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"[Cabell's] most substantial post-Biography fantasy was "The Nightmare Has Triplets," a sequence comprising Smirt: An Urban Nightmare, Smith: A Sylvan Interlude, and Smire: An Acceptance in the Third Person. This explicitly emulates the logic and geography of dreams . . . successfully mistly and dreamlike . . ." --The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
- GenresFantasy
324 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1935
12 people want to read
About the author
James Branch Cabell
256 books125 followersJames Branch Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 10, 2013
The second volume of the Nightmare trilogy. Cabell at his wittiest and most observant of human nature, tells of the second dream. Smirt, the omnipotent god, within limits, in the first volume, finds himself now a minor forest deity in the Middle Ages, named Mr. Smith. Or maybe he is Smirt dreaming he is Smith. Or a writer dreaming he is Smirt and Smith. Or possibly a blue-bottle fly dreaming that he is all three. He isn't quite sure, but he is enjoying the dream. After all, you don't meet Charlemagne and Roland under ordinary circumstances.
After convincing Charlemagne not to march his army through the forest, by causing his scouts who enter to encounter their first loves, he remembers he has four sons he fathered in the first dream, and he would like to meet them. He asks a wizard for four wishes, because he wants his four sons to come to his Forest of Branlon.
The first son turns out to be a drunkard in love with a princess with a spotless reputation. Exiled, he vows to marry her to the most sober, earnest, morally perfect man he can find, to ensure her misery. His attempt fails and he becomes a blacksmith (when he is sober).
The second turns out to be a warrior, but also a fool, in love with another princess, but who marries a wizard's daughter. He winds up a farmer because he has to occupy his time somehow. Also he tries to figure out how to gain the princess without upsetting his wife.
The third is a thief and a poet enamored of a princess's lady in waiting, who reveals that she is not quite the person he imagined from afar, much to his disgust: he hasn't yet finished his poem about her.
The fourth is a fraud who is celebrated for sterling qualities he does not possess. His mother, a sorceress, wouldn't let him misbehave. She knows all about evil things, being an expert and aficionado herself, but she's a mother and doesn't want her boy mixed up with evil women. He ends up in Branlon searching for his wife, who turns out to be a supernatural queen who appreciates the sterling qualities he doesn't have.
After convincing Charlemagne not to march his army through the forest, by causing his scouts who enter to encounter their first loves, he remembers he has four sons he fathered in the first dream, and he would like to meet them. He asks a wizard for four wishes, because he wants his four sons to come to his Forest of Branlon.
The first son turns out to be a drunkard in love with a princess with a spotless reputation. Exiled, he vows to marry her to the most sober, earnest, morally perfect man he can find, to ensure her misery. His attempt fails and he becomes a blacksmith (when he is sober).
The second turns out to be a warrior, but also a fool, in love with another princess, but who marries a wizard's daughter. He winds up a farmer because he has to occupy his time somehow. Also he tries to figure out how to gain the princess without upsetting his wife.
The third is a thief and a poet enamored of a princess's lady in waiting, who reveals that she is not quite the person he imagined from afar, much to his disgust: he hasn't yet finished his poem about her.
The fourth is a fraud who is celebrated for sterling qualities he does not possess. His mother, a sorceress, wouldn't let him misbehave. She knows all about evil things, being an expert and aficionado herself, but she's a mother and doesn't want her boy mixed up with evil women. He ends up in Branlon searching for his wife, who turns out to be a supernatural queen who appreciates the sterling qualities he doesn't have.
Displaying 1 of 1 review