The wry vision of Cabell has served up another chapter in the High History of Manuel the redeemer. It is coupled with "The Music From Behind the Moon" a very short narrative. The tale is full of jokes stemming from the big hit "Jurgen" and still fun for those who had been on board this particular stream of whimsey. "Those who like this sort of thing, will," I am sure , "like this thing very much." Written by 1927, the author's Introduction may not be amusing, to a modern reader...but sustained irony is an acquired taste that in this instance may demand considerable research before it is clear. ( )

In this edition are bound "two comedies of Woman-Worship": Domnei and The Music from Behind the Moon, the latter perhaps more novella than novel. Cabell notes in the afterword to the former (this afterward a Cabellian admixture of authorial commentary and an extended fiction, a pendant to the story) that domnei is chivalric love, a Weltanschauung which has as much to do with a man's code of conduct as it does with the woman the chevalier loves. This story, then, is another exploration of how our search after an unattainable ideal, how our belief in that ideal, nevertheless does make real change in our person, and brings us closer to the very ideal we seek. And that, after all, is Cabellian Romance: an Idealism tempered by Pragmatism, each compromising each, the end result something finer than either alone. A species of metaphysical Realism.

The characters and plot are simple but richly embroidered: the embroidery provides the heft not already given through Romance. I cannot hold on to it, though it is richly rewarding as I read it. The bare bones then as ably sketched by Lin Carter: "In Domnei we read of the passionate devotion of heroic young Perion for the lovely Melicent, and how she was carried into captivity by the villainous Demetrios." [vi] It quickly comes clear, though, that Melicent (Dom Manuel's eldest daughter) represents life's paragon to both Perion and Demetrios, that the adversaries respect and honour one another equally to Melicent herself, and there is the tenor of a love triangle, or perhaps of someone in love with both a sister and her brother, and they each with him. Domnei was previously published as "The Soul of Melicent".

"Music" is less embroidered, more fabulous, averaging a page per chapter, and treats of different characters but the same dynamic of chivalric love. Here it is Madoc pursuing another of Dom Manuel's daughters, the youngest, Ettarre. I thought I read somewhere, perhaps of another edition of "Music", that it represented not chivalry but poetry. Clearly here it stands in for another tale of domnei, but the hero is a poet, so perhaps they are not so far apart.

//

"It was a canon of domnei, it was the very essence of domnei, that the woman one loves is providentially set between her lover's apprehension and God, as the mobile and vital image and corporeal reminder of Heaven, as a quick symbol of beauty and holiness, of purity and perfection. In her the lover views -- embodied, apparent to human sense, and even accessible to human enterprise, -- all qualities of God which can be comprehended by our restricted human faculties." [161]

And Baalzebub complains: "A pest upon this domnei! ... For then [when driven by domnei] the idiot hungers after a life so high-pitched that his gross faculties may not so much as glimpse it; he is so rapt with impossible dreams that he becomes oblivious to the nudgings of his most petted vice; and he abhors his own innate and wholly natural inclination to cowardice, and filth, and self-deception. He, in fine, affords me and all other rational people no available handle; and, in consequence, he very often flounders beyond the reach of my whisperings." [162-63]

//

Keeping in mind that Cabell deliberately revived the Provencal poets, and set his stories in their milieu, we do well to avoid putting too much weight on the placement of personal pronouns. ( )

Oh, I so love "Domnei" - it is my favorite of all that I've read by Cabell. There is passion, faith, cynicism, and incredible perserverence and determination. Melicent is one of the great female characters of high fantasy. The three main characters are brilliantly sketched, Melicent, Perion, Demetrios, and the supporting characters are also skillfully drawn. I must confess to a sneaking wish, when I read it, that Melicent could have fallen in love with Demetrios (the way I did), but then the ending wouldn't have been the same... ( )

To me, easily the best of Cabell's fantasies, because it is a perfectly straight (and lovely) chivalric romance, whereas most of his stories are told (to borrow a phrase from Laffety)
with the tongue so far into the cheek that it comes out the ass. ( )

"Domnei" is the revised version of "The Soul of Melicent," as Cabell's first publisher titled the first edition. It is an elegiac comedy, a medieval romance with an ironic aftertaste. I suppose it is possible to read it as simple fantasy, but it is not so simple. An early work of Cabell, it is, nevertheless, quite polished, and it contains that great Cabellian witticism, among many others: "The optimist proclaims that this is the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

With the long short story, or fable, "The Music from Behind the Moon," we come up to one of the greatest works in the Cabellian canon. It is funny, suggestive, beautiful, and sadly moving. It is an expression of the author's philosophy in briefest artistic form. Alas, this publication reprints the Kalki Edition, I believe, not the far superior Storisende Edition. Find the later edition. It is one of the greatest works of world literature. This volume's version is for the curious only, since the great work is in its earlier, unfinished form. ( )