tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post8178530798012116339..comments2024-03-27T23:55:17.673-07:00Comments on Flogging Babel: What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage?Michael Swanwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-17394991156501271452008-02-05T12:29:00.000-08:002008-02-05T12:29:00.000-08:00I’ve been an on and off Cabell fan for years and I...I’ve been an on and off Cabell fan for years and I was fascinated to hear about your “What Can Be Saved” essay but I must take issue with your claim that very little of Cabell is currently available. I can find, through Amazon’s UK branch at least, almost everything Cabell ever wrote. It has been reprinted by Wildside Press and / or Kessinger (admittedly the last named tends to deal in obscure stuff!). <BR/><BR/>I also have a curious 1967 book called “James Branch Cabell – The Dream and the Reality” by a Desmond Tarrant in which the author seems to see Cabell as a major literary force whose work has profound mythic significance for our disillusioned age etc etc. Of course none of this proves that Cabell IS a major literary force but it does mean that even at the late date of ’67 someone was making such a claim.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13866581770209205298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-77321528339224236012007-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:002007-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00It's the Twentieth Century. Very little of any no...It's the Twentieth Century. Very little of any note touching upon James Branch Cabell has occurred in the Twenty-First Century. My essay may be just about it -- and it can't hold a candle to the literary madness that swirled about Cabell in his lifetime. Even the synthesizer recording of the 1925 symphonic tone poem inspired by Jurgen was first published in 1999.<BR/><BR/>Ahh, Frank C. Papé! What an inspired choice of illustrator. I particularly admire the fact thatthe stallion used as the logo for the Kalki edition was rampant in both senses of the word.Michael Swanwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-23395068293097143272007-09-12T12:02:00.000-07:002007-09-12T12:02:00.000-07:00I should add that I'm also a Cabell fan (I couldn'...I should add that I'm also a Cabell fan (I couldn't get through the <I>Smirt/Smith/Smire</I> books, though), and have a number of the editions with Frank C. Papé illustrations, and I'd love to have a copy of your essay.Theophylacthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15269723193638517569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-31996177493502901842007-09-12T11:58:00.000-07:002007-09-12T11:58:00.000-07:00"Twentieth" or "Twenty-First" Century? Oughtn't th..."Twentieth" or "Twenty-First" Century? Oughtn't the author to <I>know</I>?Theophylacthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15269723193638517569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-58853184925495720012007-09-10T07:19:00.000-07:002007-09-10T07:19:00.000-07:00Wow. So many things to respond to.I've come aroun...Wow. So many things to respond to.<BR/><BR/>I've come around to the opinion that we shouldn't be ashamed of our wet dreams, so long as we don't mistake them for real life, let them get in the way of actual sex-and-romance, or talk about them too insistently in public. Women have unworthy thoughts too. I remember how pissed a romance writer became when I told her the plot of her latest book, which she'd just summed up for me, was the most sexist thing I'd ever heard. Anti-female sexist, I mean, not a reverse sexism thing.<BR/><BR/>There's some kind of complex lesson to be learned from this, but I haven't worked it through yet.<BR/><BR/>The importance of the Adult Fantasy line cannot be overstated. Lin Carter was as important an editor as he was negligible as a writer.<BR/><BR/>There will only be 200 copies of the trade paperback because Temporary Culture is a one-man small press, and Henry Wessells is only willing to give up so much of his house to cardboard cartons full of books. He's not in this for the money, after all, but for the love of rare and interesting books.<BR/><BR/>And is <I>the Catalogue of Unique Works in the Library and Private Collections of Michael Swanwick</I> real or a joke? Yes, to both. It's a real bookman's joke, something that Henry plans to do at some unspecified point in the future. As it happens, I have a number of unique -- which is to say, one-of-a-kind -- works in existence. A story in the form of a mask. Another written on the surface of a crescent moon shaped lamp. Stories without any other copy, paper or electronic, sealed inside bottles and dated and signed with a diamond pen. And so on. As a writer of and afficionado of catalogs, this tickles Henry's fancy.Michael Swanwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-25195524836015012602007-08-25T21:50:00.000-07:002007-08-25T21:50:00.000-07:00So is the Catalogue of Unique Works in the Library...So is <I>the Catalogue of Unique Works in the Library<BR/>and Private Collections of Michael Swanwick</I> real or a joke? And if the former, what's it going to be?Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-4715329651140099162007-08-25T07:18:00.000-07:002007-08-25T07:18:00.000-07:00Only 200 copies available of the trade paperback? ...Only 200 copies available of the trade paperback? Great googly moogly.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15351091564180347410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-86706581176652434962007-08-21T13:14:00.000-07:002007-08-21T13:14:00.000-07:00Cabell was such a good writer, and such a bad obse...Cabell was such a good writer, and such a bad observer of people that I wonder at just how much his work can grab a (male) reader. I guess Fiedler had the right of it: that wet dream has an attraction, however secret and guilty, for many men.<BR/><BR/>I've wondered for a long time how Heinlein managed to juggle his obvious respect for Cabell (look at the subtitles of his last 3 or 4 books) and the respect he professed for women. Could this be a case of believing six contradictory things before breakfast?<BR/><BR/>Looking forward to reading your book (my eyes may be big enough for the collectors' edition, but my wallet certainly isn't).SpeakerToManagershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17543351493493167488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-52058450423874570782007-08-21T10:43:00.000-07:002007-08-21T10:43:00.000-07:00Like you, I was introduced to Cabell through the A...Like you, I was introduced to Cabell through the Adult Fantasy series. I'm beginning to realize what a watershed those books represent for many people. I look forward to reading your Cabell book.Steven Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04183568615415530516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-51885750682334427442007-08-21T08:55:00.000-07:002007-08-21T08:55:00.000-07:00Dang. My wallet hates you. Because I am going to b...Dang. My wallet hates you. Because I am going to buy this book.Frederick Paul Kiesche IIIhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17503079579685008728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-27366610513096279932007-08-20T08:44:00.000-07:002007-08-20T08:44:00.000-07:00Unanswerable. I meant to say unanswerable.Sheesh....Unanswerable. I meant to say unanswerable.<BR/><BR/>Sheesh.Michael Swanwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-41334838657556106802007-08-20T06:26:00.000-07:002007-08-20T06:26:00.000-07:00You're absolutely right -- there can't be very man...You're absolutely right -- there can't be very many Cabell fans who are female.<BR/><BR/>Here's what critic Leslie A. Fiedler had to say on this exact same subject:<BR/><BR/>“The pleasure, therefore, which despite myself I continue to find in his fiction, seems to me an understandable but rather ignoble response to what are essentially the wet dreams of an eternal fraternity boy, wish-fulfillment fantasies set in a realm between dawn and sunrise, in which time is unreal and crime without consequence. In this crepuscular Neverland, all males are incredibly urbane and phallic, all women fair and delightfully stupid up to the point of marriage. After that dread event, the former become genitally inadequate, and the latter shrewish and nagging, though dedicated, for reasons never made quite clear, to nurturing and protecting their doddering mates so that they can produce romances celebrating not those wives, of course, but certain phantom girls whom they have not married and who consequently remain forever desirable and eighteen.”<BR/><BR/>Which maps pretty closely to the facts of Cabell's life, is essentially answerable, and packs a decided sting. Particularly in the two words, "delightfully stupid," which are in themselves enough to make a man resolve to give up his sexist ways.Michael Swanwickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18389836784776252022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1484180326012950400.post-83995474356654141952007-08-20T05:05:00.000-07:002007-08-20T05:05:00.000-07:00I got bitten by the Cabell bug years ago, when I r...I got bitten by the Cabell bug years ago, when I read that his works were in the 'forgotten classics' category. I quickly read *The Silver Stallion* and *Figures of Earth*. I got half-way through *Jurgen* before I set it aside. Since then, I've made attempts at some of his other works (*Domnei* and *The High Place*), but I've never felt the urge to get beyond the opening chapters.<BR/><BR/>Cabell's wordplay can be very entertaining. I still enjoy the conversation between Satan and one of his errant minions (a demon who has gone native and is passing for a human on Earth) that appears in *The Silver Stallion*. <BR/><BR/>One of the biggest problems I have with Cabell is that I find his portrayal of women appalling: while they're young and single, they're beautiful and desirable. As soon as they marry, they invariably became controlling shrews. This could be a source of amusement if Cabell had done it once, but he kept repeating the joke, sometimes more than once in the same book. This was more than I could take, so I've probably read all of the Cabell I'm ever going to. For me, he will remain an influential, but unread, fantasy author. <BR/><BR/>I do look forward to reading your *What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage?* if I can get my hands on a copy, though.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17776178628553264100noreply@blogger.com