08 May 2013 04:06:59
Hailed by Time as "one of the most delectable myths that ever issued from the hills of Rome", Thornton Wilder's 1926 debut novel probes the inscrutable mystery of the ancient, fabulous wealth that confers a kind of immortality on its custodians, allowing their natures to form without concession or compromise to life beyond their privileged enclave. Part lapdog, part emissary for this vestigial pantheon, he presents them as capricious and ridiculous, powerful and vulnerable: Mademoiselle de Mortfontaine campaigns ardently to reinstate the Divine Right of Kings but clings to a girlish faith, while it is the Princess d'Espoli's fate to become "a pure well of heartbroken frivolity", tirelessly expending unrequited love on young men.
The Cabala established Wilder as one of the most accomplished stylists of his generation, though its critical reception was soon overshadowed by the overnight sensation of his next, Pulitzer prize-winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Wilder always feared that his father considered his novels "carved cherrystones" – symbols of beauty without use – but the elegance of his writing overlays a more muscular intent: Wilder wrote later, "In The Cabala I began to think that love is enough to reconcile one to the difficulty of living". The Cabala is a love song for individuals whose mystery is proportionate to their wealth – but Mercury, messenger of the gods, is also a guide to the dead, and so it becomes also a requiem for a world that was not long to survive the great war.
