Cabell's Heirs?

Bill Patterson received a prize in 2000 for his paper "The Heir of James Branch Cabell: The Biography of the Life of the Biography of the Life of Manuel (A Comedy of Inheritances)," in which he makes a conclusive case for Cabell's influence on science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. Heinlein did in fact call his Stranger in a Strange Land a "Cabellian satire."

Michael Moorcock, whose Eternal Champion / Multiverse devices have resulted in a sprawling compound fiction comparable to the Biography of Manuel, has admitted a liking for Cabell. Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time manifests a post-moral drollery that seems to harmonize with Cabell's gallantry.

Who are some other arguably neo-Cabellian authors?

Donald Corley was, some say, a Cabell epigone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Corley

I have read only one of his stories, and it seemed to be in a sort of ornate, post-Meredithian, post-Cabellian style.

I have read that John Myers Myers was also influenced by Cabell. I have not read his two novels, though I have recently purchased copies of both.

It is sometimes said that Jack Vance was influenced by Cabell. Vance's indefatigable promoter, Paul Rhoads, denies this. I am a big admirer of some of Vance's works, such as EMPHYRIO, WYST and the LYONESSE fantasies. Oh, and his DYING EARTH fiction is magnificent.

When I was young, and Robert A. Heinlein's JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE, was first published, I wrote a critical review of the novel, comparing it to the master he was obviously aping, James Branch Cabell. I insisted that the pouring of Cabellian wine into Heinleinian bottle (or, perhaps it should be the other way around!) proved an uneasy mix. Heinlein's view of life did not seem to fit the philosophy that justified the cosmic playfulness. Heinlein, I argued, was better when he avoided irony altogether, and avoided complex ambivalences, or any attempt at comedy. Heinlein was at his best as a straightforward sf author. The Cabellian mimicry did his art no good.

I doubt that my review was much appreciated . . . by any of the 50 or so readers of that limited-circulation newsletter!

I like Vance's Dying Earth too, but I wouldn't have thought to compare it to Cabell. On reflection, I can see the similarity.

I've read John Myers Myers' Silverlock (a good long while ago), and I have to say it left me rather cold. I can see how readers might compare it to some of the Poictesme stories, particularly ones like The High Place where literary allusions come fast and furious. But with Cabell, I always feel like the immediate story has its own merit, with the allusions as mere icing on the cake. In Silverlock, it seemed like the central story was just a pretext to cram in as many tacit references to other narratives as possible.

Is it worth mentioning that Larry Niven, in WORLD OUT OF TIME, has as his book's protagonist one James Branch Corbell, a man who defies a superstate of the future, hijacks a starship, and returns to Earth millions of years in the future?

The character discovers a solar system with his home planet circling Uranus (that isn't right) and no one left on the world but an aging woman, called a "norn."

Odd hard sf. Odder for referencing Cabell quite directly. The theme of "cheating time" is, of course, a Cabell speciality. Niven ably riffs on it.

The construction "cheating time" never would have occurred to me: I'm so pleased it occurred to you, whether originally or after reading it somewhere else. It is quite apt.

I've read a number of Niven titles, at a time I was moving beyond the Golden Age style of SF and into what (at the time, at least) seemed more adult fiction, and in general liked it. Did not read World Out of Time, and if I had, would not have recognised the reference to Cabell. Perhaps, now is the time.

Haven't read him, but supposedly the sf writer H. Beam Piper uses Cabellian names in some of his books...

I wouldn't have suggested it based on her enormously popular novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but Susanna Clarke waxes quite Cabellian in her short stories collected as The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories. Not only are there saintly antics reminiscent of The High Place in "John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner" (as I mention in my review), but "Antickes and Frets," about Mary Queen of Scots also reminded me of the English history pieces in Chivalry. There are droll, Cabell-style characters throughout the volume.

Hmmm... I've got a copy of that but haven't even cracked it yet. Will have to check it out, thanks...

Larry Niven also wrote some number of short stories in a setting called the Leshy Circuit -- a group of worlds discovered and named by someone who had read Cabell. One of the stories was "Night on Mispec Moor", found in his collection N-Space.

> 2
It is sometimes said...

I found a more specific citation for the Cabell-->Vance influence: "According to pulp editor Sam Merwin, Vance's earliest magazine submissions in the 1940s were heavily influenced by the style of James Branch Cabell." This from the Vance wikipedia article, referencing Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds p. 151. (Note 9 to the wikipedia article, as of today.)

Vance's Cugel the Clever stories always reminded me of the Kai Lung tales of Ernest Bramah, particularly with Cugel's witty aphorisms and mannered dialogue.

In his fantasy stories, I think Vance did have somewhat of a Cabellian interest in the details of magical spell-casting, going into minute detail in some of his stories about the rules of magic, the manner in which spells are cast, and developing a invented history of which magicians invented certain spells. One difference between them is that Vance invented the details of the magical rules within his invented worlds, whereas Cabell seemed to draw the details from his study of obscure literature of magic and spells (i.e. dactylomancy in the Silver Stallion).

Have long known the name but don't think I've read any Vance. The Cugel stories sound entertaining and the invented history of magicians reminiscent of Leiber's various names, e.g. Ningaubel of the Seven Eyes (did I get that right?) or the old D&D player manuals. Fun.

I'm confident that Vance's fantasy was a crucial influence on the original D&D magic system.

Definitely; several of the original AD&D spell names were taken directly from Vance.

I just read and reviewed Venus on the Half-Shell by "Kilgore Trout" (Philip Jose Farmer) and found reasons to compare it to Cabell.

I read the Riverworld series in my SF days, and later the Hitchhiker books, but never this one! Your review and others put me in mind of Piers Anthony and Tom Robbins, for the frank sexuality laced with humour. I'm persuaded it's worth picking up if I come across it used, but I don't think I'll seek it out.

Yeah, Tom Robbins is an apt comparison.

Tom Robbins was once a colleague (student?) of Cabell scholar Maurice Duke in the early days of VCU. Somewhere on the web is an audio interview with Duke telling of his tavern conversations with young Robbins as well as an expedition to transfer Cabell's private library (through a window!) from his widow's residence to the new Cabell Library at VCU. I'll dig up the link later and post it...

I can't figure out how I overlooked Clark Ashton Smith in this category. His Averoigne is clearly derivative from Cabell's Poictesme. The relationship was recalled to me by reading CAS's story "The Disinterment of Venus" as part of our ongoing group read over at the LT group The Weird Tradition. Its droll monk-bothering reminded me strongly of The White Robe and The High Place.

Thanks for the tip. I've acquired a little bit of Smith but haven't cracked any yet. Which books are the Averoigne stories/Disinterment of Venus in?

Two Averoigne stories are contained in Lost Worlds. Strange that the Averoigne stories were never included in a Ballantine Adult Fantasy collection as Hyperborea, Zothique, etc. Nightshade Books put out five volumes of the collected fiction of CAS several years ago, but I don't know which one contains the Averoigne tales.

There are only four Averoigne stories in A Rendezvous in Averoigne, which is (contrary to expectations raised by the title) a more comprehensive CAS anthology. I actually read "The Disinterment of Venus" online here:

http://webscription.org/chapters/9781597803656/9781597803656___6.htm

It appears that most or all of them are available on-line at eldritchdark.com, easily accessible through the live title-links in the bibliography on the Averoigne wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averoigne

I'd alluded to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser in 13>, but more directly linked to Vance than to Cabell. But today I ran across this, from the pen (or typewriter) of Leiber himself, in his Introduction to the one F & M novel, The Swords of Lankhmar:

"One of the original motives for conceiving Fafhrd and the Mouser was to have a couple of fantasy heroes closer to true human stature than supermen like Conan and Tarzan and many another. In a way they're a mixture of Cabell and Eddison, if we must look for literary ancestors. Fafhrd and the Mouser have a touch of Jurgen's cynicism and anti-romanticism, but they go on boldly having adventures -- one more roll of the dice with destiny and death. While the characters they most parallel in The Worm Ourobouros are Corund and Gro, yet I don't think they're touched with evil as those two, rather they're rogues in a decadent world where you have to be a rogue to survive; perhaps, in legendry, Robin Hood comes closest to them, though they're certainly a pair of lone-wolf Robin Hoods. . . ."

I've not read any Eddison, but recognised the Cabellian personality in Leiber's description.

Leiber also has an intersting essay on Cabell in general and Jurgen specifically called "The Fantasy of Titivation" (or something like that) in the essay collection The Blade of Conan, which collection includes several essays each by Sprague de Camp, Poul Anderson, Leiber and others.

Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers series is clearly derived from Cabell.

I'm not familiar with that series -- but when I looked at the LT reviews I found "Old man falls through a hole into another world. Falls away from his shrewish wife and unfulfilling life and into a world where people are naked, sexually liberated, and where he starts getting younger." -- so I see what you mean...

I believe I read at least partway into the World of Tiers, but well before Cabell so had no chance to identify the influence. At the time I read PJF, it was the beginning of the end of my SF/F focus in reading, and I recall thinking it was somehow more mature writing and subject matter (and not entirely for the sex). To the extent PJF is influenced by Cabell, I'd have to agree with my earlier somewhat instinctive assessment.

I've recently read several places that John Brunner was inspired to start his Traveller in Black series after reading The Silver Stallion...

Before John Steinbeck became John Steinbeck, Cabell & Donn Byrne were influential on the fledgling author. In the introduction to the Penguin 2008 ed. of Cup of Gold (1929), Susan F. Beegel makes a surprising (and credible) case for Cabell's significant impact on the young writer and his first novel. The pertinent part of her intro is here. While no one will ever confuse Steinbeck for a neo-Cabellian, I thought it interesting to bump into an example of Cabell's wide ranging influence on a writer whose greatest achievements were neither in SF or high fantasy.

Thanks much for that Steinbeck intro-preview, which will be added to the Writings About Cabell 1975-2012 bibliography I'm compiling for the Cabell website.. I had procured a copy of Cup of Gold because I knew of its Cabell connections but had yet to read it.

And speaking of influencing "a writer whose greatest achievements were neither in SF or high fantasy" Cabell was a strong influence on the young William Faulkner. Faulkner is known to have read and admired The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (which is not a fantasy at all but an ironic look at Southern chivalry), as well as Jurgen, The Cream of the Jest and The Silver Stallion -- even once giving someone Jurgen as a gift. There are Cabell borrowings in Soldier's Pay and the early fable Mayday is written in a close pastiche of Cabell's style.

Donn Byrne I'd never heard of before, interesting at some point to read something of his though Beegel's description does not persuade he'll be as good as Cabell.

C-W, together Cabell and Walker Pearcy have given me a higher regard for the potential of Southern culture as a setting perfectly capable of carrrying the weight of literature writ large (which I knew), but not only for those particularly interested in the American South but really, for me (which I had not known). The influence on Faulkner illustrates that for me in a way I probably wasn't capable of hearing before my introduction to the History of Manuel.

32> Glad it was helpful. I'd noticed your Brunner comment, a writer I still like a lot, and in looking for the connection between him & JBC, found Steinbeck instead. Go figure. I enjoyed hearing about the Faulkner connection too. Had no clue.

33> I'd never heard of Donn Byrne either. Looks like Crypto has, though, being the owner of fourteen different titles of his.

Yeah, Don Byrnes are pretty cheap on the second-hand market. So far I've only read Marco Polo and some stories

>20 paradoxosalpha:

See my post on Clark Ashton Smith's Disinterment of Venus over in the Weird Tradition, post 23. http://www.librarything.com/topic/127860

>36 Crypto-Willobie:

Thanks for that, CW: I read my first CAS in the DEEP ONES and it was an Averoigne tale, very reminiscent of Cabell, to me.

I don't know where else to put this article on one of JBC's literal-not-literary heirs, "cross-dressing drug-taking gender-bending Wild Boy" Beat poet Cabell McLean:

http://www.beatdom.com/missing-poets-looking-for-cabell-mclean/

>38 vaniamk13:

Awesome! Adding the author link, although alas his only work in LT is an anthology contributor credit: Cabell McLean.

Oh my, two of my fav authors (Cabell and WSB), and I had no idea there was this Missing Link.

Unless I mis-read that post, though -- Cabell McLean literally is more of a literary heir than a literal heir: he was named for JBC, but unrelated?

McLean (whose original surname appears to have been Hardy) claimed to be a 'descendant' of JBC; but having looked into it I can find no evidence of this. It's not unlikely that he may have been named after JBC, but on on the other hand Cabell is a not uncommon name in Virginia, West Virginia etc and there are other writers with the first name Cabell who are (as far as I know) not related to JBC. Cabell Phillips, W. Cabell Greet, Cabell Harris, Cabell King, Cab Calloway!, Cabell Davis.

Somewhere McLean (or his supporters) tell a tale of his being given "one of three keys to the Cabell Room at U of Va" by JBC's widow Margaret so that he could poke around whenever he wanted. Several aspects of this narrative are highly dubious. I suspect that McLean's Cabellicity is largely fictional and self-generated.

McLean really is a Cabell fan, like the rest of us Rabble, and equally a Burroughs fan. I can accept that.

Here's most of a Cabell McLean essay in a googlebooks link
https://books.google.com/books?id=g_7zB6WEpOwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%...
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He's also an occasional character in Ted Morgan's Burroughs bio Literary Outlaw

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Oh, and here's that bio-essay with the 'Cabell Room' story from Ashe 4.1

Ashé Vol 4, Number 1, Spring 2005Copyright ©2005 by Ashé Journal. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. Cabell McLean1952 – 2004

On December 1, 2004,Cabell McLean, writer and Ashé contributor, passedaway due to complicationsfrom Hepatitis C. HIV-disease was listed as acontributing cause on thedeath certificate. He was 52.McLean was adescendant of the visonary American writer JamesBranch Cabell (Jurgen) for whom he was named. While he was an undergraduate atthe University of Virgina,Cabell’s widow providedMcLean with one of three keys to the James Branch Cabell room. Thatenabled the young writer to have access to many first editions of modernclassics and origianl manuscripts. It also provided him invaluable insightinto the need for a writer to understand what had come before him. After graduation, he attended the Naropa Institute. The poet Larry Fagin recognized McLean’s talent. Fagin encouraged him to show his work to William S. Burroughs. That summer McLean attendedBurroughs class on screenwriting. Although he was enraptured by whathe described as “the overwhelming impression of ancient wisdom,” thatemanated from Burroughs, he was reluctant to approach him. One night at 10 p.m. stoked by a sufficient quantity of vodka, McLean brought hisoeuvre of youthful writings to the sage’s apartment and knocked on hisdoor. In a 1999 interview, he described what happened next:“Burroughs opened it almost at once, looked at me with a sourexpression and said, “Oh, it’s you!” I could tell he remembered me fromclass. I was unsure what to do next, but then he stood aside and said,“Well, come on in.” He offered me a drink (just what I needed!) and Itook it. He was drinking vodka, and poured a tumbler nearly full, toppedit off with tonic, and pushed it across the kitchen table to me where I sat.I told him I’d come to show him my work. He accepted this and openedmy portfolio. My heart sank as he flipped through my carefully typedstories about the criminals and drug addicts I had known, each pagereceiving but a cursory glance before being flipped over and forgotten.He went through the entire collection of some twenty stories in less thantwo minutes!“Is that it?” he asked. I just sat there, stunned, saying nothing.“Very nice,” he said, and I could tell he thought no such thing. Isupposed they seemed terribly amateurish, and I was completely humiliated. I was already thinking about the best way to get out of therepolitely when he said, “Let’s go out on the porch.”He stepped out onto the small, railed porch through the glassdoor and looked over into the Varsity Apartments courtyard. In spite of the hour, most of the apartments were active and the courtyard wasbrightly lit. Across the way, we watched a young boy, perhaps fifteen,naked but for a swimsuit, climbing up and around the trellises thatcovered the inner walls of the courtyard. “That’s Beade, Spence’s kid,”Bill murmured to me as we watched the youthful body pull and stretchup the wall. “Like a little monkey he is. Climbs all over the walls out hereall the time. I never know when he’s going to climb right up and stick hishead through the window to say hi.” I had to admit the boy wasbeautiful, and said so. Bill smiled at me in a way I came to know well later, the smile of a vaudeville showman, the smile of a gombeen man,and said, “Young boys do need it special!” He laughed and put a large,heavy hand on my shoulder, and suddenly I knew everything was going to be alright.”McLean spent the next five years with Burroughs as both astudent and personal assistant “to learn the craft of writing from a mastercraftsman.” During that time, McLean paid his own expenses, drawing from a stipend from his family. He was emphatic about not accepting money from Burroughs.McLean participated in many literary experiments with Burroughs.He recalled: “I researched these periods and places (that wereincorporated into Burroughs’ novels), and much of my early work withBill involved learning his special techniques of researching a story idea. These included the usual background reading, but also included visiting locations, focused dreaming, cut up experiments, and “walk-throughs.” A walk-through was when Bill and I would act out a scene to see how things might go. I always had a lot of fun doing walk-throughs with Bill. This was during the early days of his work on Place of Dead Roads , whichhe called by its working title Gay Gun. We’d drive out to visit sites of interest to him, places where events happened in the history of the west. There we would do short re-enactments of certain scenes, such as a gunfight, for example.”In fact the initial publication of the short story “Gay Gun” in theDecember 1978 issue of
The Washington Review of Books gave bothBurroughs and McLean by-lines.McLean left Burroughs in 1983 to pursue his own career, althoughthe two remained life-long friends and were in contact until Burrroughs’own death. McLean was always very reluctant to trade in on hisassociation with Burroughs to gain attention. In fact he only gave oneinterview about his relationship with Burroughs, in spite of repeatedoffers to give paid interview...

{Ed. But there is no 'James Branch Cabell Room' at the U of Va in Charlottesville where McLean went to school, nor Is Margaret Freeman Cabell likely to have had "one of three keys" to it. There is a JBC room at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and MFC had close connection with that collection, but that's not where McLean went to school. Sounds like McLean got his fictional backstory scrambled.}

This talk of Cabell McLean has reminded me of the Cabell connections of Sam M. Steward aka Phil Andros, poet, novelist, college professor, tattoo artist and gay pornographer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Steward

Cabell and the young Steward corresponded several times during 1928-30, and Steward's first publication, Pan and the Fire-bird (1930) was a collection of fairly Cabellian fantasy fables and poems. Steward inscribed a copy and sent it to Cabell when it was published. There is a piece by Paul Padgette in one of the final issues of Kalki telling of Sam and Pan and James.

Not surprising but disappointing the Wikipedia entry has nothing on the Cabell connection. (I suppose I could edit it myself, but meh.) The Chicago connections were fun to read about, too.

>14 paradoxosalpha:, >15 anglemark:

In online RPG jargon, D&D-style fire-and-forget magic is known as "Vancian".

Nice!

Donn Byrne’s Messer Marco Polo receives an enthusiastic defense by Cabell in Straws and Prayer-Books. Cabell claims it is the only book he ever begged a magazine to allow him to review — which, if true, tells us something about the impetuses for all his other reviews, some of which can be found in The American Mercury — and more than implies that it was his review that helped make the book a hit. He makes a rousing case for Byrne’s book’s merits.

Odd how I had completely forgotten the mentions made here, above, to the author, before just last week encountering him so prominently in Cabell’s “Dizain des Diversions.”

re Marco Polo reviews...

http://www.librarything.com/work/338498/details/52281120

Another current writer influenced by Mr Cabell...
Walter Jon Williams and his Quillifer series.

Review of Quillifer here: https://locusmag.com/2017/10/paul-di-filippo-reviews-walter-jon-williams/

and WJW's blog with some coverage of Rivet...

http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2018/04/something-about-cabell/

It's interesting the Di Filippo review draws comparison between WJW and JBC, without mentioning (acknowledging?) that WJW himself is aware of JBC. In the blog, WJW claims he read JBC when a teen, but hadn't revisited any of his books until then (2018). Perhaps WJW read the Di Filippo review in 2017, saw the comparison, and was prompted to re-visit.

Or maybe Di Filippo disguises the fact he didn't come up with the comparison himself.