It is often the case that we establish a rather personal relationship with a minor author. He or she does not tower over us like one of the Greats does, baffling us by a fecundity of imagination and complexity of comprehension.  A minor author has the potential to be quite humanly simpatico.  We recognize that such an author is limited, like we are, and tends to see the world from a single point of view, but, at the same time, is able to express that point of view with uncommon skill and vivacity.  A minor author is someone with whom one can imagine actually having a talk.  While the prospect of having dinner with, let’s say, Dostoyevsky, would surely be unsettling, if not terrifying, one can readily imagine dining with George Gissing, for example, and feeling quite comfortable chatting with him about life in late-Victorian England. 

I recently finished reading a novel by a minor author for whom I have considerable affection: The High Place, by James Branch Cabell.  Cabell was a Virginia aristocrat, great-grandson of a governor of that state, who wrote a series of elaborate, highly stylized novels in the form of fantasy romances, most of them set in the distant past in an imaginary French kingdom called "Poictesmes."  These satirical novels caused something of a stir in the 1920’s and 30’s, both because of their salacious innuendo (after publishing Jurgen, the first of the series, his publisher was sued by the New York State Society for the Prevention of Vice), and their clever and mannered prose. 

The High Place tells the story of Duke Florian de Puysange, a charming, self-possessed and shockingly dissolute nobleman, who traffics with the Devil, murders several of his friends and lovers, and, after awakening a sleeping beauty, marries her, only to learn that she is remarkably ignorant and tediously loquacious. 

It is also the story of St. Hoprig, a legendary local Saint, in whose name Florian has generously supported the local church, and upon whom he has therefore depended for regular intercession with the divine authorities on his behalf.  St. Hoprig, Florian discovers, has actually been sleeping under a spell for hundreds of years.  He never performed any of the miracles attributed to him by legend; in fact, before the spell was cast, he was a high priest of ancient Gods and did his best to eradicate the Christian missionaries when they descended upon his domain.  As a result, and to Florian’s considerable annoyance, Hoprig never lifted a finger to mitigate the consequences of the Duke’s highly irregular behavior.  Yet, because he is believed to be a saint, Hoprig, upon awakening, is one.  He assures a friend, who doubts the fact, that, 
 

It might not seem that Cabell is much of a moralist.  In fact, he is a very provocative one, but his moral lessons are not simple.  Florian remarks: “I have been familiar with no person without finding that intimacy made some liking inevitable and any real respect preposterous.  I deduce that in no virtue, and in no viciousness, does man excel: his endowments, either way, are inadequate.  So holiness and beauty must remain to me just notions very pleasant to think about, and very harmless to aim at if you like, if only because such aiming makes no noticeable difference anywhere.  But they remain also unattainable by mortal living.”  Not the most encouraging view of humankind, admittedly, but also arguably not far from the truth. 

 --Reviewed by Leonard Hitchcock

Because it is centered in a real place in southern Montana (the nearest cities are Three Forks and Bozeman), the life style is similar to small Idaho towns and the characters as well as descriptions of the surrounding countryside will be familiar to many rural Idaho readers. 

--Reviewed by Kathy Fatkin