White the Log Burns

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 63, Issue 2, 15 August 1941, Page 171

White the Log Burns

“Jurgen.”

—By

James Branch Cabell.

WHEN I read recently of the death of Sir Hugh • Walpole, there flashed across my mind the book “Jurgen,” by James Branch Cabell. I remembered that Sir Hugh Walpole had written the. introduction to this book, and the stirrings of memory were so strong that I looked it up in my bookshelf, and with yesterday’s pleasure read this fascinating story once again.

If you have not read “Jurgen” then there is indeed a pleasure in store for you. Sir Hugh Walpole thought that possibly this work would be immortal, and in his introduction he says. “I know of no Jjook in the English language that colours one’s imagination and fancy .quite as this one does—some more, some less, but none other in quite this way. The world of Jurgen with its grotesquerie, its sudden beauty, its poverty and its pity, its, adventure and its romance. . . .”

It is a fascinating, romantic adventure, fantastic and utterly unbelievable, and when it was first published it roused a storm of protest from those people who did not like it. With the passing of years, however, it has gradually fallen into its place as one of the finest and most original productions of American literature. The author, James Branch Cabell, has long been writing poems, essays,. short stories, and novels, but outside his own country he was for many years unknown. To . tell you the story would' be difficult, but indeed, who wants to know what a story is about before one reads it? Enough it is to say that it concerns a middle-aged pawnbroker, not of modern times, who is transported back to the glorious days of his youth, and from there on he wanders through a thousand fantastic adventures in a

hundred different dream, worlds. But were they all dreams, you will ask? Perhaps yes, perhaps no—l will leave that question for you to answer yourself after you have -travelled through these worlds hand-in-hand with our hero, Jurgen, after you have marvelled with him at the beauties he found, after you have laughed with him over the many humorous and ridiculous situations that confronted him, in his journeys. But lam sure you will agree with me that as a work of beauty and fancy, this book is unique. Your country library may not house it on its shelves, but' when you are near a bookshop you may be lucky enough to find a copy, as it is published in one of those popular cheap ■ editions today, and I am sure you will wish to have it on your shelves as one of your own possessions. . -X _ ~ '