13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fiction as fine art, January 5, 2009
This review is from: The Cabala and The Woman of Andros: Two Novels (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (Paperback)
This slim volume of one short novel and one novella was my first encounter with the writings of Thornton Wilder. I'm glad I started here because if I had first read one of his more well-known titles I might have not gotten back to these; and that would have been a shame because I thoroughly enjoyed them both. A surprising thing about these two works is that although they deal with many of the same topics and were published within about four years of each other, they have a vastly different feel. The Cabala, which was his first published novel, is narrated by a cultured young American who is in Rome to draw inspiration from its historical and artistic heritage. His interest is whetted by rumors of a small and exclusive social circle whose machinations wield enormous powers of manipulation over both private and public affairs in Italy. With a good deal of ironic humor he describes how he gains admittance to the group and begins to closely study the principals, their personalities, and their particular contribution to the group. They are a motley and eccentric group, to be sure, and all very different from one another; but each possesses some outstanding characteristic which , when meshed with the others, results in their extraordinary powers. Even as the young American is closely observing and trying to fathom the innermost secrets of the cabal, it begins to unravel before his eyes. Where this elite group had been satirically compared to the ancient Olympians there now enter the symptoms of mortality such as unrequited love, death, and loss of faith. The ironic humor becomes more bittersweet than mocking. I don't wish to give the impression that this is a story 'about' the disintegration of a powerful social clique. That is true to a certain degree, but it seems to me that the really important feature of the novel is the exploration of the personalities and mental states of the cabalists. Their attitudes about power, propriety, and position touch on universal themes, and their responses to tragedy and adversity show how well those beliefs hold up when tested. My view is that there is really no moral to be drawn from all this drama(though some of the characters may try to)other than humans must get through these situations using their best devices, and some devices are better than others. This story is simply an examination of how a particular throw of the dice plays out. It is told with elegant wit and, to my mind, is an amazingly accomplished first novel. I must say, however, I would have only given four stars if it had been printed solo. Sometimes it seemed the author tried a little too hard to be clever. I also think you would have to be a major in fine arts as well as Roman history to catch all the artsy allusions interspersed into the narrative. At least I know many of them went over my head. The Woman of Andros, though not much later than The Cabala, seems a much maturer work. It is more pure tragedy and more successful, partly because it doesn't try to be clever at all. It is economical without being stark. A Greek isle shortly before the time of Christ is the setting and there is a very authentic feel to both the culture depicted and the effects of landscape and seascape. Again we have characters who must contend with death, thwarted love, and loss of faith. The most memorable personage is a beautiful prostitute, the woman of Andros, who has come to believe that faith is useless in alleviating the sufferings of this world, but she has tried to fill this void by introducing the beauty of poetry and philosophy at banquets for her clients. Her attempt to reach a state of mind through which she can withstand with equanimity the insults and abuses of fate seems to sum up a quintessential problem of humanity. Love turns tragic for her younger sister and a young man who is faced with the choice of bringing dishonor on his family or disclaiming his unborn child. All the players, caught in their own predicaments of fate, are trying to reach a point of mental equilibrium, but for most of them it proves elusive, slipping away as soon as it is grasped. Only the woman of Andros seems able to achieve a state of grace through a selfless love and responsibility for others. There is one character, mysterious and remote, a priest of Aesculapius and Apollo who seems to have achieved the strength and wisdom they desire. He ministers to the ills of his petitioners with a detached and imperturbable kindliness, but does not interact on a human level. Perhaps he is an advanced counterpart to the narrator of The Cabala. This seemed a very honest story to me, with no emotionally comforting ending. Rather, it is a study of the soul's struggle to find a place of leverage from which it can grapple with the insoluble problems of existence, or failing that, acquiesce with grace and serenity. In The Woman of Andros this study is refined and distilled into a work of art, but one with a very somber beauty. Although I regard these works highly, I couldn't recommend them to anyone who demands that books offer solutions for the sufferings of their characters. While The Cabala can be taken in a lighter vein, The Woman of Andros is pretty much undiluted tragedy, but with a more psychological focus than its ancient Greek forerunners.
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