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James Branch Cabell

Cabell hat eine kleine, aber aktive Fangemeinde und findet gelegentlich auch akademische Würdigung. Im zweiten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts war sein Name in den meisten amerikanischen Haushalten ein Begriff, nicht zuletzt wegen der versuchten Unterdrückung seines Buches Jurgen wegen des angeblich obszönen Inhalts, der von heutiger Sicht jedoch äußerst zahm anmutet. Ansonsten kennt man Cabell vage aus der phantastischen Literatur, da sein Hauptwerk im fiktiven mittelalterlichen Land Poictesme angesiedelt ist. Die Romane gehören aber eher zu den Dekadenzbewegungen der Jahrhundertwende als zur Fantasy-Literatur. Sie sind ein Musterbeispiel für (mitunter auf die Nerven gehende) sophistication, strotzen vor Bildung, Ironie, Zynismus und feinen Anspielungen.
Dass die meisten deutschen Ausgaben bei Bastei erschienen sind, trägt nicht zur Bekanntheit Cabells bei (die Titelbilder sind, vorsichtig gesagt, irreführend). Auch die amerikanische Kritik stand den Büchern bei ihrem ersten Erscheinen eher skeptisch gegenüber, wie man an den Ausschnitten aus den Rezensionen weiter unten sieht.
Außerhalb der Seite gibt's eine allerdings sehr kurze Einführung zu Cabell

Eine Bibliographie auch nur der Primärliteratur zu Cabell ist mir im Moment zu umfangreich. Wissenschaftliche Bibliographien zu ihm gibt es etliche, auch sonst gibt es reichlich Sekundärliteratur zu Cabell, zumindest in den besseren Universitätsbibliotheken.

Bei den folgenden Auszügen aus Kritiken empfehle ich zur Lektüre vor allem Jurgen und Domnei.

SOME OTHER BOOKS BY MR. CABELL

(With Tributes of the Press)

Mr. Cabell's style of writing bristles with the maudlin and lachrymose romantics such as fascinate the shop-girls in the pages of George Barr McCutcheon. And then too has Mr. Cabell's irony a way of losing itself in the burbles of profound and academic inanities. Also, he is lacking in the courage of his disillusion, and [...] because of this lack of courage does his irony become a sort of meandering wistfulness like the whine of a little old man suffering from false teeth. Finally Mr. Cabell is lacking as a poet. He is unable to create those illusions so necessary for the reality of fiction. [...] So Cabell remains the sardonic professor mouthing in the boring rhetoric of the classroom. - BEN HECHT, in The Chicago News.

THE CREAM OF THE JEST

(A Comedy of Evasions)

Mr. Cabell is a self-conscious sentimentalist, hopelessly so. In this book he goes further in speculative and vague imaginings than he has ever ventured before, with the result that he has developed to an amazing extent a purposeless fantasy. Mr. Cabell is guilty also of a curious intellectual egotism. He thus assumes on the part of the reader a necessary interest and sympathy, perhaps even admiration, that are hardly justified by the book itself. The result is a mystery without interest, a fanciful construction of character and experience that does not stir the fancy. - New Orleans Picayune.

The author fails of making his dull characters humanely pitiable. But it is material for a short story, not for a novel. A single slight situation, and a group of persons who do not act as or change from the first page to the last are not heavy enough to weight a volume. - New York Post.

A rambling story, without form, and told in a blundering disorderly fashion. The work is uneven, [...] with passages of gray dullness. - New York Tribune.

THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER'S NECK

(A Comedy of Limitations)

A conventional Southern story. [...] There is no new discernment, no stimulating social criticism. Mr. Cabell may think that he has discovered [...] these things, and recently, but they are no discoveries to the rest of the world. There is no understanding in this book of social currents of the past, much less of the present. The story is [..] almost banal enough to become a best seller. - CLEMENT WOOD, in The New York Call.

Certainly the reading public of both North and South cannot forgive Mr. Cabell for writing a story in which not one man or woman is above reproach, not one who is not besmirched by scandal, not one who has any message of hopefulness to teach us how to live nobly. - Buffalo News, New York.

The title is not the only queer thing about Mr. Cabell's novel, [...] but the reviewer fails to find it significant. The women are not the kind one likes to read about, and [...] the heroine is a good deal of a fool. The scheme of the book is impossible, and [...] it is a mass of commonplaces, through which is run a thread of the wildly improbable. [...] The book is illogical in the extreme, and ]...] it is not one that is likely to be long discussed or remembered. -Brooklyn Eagle, New York.

A story of the Robert W. Chambers sort. [...] If the book is typical, there can be no regret that such people are disappearing. - Springfield Republican, Massachusetts.

THE CERTAIN HOUR

(Dizain de Poëtes)

A collection of "romantic" tales about poets dead and gone, prefaced by a fatuous essay on literature. [...] Two poems, far from poetic, are included in the book. - The Independent, New York.

After indulging in a trite and tedious prologue, in which he virtually goes over the ground we covered in college, on the significance of American literature, and gives his reasons for believing there is nothing worth while in literature at this time, the author offers some dozen short stories to prove his point - stories of his own composition. [...] Dioes not create the proper illusions. [...] The author is not true to the people and the times with which he deals. [..] Readers will prefer Mr. Black's novel "Judith Shakespeare," [...] or, for pure enjoyment, we might prefer "The Hessamy Bride." - Philadelphia Press.

It may please some, but it displeases others to encounter such stereotyped acerbity [...] Why should a creative artist waste his time upon a form which has passed out of fashion even among the most juvenile? - San Francisco Chronicle.

THE CORDS OF VANITY

(A Comedy of Shirking)

About as poor stuff as one can find in a book put out by reputable publishers. [...] The whole thing is slushy and disgusting. - Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio.

There is very little in the book either in manner or matter to commend it. - Utica Observer, New York.

The frontispiece is about the only commendable feature of "The Cords of Vanity." - New York World.

Why any author should waste his time in writing the memoirs of a heartless, selfish, penniless and conceited libertine, is more than most readers of this book will be able to understand. [...] Pity it is that some more elevating subject might not be chosen. - Portland Journal, Oregon.

We close the book with a disposition to ponder upon the singular perversity of those who need a trespass-warning to keep them from so sterile and malodorous a field. [...] Worse than immoral - dull. [...] The narrative is cheap and sickly [...] the effect is revolting. - New York Post.

Inconsequent and rambling, [...] rather nauseating at times, [...] a series of episodes of cold-blooded sordidness, [...] a very unpleasant theme, [...] a most disreputable character for hero. [...] We cannot go further than this is commendation of the book. - A. L. SESSIONS, in Ainslee's Magazine.

DOMNEI

(A Comedy of Woman-Worship)

The book is well bound, with colored illustrations. - Detroit News-Tribune.

There are four illustrations in color by Howard Pyle. - News-Leader, Richmond, Virginia.

The illustrations by Howard Pyle are gems of his talent as a colorist. - Philadelphia Press.

The book is attractively printed, with illustrations by Howard Pyle. - Boston Globe.

The story is illustrated with full-page pictures in color by Howard Pyle. - Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph.

The Pyle pictures are exceedingly spirited and colorful. - Brooklyn Standard Union, New York.

Will make a suitable Christmas present to a girl, and is illustrated in color by Howard Pyle. - JOSEPH M. QUENTIN, in The Portland Oregonian, Oregon.

This Comedy is now issued without illustrations.

JURGEN

(A Comedy of Justice)

Represents and is descriptive of scenes of lewdness and obscenity, and particularly upon pages 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 67, 80, 84, 86, 89, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 114, 120, 124, 125, 127, 128, 134, 135, 142, 144, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 186, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, 206, 207, 211, 228, 229, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 271, 272, 275, 286, 321, 340, 342, 343 thereof, and is so obscene, lewd, lascivious and indecent that a minute description of the same would be offensive. JOHN G. SUMNER (Agent New York Society for the Suppression of Vice) in an affidavit.

While Mr. Cabell's curiosity is possibly equal to the task, his intellect, his emotivity, his tastes, are not. [...] His attempts at light irony are clumsy and obvious. [...] "Jurgen" is merely the recital of the erotic exploits of its hero, each exploit precisely like the last, each reduced by the author to the lowest common denominator of animalism. Granted that Mr. Cabell wishes to show himself a cynic in [...] a theme not wholly new, he has shown himself only the more, dealing with it thus, as lacking imagination and art. - CONRAD AIKEN (an American writer) in The Athenaeum.