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Alissa

Alissa

Jurgen

Jurgen - James Branch Cabell, Bob Blaisdell 3,5 stars, the rounded-up half star because I spent half the time on Wikipedia to brood over the lacks in my classical education and it's no fault of the book. Witty, cynical, irreverent, full of double entendres, bittersweet and totally fun.

A tale of Faith, Desire and Visions (uh, and Cocaigne "(yes, that cocaine)"). I read the Dover edition and the introduction is quite apt.

Recommended to young people who are mature in their lives and to those above. Behold Jurgen, from elderly pawnbroker to a fabled Pope -and back again-, in his quest for understanding justice in things as they are.

Replied the ghost of King Smoit: “ I will explain. Just sixty-three years ago to-night I murdered my ninth wife in circumstances of peculiar brutality, as you with rather questionable taste have mentioned.”

Then Jurgen was somewhat abashed, and felt that it did not become him, who had so recently cut off the head of his own wife, to assume the airs of a precisian.

“Of course,” says Jurgen, more broad-mindedly, “ these little family differences are always apt to occur in married life.”