Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice
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| Jurgen | |
 Dust-jacket of Jurgen |
|
| Author | James Branch Cabell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Biography of Manuel |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | McBride |
| Publication date | 1919 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | ix, 368 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Chivalry |
| Followed by | The Line of Love |
Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice is a 1919 fantasy book by James Branch Cabell - the eighth among some fifty-two books written by this author - which gained fame (or notoriety, in the view of some) shortly after its publication.
The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "monstrous clever fellow", embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife.
The novel was denounced by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; they attempted to bring a prosecution for obscenity. The case went on for two years before Cabell and his publishers won: the "indecencies" were double entendres that also had a perfectly decent interpretation, though it appeared that what had actually offended the prosecution most was a joke about papal infallibility.
Cabell took an author's revenge: the revised edition of 1926 included a previously "lost" passage in which the hero is placed on trial by the Philistines, with a large dung-beetle as the chief prosecutor. He also wrote a short book, Taboo, in which he thanks John H. Sumner and the Society for Suppression of Vice for generating the publicity that gave his career a boost.
Aleister Crowley dubbed Jurgen one of the "epoch-making masterpieces of philosophy" in 1929,[1] even though the book contains a parody of Crowley's Gnostic Mass.[2] Crowley's famous phrase from The Book of the Law, "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt"[3] is also parodized as "There is no law in Cocaigne save, Do that which seems good to you."[4]
Robert A. Heinlein self-consciously patterned his best-known novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, after Jurgen, and the title and themes of his 1984 novel Job: A Comedy of Justice also show Cabell's influence.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
- ^ Thelema Lodge Calendar for June 1998 e.v
- ^ Liber AL, III:60
- ^ Jurgen, ch. XXII
[edit] References
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 70.
[edit] External links
- Notes on Jurgen; Text of footnotes and references collected by enthusiasts in 1928, augmented by modern additions
- Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, available at Project Gutenberg.
- online text [1]
