The Cream of the Jest: A comedy of evasions

"The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasions" by James Branch Cabell is a book about a writer named Felix Kennaston, who goes through big changes in his life and his writing. His story mixes real life with made-up adventures that seem like they're from an old story about knights and ladies. The book dives into what's real and what's not as Kennaston lives in two worlds: the one he writes about and his everyday life. The story starts with a fancy wedding in a magical place called Poictesme, where everyone is getting ready for Count Emmerick’s sister, La Beale Ettarre, to marry Sir Guiron des Rocques. We see the party through the eyes of a clerk named Horvendile, who is in love with Ettarre and is jealous of the people around him. He thinks a lot about love, what it means to be important, and how people treat each other. This sets up the main ideas of the story, which are about how tricky love can be and how hard it is for someone to make art. As the story goes on, it becomes clear that Kennaston is trying to understand his own life by creating these characters and putting them in situations full of strong feelings and big dreams.