The Cabala
About this audiobook
""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. . . . [It] established Wilder as one of the most accomplished stylists of his generation."" —The Guardian
In The Cabala, Samuele, an American student, spends a year in the fabulously decadent world of post World War I Rome. He experiences first-hand the waning days of a secret community—a “cabala” composed of decaying European royalty, eccentric expatriate Americans, even a great cardinal of the Roman Church.
The vivid portraits he paints of these characters, whom he views as the vestigial representatives of the gods and goddesses of Ancient Rome, launched Wilder’s career as a celebrated storyteller and literary stylist.About the author
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, the opera, and films. (His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt [1943] remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day.) Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.
