Customer Reviews

The Silver Stallion

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) wrote "All social realities--values and processes--are created by humans. The social and ideational world represents no entity without humans. Such a world is the reflection of the socialization experienced by each individual in his/her cognitive development. This novel is an inadvertent fictional demonstration of the validity of Durkheim's statement.

This book provides a major key for getting perspective on Poictesme and its varied inhabitants. In 1239, Dom Manuel, Count of Poictesme disappeared. At Storisende, his young daughter Melicent said that she had seen her father on a black horse riding to the west in company with Grandfather Death on a white one. Young Jurgen, another child who was the son of Coth, reported that at dusk,in Upper Morven, he had seen Dom Manuel partake of a fearful eucharist, who was then transfigured into the glowing clouds of the sunset. Dom Manuel had founded the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, and since it had lost its leader, Niafer, his wife, summoned the nine remaining members of the group to come to Storisende for its final meeting. After they all had arrived, Horvendile addressed them as follows, "The master who held Poictesme, under my whims, has passed. A woman sits in his place, his little son inherits after him. So begins a new romance; and a new order is afoot." Next, he assigned each of the nine a fate and ordered that a fire be kindled. The banner of the fellowship was burned and each lord of the Black Stallion broke his sword into fragments and threw them into the flames, so that their swords could never defend any other standard. The nine, Gonfal of Naimes, Donander of Evre, Kerin of Nointel, Ninzian of Yair, Holden of Nerac, Anavalt of Fomor, Coth of the Rocks, Guivric of Perdigon and Miramon of Ranec, returned home and made ready for the new order. In this book, the fates of Gonfal, Miramon, Coth, Guivric, Kerin, Ninzian and Donander are told. Alongside their stories, a parallel history is given of the birth and triumph of the great legend about Manuel the Redeemer as it developed in Poictesme.

James Branch Cabell was much admired by H.L. Menken as one of the few southern writers of merit, and i can see why. He is quietly and persistently subversive - the innunedo in the book is quite wicked.

Murder, adultery, treachery etc are dealt with in such a civilised and matter of fact and even tounge in cheek way. The book can be seen as a satire of southern american society. Its rather reminicent of Lord Dunsany. Cabell repays close reading and much meaning has to be teased out of the text. Im sure it did appear shocking in the 1920's when written - but now days would appear rather tame and stale to most. It provides a wealth of insite into the human psyche.

When the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series began, editor Lin Carter saw to it that the works of many classic authors in the field were reprinted, thus introducing them to a whole new generation. And one of the best of these was the erudite, ever so civilized James Branch Cabell.

"The Silver Stallion" was the first Cabell volume reprinted, inviting readers into the bewilderingly complex but always entertaining world of "The Biography of Manuel," which sprawled across more than 20 volumes, across centuries, across worlds upon worlds of mythology -- and always in the most lapidary, exquisite prose, as exotic & sometimes as astringent as absinthe.

As a teenager only just discovering the then-sparse field of fantasy, primarily due to reading Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Robert E. Howard, writing of this caliber took me by surprise, to say the least. It wasn't like anything I'd experienced up 'til then! But I soon plunged into the baroque, often humorous & grotesque tales of the Companions of Manuel, the dispersed Round Table to the legendary Manuel's King Arthur. The sensuous & comical illustrations of Frank Papè only added to the pleasure of this new realm -- although I really wasn't old enough, and certainly not experienced enough, to appreciate all that I was reading at the time!

Still, I was intrigued enough to look forward to the subsequent volumes that followed over the next few years, which I enjoyed just as much. The flavor of fin-de-siècle decadence, the subtle eroticism, the satiric commentary of the chivalrous ideal, all captured my imagination & provided my first taste of a compelling strain of literature & art.

Cabell's fantasies have remained in print since then, thankfully. They won't be for every taste, especially those who prefer straightforward heroism without any hint of irony or world-weary amusement. But for those who enjoy the likes of Jack Vance (who happily acknowledges Cabell's influence), for example, Cabell will be a delight. As always, while there are current editions of his work, if you can find the old Ballantine editions, get them for their distinctively gorgeous cover art & the introductions by Lin Carter.

Definitely recommended!

Mundus vult decipi: Here begins the history of the birth and of the triumphing of the great legend about Manuel the Redeemer, whom Gonfal repudiated as blown dust, and Miramon, as an imposter, and whom Coth repudiated out of honest love: but whom Guivric accepted, through two sorts of policy; whom Kerin accepted as an honorable old human foible, and Ninzian, as a pathetic and serviceable joke; whom Donander accepted whole-heartedly (to the eternal joy of Donander), and who was accepted also by Naifer, and by Jurgen the Pawnbroker, after some little private reservations: and hereinafter is recorded the manner of the great legend's engulfment of these persons.

The Silver Stallion is a darkly humorous, often sad, satire on human hypocrisy and our need for heroes. Cabell is unsparing in his skewering of the delusions of religion, marriage and politics, among others. Yet, he doesn't leave us utterly forlorn, as the final paragraphs attest:

"Anyhow, young Jurgen had brought down from Morven a most helpful and inspiring prediction which kept up people's spirits in this truly curious world; and cheerfulness was a clear gain. The fact that nothing anywhere entitled you to it could only, he deduced, make of this cheerfulness a still clearer gain...

There might, besides, very well have been something to build upon. Modesty, indeed, here raised the point if Jurgen...could have invented out of the whole cloth anything quite so splendid and far-reaching? And that question he modestly left unanswered. Meanwhile...it was certain that Poictesme, along with the rest of Christendom, had now its wholly satisfactory faith and its beneficent legend" (p. 354).

The novel is divided into 10 books that take place in and around Poictesme, an imaginary, 13th century land somewhere in France, and recount the adventures of Dom Manuel's followers (The Fellowship of the Silver Stallion) after his miraculous assumption into Heaven (according to the sole eye-witness testimony of the young child Jurgen) (for maps and a fuller explanation of Cabell's imaginary realm, see The Atlas of Fantasy and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places; and for a short but concise bio of Cabell, see the entry in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy).

I'll leave off this unabashedly positive recommendation with a short sample of Cabell's lyrical, darkly humorous prose:

"Then Madame Niafer arose, black-robed and hollow-eyed, and she made a lament for Dom Manuel, whose like for gentleness and purity and loving kindliness toward his fellows she declared to remain nowhere in this world. It was an encomium under which the attendant warriors stayed very grave and rather fidgety, because they recognized and shared her grief, but did not wholly recognize the Manuel whom she described to them."

Before "The Fellowship of the Ring" there was "The Fellowship of the Silver Stallion"; the consequences for those who allied themselves in arms with Dom Manuel (The Reedemer), progenitor of generations (mortal and otherwise) and founder of myth.