Pulitzer Prize-winning author's debut novel.

A young American student spends a year in the post-World War I Rome. While there, he experiences firsthand the waning days of a secret community (a "cabala") of decaying royalty, a great cardinal of the Roman Church, and an assortment of memorable American ex-pats. The Cabala, a semiautobiographical novel of unforgettable characters and human passions, launched Wilder's career as a celebrated storyteller and dramatist.
It is concerned with a young and sympathetic American's reactions to a bizarre group of people in pre-war Rome. At a first glance this group (called The Cabala because of its apparently mysterious power over the social scene) would seem to have all the desirable things of life at its command. It possesses wealth, ancient villas, political and church-power, wit, aristocratic connections, assured positions, beauty, wisdom and that mellow civilization that marks the complete intellectual and social dominance of a people. Having all these things it would seem to have everything; but as we follow the young man (he is very much like one of Henry James' curious young men) in his peregrinations through this society we see that it lacks the greatest thing of all, -- contemporaneousness with the Time - Spirit. All of these people are at the end of an era : (perhaps a civilization) of which they are inextricably a part. They must vanish with it for they -- in spite of their seeming beyondness -- are but a portion of the folly of humanity. All of their intelligence and wealth are insufficient to fight Time. It is not that they grow old so much as that the Time-Spirit passes beyond them and leaves them with lacerated emotions. They become like the discrowned pagan gods to whom are suddenly vouch safed the painful afflictions of mortals, hereditary horrors, despised love, destruction of faith, and crumbled illusions. There is a symbolism in "The Cabala" (and Mr. Wilder was wise to include it for there is a symbolism in all great books) that would seem to indicate that these people, Princess d'Espoli, Cardinal Vaini, Mlle. de Marfontaine, the Duchessa d'Aquilanera, and Marcantonio, are all elaborate figments of desire and imagination that crumble from greatness into flesh at the barb of human emotions and passions. Perhaps this is reading too much into Mr. Wilder's purpose but if so this is one of the virtues of his book, that from it our own trembling dismay before the passions of life that so dominate the intelligences may draw parables and mystical lessons. The young man who wanders like a guiding chorus through "The Cabala" witnesses the painful tragedy of each one of these powerful personages in turn and each one is destroyed by the uncontrollable emotions of the heart.

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• Literature & FictionHorrorOccult
• Literature & FictionHistorical Fiction

• Publication Date: August 18, 2022
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
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• Print Length: 143 Pages
• File Size: 441 KB