Figures of Earth (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): A Comedy of Appearances

By James Branch Cabell

Published in 1921, this novel may be considered the first in the Poictesme series, for it is here that Cabell introduces his great hero, or anti-hero, Manuel the Redeemer. A rogue who begins in the mud but through sharp dealings rises to become the wealthy and illustrious Count of Poictesme, Manuel’s journey makes him a legend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Mar 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411444270

James Branch Cabell

James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) was an American writer of escapist and fantasy fiction. Born into a wealthy family in the state of Virginia, Cabell attended the College of William and Mary, where he graduated in 1898 following a brief personal scandal. His first stories began to be published, launching a productive decade in which Cabell’s worked appeared in both Harper’s Monthly Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post. Over the next forty years, Cabell would go on to publish fifty-two books, many of them novels and short-story collections. A friend, colleague, and inspiration for such writers as Ellen Glasgow, H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, and Theodore Dreiser, James Branch Cabell is remembered as an iconoclastic pioneer of fantasy literature.

Reviews for Figures of Earth (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

[revslick_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Who influences the influencers - according to many fantasy and satirists alike it was Cabell who's fantasy and wit is wry and dryer than the Mojave. I can definitely see where many of the greats appreciated his craft at the time from Twin, Heinlein, Leiber, Gaiman and Pratchett, but those masters took the craft to another dimension entirely. Read at the risk of curing your insomnia.

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cabell apparently intended the Biography of Manuel as "one single, one continuous, and one undivisible Book" -- momentarily confusing at the realisation the 18 novels do not treat of the same character, nor a chronological order. After completing this, my third novel from the Biography, I do begin to see some of the themes and motifs. Clearest is that the Biography is a comedy in the classic sense; and essentially tells the same story in different guises with each manifestation. That said, each novel is not merely that same story, though that would be achievement enough given the very different plots, characters, and settings used each time. Like any myth, though, there is a key story told.WR Parker in his 1932 essay, 'A Key to Cabell' [434]: "Cabell writes of it again in Straws and Prayer-Books: "It is perhaps the main point of the Biography that it - and human life - present for all practical purposes the same comedy over and over again with each new generation." An understanding of this perennial comedy constitutes the true key to Cabell. Briefly and simply stated, the comedy is this: Man becomes dissatisfied with reality, grows weary of futile routine and foolish conventions and ugliness. He seeks escape by creating in his own mind an ideal world, a utopia, in which his thoughts can dwell pleasantly. Most of the Cabellian characters literally move into the dream-world, where they go in quest of some particular perfection. Then man becomes aware of the fact that he is desiring the unattainable, and so, thoroughly disenchanted, he returns to reality and makes the best of things as they are."Manuel here seeks explicitly the perfection of a mate, most particularly does not find satisfaction with three candidates, and indeed "makes do" with the girl he meets at the very beginning, whom he fell for as a lad and returns to after much chivalry and dishevel, eyes wide open. Apparently Figures of Earth explores the "literal" biography of Manuel, echoed and alluded to in other tales, and echoing and alluding to Horvendile (Cream of the Jest) and to various others in Silver Stallion, at least. Another Cabellian irony that this was not the first volume, but the 13th in publication order and the 2nd in Cabell's revised sequence.Cabell's prose is gossamer, such that I find it difficult to grasp and track a strong sense of the plot; it is plainly put, yet I lose my way unless I focus explicitly, which then results in lost appreciation for the prose itself (as wordcraft, as literary and mythopoeic writing). All of Cabell's prose is like this for me. Partly a result, I think, of Cabell's choice to use myth and romance and fantasy as a means of structuring a tale, and then commenting upon modern life rather than focusing specifically on the realm he's imagined. His ironic distance, again, though in no way does this detract from his care in world building. Poictesme is fitted with a fully-realised culture, history, and people. Layers and layers.Cabell is cynical, ironical, romantic, realist -- and somehow fuses that into a knowing idealism. I do love his perspective, it is matched only by his stylings and erudition. Never hesitate to purchase or re-read anything by Cabell: the working theses to be tested from here on.

[wirkman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This, the designated first book of The Biography of Manuel, James Branch Cabell's cycle of comedies, cricitism and poems that hit American literature like a ton of feathers in the 1920s, is not the best of the series. Nor is it the worst. What it is is necessary. A bit overlong, I thought. But a great ending, and great droll scenes throughout. Must readers for Cabell lovers, but though it is the first in a cycle, it is not the cream of the geste.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cabell's major work, being the basis of all further references to the career of Dom Manuel the Redeemer, of Poictesme, the former herder of swine. There is also found some matter referring to his three major loves. The tale is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always cleverly phrased.