is no more than the lid from a jar of cold cream.
Ettarre is the stuff of dreams, the supreme and elusive beauty for which the poetic soul eternally yearns. Dwelling upon her, Kennaston finds his actual life increasingly humdrum and uninteresting. Escapism becomes infinitely more precious to him than real existence. Ironically, he finally realizes that the talisman was a familiar domestic item. Whatever magic and satisfaction that life can afford is not truly in these poetic flights. Thus he comes to realize that Kathleen was his Ettarre, or at least the nearest, best thing to Ettarre that fate can afford. The sad “cream of the jest” is that Kennaston has learned this truth too late.
In Beyond Life (1919) Cabell ascribes to significant literature the “virtues of distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and urbanity.” Exemplifying these criteria in his own fiction, he may well gain his place among the most gifted novelists of our literature; but many Americans find him alien to their expectations. He is concerned with the human experience rather than the specifically American experience. Above all, he is the prime (and most bewildering) example in American letters of a serious novelist cavorting in the buffoon pose of a Rabelais or a Laurence Sterne.
A MASTER OF FANTASY
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958). The scion of a distinguished Richmond family, Cabell considered himself first a Virginian and secondly a writer. While still an undergraduate at William and Mary (A.B., 1898), he published verse and taught French and Greek to lower classmen. From 1898 to 1901 he worked on newspapers in Richmond and New York. For the next ten years he worked as a professional genealogist in this country and in Europe. Rather astoundingly, from 1911 to 1913 he worked in West Virginia coal mines.
Cabell's most acclaimed works are fantasies, of which he wrote a long, interconnected series. The imaginary locales of his plots, Poictesme and Storisende, are marvelously conceived microcosms in which various adventurous and romantic episodes comment allegorically on art, morality, love, and other human affairs. V. L. Parrington praised him as “a self-reliant intellectual rich in the spoils of all literature,” and his perverse originality endeared Cabell to such men as H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. Indeed, he is a prime exemplar in American literature of the comic myth-maker. Although he enjoyed an enthusiastic following during his most creative years—the scandal over unaccustomedly outspoken sexual suggestiveness in Jurgen (1919) put him in the spotlight—the later tendency for a time has been to consider him something of an anomaly. The realistic trend of this country's literature found it difficult to accommodate a writer to whom life is a wild and wondrous game to be played by a gentleman gambler. Yet his skill as a stylist, his imaginative inventiveness, and his refreshing disregard for the tribulations which are the theme of the realists and naturalists give him a very distinctive place in American literature and point to the likelihood of continued renewed interest in his writings.
Biography of the Life of Manuel is the collective title that Cabell chose for the eighteen-volume Storisende edition of his works (1927-30). The apparently redundant words in the title indicate a study of a life stream of vital force. Dom Manuel is a swineherd in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Poictesme (combining the names of the real French places Poitiers and Angoulême) located, he indicates, between France and Spain. As a count in later volumes, Manuel founds the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, which resembles Arthur's Round Table. Manuel is not the paragon of Tennyson's Idylls but an Everyman, a fusion of coarseness, practicality and occasional lunacy, wisdom and nonsense. He is quester for the right way of life, and out of his blunderings and strivings emerges a myth. Maps of Poictesme can be filled in as fully as those for another imaginary land, Yoknapatawpha County; and genealogies—Cabell was a professional here—can stretch from the eleventh century to the present, since Cabell's later novels, including those set in Virginia, follow descendants of Manuel.
In their wide ranging, the volumes of the series play numerous variations on a group of three philosophies.
The first, the “chivalric view,” interprets life as spiritual testing. At its best the chivalric ideal represents a “vicarship,” in that men conceive themselves earthly maintainers of divine order. Hence the tradition of public service by the aristocrat. To women is accorded what Cabell called domnei: the respect properly shown to noble ladies as exemplars of beauty and virtue. Strength of will is the most prized human quality.
The second, the “gallant view,” considers life a sportive toy to be enjoyed to the utmost. This hedonistic ideal produces consummate manners and libertine morals. The gallant praises intelligence above all other human attributes.
The third, the “poetic view,” deems life the raw material challenging men to creativity. For the poet, imagination is the transcendent faculty of man.
The organization of the Storisende edition does not follow the chronology of initial publication but essentially this three-fold approach of Cabell. Thus Chivalry (1909) is fifth in the collected series and keynotes this major consideration of the middle of the series. The Certain Hour (1916) is the eleventh volume and lengthily examines the poetic view of life, which dominates the latter portion of the series. Of course, the three different drives appear in every book, and the thoroughly skeptical Cabell will not let any of these approaches gain complete domination.
Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances (1921), a chivalric view, is second in the collected series. The subtitle reveals the theme attendant upon Manuel's quest. His chivalric goal is on the level of monster killing and maiden rescuing, but the naïve knight-at-arms finds the world quite otherwise than it seems. All experience is ambiguous. For example, a wizard provides Manuel with a magic sword to rescue an imprisoned princess; actually the princess is the wizard's wife, he is bored stiff with her, and convention of course prevents him from getting rid of her except by a traditional romantic champion to bear her off. Freydis is the ideal is the ideal female to whom Manuel can display domnei, but he cannot forever endure her and finally accepts misery in order to get back the bossy Niafer. In his palace at Storisende, Manuel belatedly realizes that this supposedly solid, real world is mere deceptive appearance.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919), a gallant view, number six in the collected series, is Cabell's best-known work. Its initial fame arose from the attempts by moralists to ban the book. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice shut down publication for eighteen months until a jury in 1922 absolved Cabell of obscenity. The objectionable passages no longer seem sensational, and now Jurgen can be appraised solely on the basis of its art, which stands high.
A middle-aged Poictesme pawnbroker, Jurgen, out of whimsical perversity defends the Devil (Koschei) who as a favor spirits off Dame Lisa, Jurgen's loquacious wife. Gradually coming to yearn for Lisa's return, Jurgen undertakes an odyssey to find her. The Centaur Nessus gives him a bright shirt that restores his lost youth. As a young man of twenty-one, Jurgen has titillating adventures with Queen Guenevere ( faith), Queen Anaïtis (Morgan Le Fay, or desire), and Queen Helen (vision). In Hell he marries a vampire. In Heaven he conducts metaphysical arguments with the God of his grandmother. Eventually he persuades Koschei to restore Lisa, and Jurgen resumes his wonted existence as a middle-aged pawnbroker.
Jurgen is catapulted into situations satirically echoing many of the Western myths, notably his visit to the land of Cocaigne, his relations with Dorothy la Désirée, and his reunion with Lisa. The ironic subtitle means that Jurgen finds all of life a gross injustice. Through most of the novel he pursues the gallant way of life but with insuperable handicaps. He retains his middle-aged mind and memory while enjoying a vigorous, youthful body. The combining of the two ages in Jurgen produces not happiness but an intensified bitterness and skepticism. Eventually he concludes that we can only accept our beleaguered lot and live with actuality in the here and now.
The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasion (1917), a poetic view, number sixteen in the series, deals with an American, Felix Kennaston, who escapes a disenchanting marriage and the ennui of his existence through a magic talisman, the “sigil of Scoteia,” He is transported back in time to the land of Storisende, where he once bore the name of Horvendile and loved an idealized woman, Ettarre, an “ageless, lovable, and loving woman of whom all the poets had been granted fitful broken glimpses.” She bears him company as he explores many other romantic periods of history, but remains inviolate and incapable of being possessed. At last Kennaston's periodic journeys to Storisende are terminated when upon the death of his wife, Kathleen, he discovers to his amazement that the sigil of Scoteia is no more than the lid from a jar of cold cream.
Ettarre is the stuff of dreams, the supreme and elusive beauty for which the poetic soul eternally yearns. Dwelling upon her, Kennaston finds his actual life increasingly humdrum and uninteresting. Escapism becomes infinitely more precious to him than real existence. Ironically, he finally realizes that the talisman was a familiar domestic item. Whatever magic and satisfaction that life can afford is not truly in these poetic flights. Thus he comes to realize that Kathleen was his Ettarre, or at least the nearest, best thing to Ettarre that fate can afford. The sad “cream of the jest” is that Kennaston has learned this truth too late.
In Beyond Life (1919) Cabell ascribes to significant literature the “virtues of distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and urbanity.” Exemplifying these criteria in his own fiction, he may well gain his place among the most gifted novelists of our literature; but many Americans find him alien to their expectations. He is concerned with the human experience rather than the specifically American experience. Above all, he is the prime (and most bewildering) example in American letters of a serious novelist cavorting in the buffoon pose of a Rabelais or a Laurence Sterne.
7elenchus
That gloss on the three modes of Romantic life are new to me, though not entirely new. Thanks very much for taking the time to transcribe.
8Crypto-Willobie
Very nice. It is surprising to find such a detailed appreciation in a general college textbook as late as c1970.
There are a few factual slips, however...
"Rather astoundingly, from 1911 to 1913 he worked in West Virginia coal mines." This is not really accurate. He worked in the office of a coal mining company owned by an uncle.
"shut down publication {of Jurgen} for eighteen months"
Actually almost three years. Jurgen was suppressed in Jan 1920, and was vindicated in October 1922.
"At last Kennaston's periodic journeys to Storisende are terminated when upon the death of his wife, Kathleen, he discovers to his amazement that the sigil of Scoteia is no more than the lid from a jar of cold cream."
Not exactly. He discovers his wife had possessed the other half of the enchanted sigil, making him believe that she herself was really Ettarre. It is the narrator Harrowby who tells us that the sigil halves are a broken cold cream lid -- it appears that Kennaston never tumbled to this before his mysterious disappearance.
There are a few factual slips, however...
"Rather astoundingly, from 1911 to 1913 he worked in West Virginia coal mines." This is not really accurate. He worked in the office of a coal mining company owned by an uncle.
"shut down publication {of Jurgen} for eighteen months"
Actually almost three years. Jurgen was suppressed in Jan 1920, and was vindicated in October 1922.
"At last Kennaston's periodic journeys to Storisende are terminated when upon the death of his wife, Kathleen, he discovers to his amazement that the sigil of Scoteia is no more than the lid from a jar of cold cream."
Not exactly. He discovers his wife had possessed the other half of the enchanted sigil, making him believe that she herself was really Ettarre. It is the narrator Harrowby who tells us that the sigil halves are a broken cold cream lid -- it appears that Kennaston never tumbled to this before his mysterious disappearance.
9elenchus
>4 dscottn: Beyond Kalki, the Avatar of Vishnu?
Well, yes: I should have thought a bit before posting! That's a clear reference, though it's never been clear to me why Cabell would allude to that aspect of Hindu mythology over all others. End of a cycle? The cyclical nature of Manuel's biography is evident, but is he at the end? Arguably Kennaston falls at that point of the cycle, but I'm not entirely persuaded of that, either.
Incidentally, I'll confess here to long confusing Kalki and Kali. I usually have to look up Kalki to remind myself it's not a goddess of destruction that is alluded to here.
Well, yes: I should have thought a bit before posting! That's a clear reference, though it's never been clear to me why Cabell would allude to that aspect of Hindu mythology over all others. End of a cycle? The cyclical nature of Manuel's biography is evident, but is he at the end? Arguably Kennaston falls at that point of the cycle, but I'm not entirely persuaded of that, either.
Incidentally, I'll confess here to long confusing Kalki and Kali. I usually have to look up Kalki to remind myself it's not a goddess of destruction that is alluded to here.
10dscottn
I nitpick a lot on the entry also. The end of Cream of the Jest especially. Still I am always struck at how highly he ranks Cabell in a book published in September 1971, the same month Ballantine published Cream. One of those things I always mean to do, but never get around to is a careful comparison of the different endings of that book. Nowadays I only have the 1917 and Storisende; almost all of my Kalki editions and PBs have been given away through the years in a vain attempt interest others in Cabell. I have never seen the New College and University Press Paperback Edition of COTJ with the appendix comparing the changes between the various editions. Someday I'll find a copy.
It was probably from Centennial Essays in '83 that I learned more details about his time in the coal business. Might have been the Macdonald biography.
Kalki and Cabellian had been publishing a few years and probably influenced his entry and his appreciation.
Mentioning Kalki the Avatar of Vishnu that destroys the evil world. He rides on a white horse, but certainly is not the white horse. Guessing from Rothman's index, the Edwardes & Spence dictionary of non-classical mythology might have been Cabell's source for the name. Its entry is titled Kalki (The White Horse). Dowson's classical dictionary of Hindu mythology, another reference that would have been available to Cabell, has Kalki, Kalkin 'The White Horse.' Edwardes & Spence cite the Vishnu Purana as giving a "long account of the evils awaiting his redemptive advent." The evils are lengthily described, yes, but the description of Kalki himself and his specific actions is very brief and has no mention of a white horse. Kalki is a nickname, not the given name, which is Vishnuyashas. Kalki does not mean white horse, it means basically sticky soil, filth, corruption, evil, the things "Kalki" destroys. I have never actually located the Hindu source for the White Horse. Possibly the Mahabharata or another Puranic text.
One of the basic Eastern philosophical concepts that relate to Cabelliana would be the variations of Mundus Vult Decipit. The world deceives and the world wishes to be deceived. There are few direct references to Hinduism or Buddhism in Cabell, Krishna in a list of redeemers at the end of Figures, several references in Something about Eve, Agni the god of fire, Ashwamedha (horse sacrifice), maybe a couple others.
It was probably from Centennial Essays in '83 that I learned more details about his time in the coal business. Might have been the Macdonald biography.
Kalki and Cabellian had been publishing a few years and probably influenced his entry and his appreciation.
Mentioning Kalki the Avatar of Vishnu that destroys the evil world. He rides on a white horse, but certainly is not the white horse. Guessing from Rothman's index, the Edwardes & Spence dictionary of non-classical mythology might have been Cabell's source for the name. Its entry is titled Kalki (The White Horse). Dowson's classical dictionary of Hindu mythology, another reference that would have been available to Cabell, has Kalki, Kalkin 'The White Horse.' Edwardes & Spence cite the Vishnu Purana as giving a "long account of the evils awaiting his redemptive advent." The evils are lengthily described, yes, but the description of Kalki himself and his specific actions is very brief and has no mention of a white horse. Kalki is a nickname, not the given name, which is Vishnuyashas. Kalki does not mean white horse, it means basically sticky soil, filth, corruption, evil, the things "Kalki" destroys. I have never actually located the Hindu source for the White Horse. Possibly the Mahabharata or another Puranic text.
One of the basic Eastern philosophical concepts that relate to Cabelliana would be the variations of Mundus Vult Decipit. The world deceives and the world wishes to be deceived. There are few direct references to Hinduism or Buddhism in Cabell, Krishna in a list of redeemers at the end of Figures, several references in Something about Eve, Agni the god of fire, Ashwamedha (horse sacrifice), maybe a couple others.
11dscottn
>9 elenchus: Elenchus, I was busy looking stuff up and writing while you posted and I did not see this before I posted. Kali and Kaustubha, two more Hindu references. I need more time to skim Rothman. Kali is a very complex Goddess, perhaps more of Death than destruction of evil. Kalki destroys evil and virtue is restored. Within Cabell the whole concept seems more an ironic comment on how religious beliefs and culture heroes change and how they are perceived.
12dscottn
I am about 35 years past my prime on my grasp of Eastern Religion and it does not pop easily out of my brain anymore. That of course is why I gathered books to help me remember and learn more. Luckily I still have about ten linear feet of actual Hindu or Buddhist religious texts, about that much more of secondary lit and Indian history. I have not seriously engaged with that part of my library since the mid 80s. I have only catalogued about 10 books from that collection so far.
In recent years my reading and gathering has been more concentrated on medieval or Renaissance romances and Biblical Apocrypha, which have more relation to Cabell anyways.
In recent years my reading and gathering has been more concentrated on medieval or Renaissance romances and Biblical Apocrypha, which have more relation to Cabell anyways.
13Crypto-Willobie
I wonder if Cabell had any Hindu etc books in his library...
https://digital.library.vcu.edu/islandora/object/vcu%3A5896
https://digital.library.vcu.edu/islandora/object/vcu%3Acab
https://gallery.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/jamesbranchcabell/cabellpersonalli...
https://digital.library.vcu.edu/islandora/object/vcu%3A5896
https://digital.library.vcu.edu/islandora/object/vcu%3Acab
https://gallery.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/jamesbranchcabell/cabellpersonalli...
14dscottn
>13 Crypto-Willobie: Not many. Reading through the spreadsheet, an old translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, one book on the Hindu Gods and their worship (not Edwardes and Spence), one book on Tibet, An Arthur Waley translation from the Chinese and two books, possibly novels, with Indian topics.
A lot more mysteries than I expected. The Mary Poppins books took me aback. Young's "History of the Medicis" that was the source material for The King Was In His Counting House was there as I expected. Evangeline Walton's The Virgin and the Swine was a surprise. A whole lot of books that I was forced to part with through the years, which is a bit depressing. Quite a few interesting things to check out later at a more leisurely pace, but the quick skim was quite fun. I learned a whole bunch of stuff. I have wanted that reference material for a while. I appreciate you realizing I might be interested in the material. I am sure the Maurice Duke dissertation will have great some nuggets of info.
A lot more mysteries than I expected. The Mary Poppins books took me aback. Young's "History of the Medicis" that was the source material for The King Was In His Counting House was there as I expected. Evangeline Walton's The Virgin and the Swine was a surprise. A whole lot of books that I was forced to part with through the years, which is a bit depressing. Quite a few interesting things to check out later at a more leisurely pace, but the quick skim was quite fun. I learned a whole bunch of stuff. I have wanted that reference material for a while. I appreciate you realizing I might be interested in the material. I am sure the Maurice Duke dissertation will have great some nuggets of info.
15Crypto-Willobie
Duke's dissertation is essentially this same inventory but without the corrective annotation.
