College Admissions Essay: Cabells Jurgen Speaks to My Heart :: College Admissions Essays

Cabells Jurgen Speaks to My Heart When I was in high civilise I just liked this book because it was bawdy and picaresque. The older I get, though, the more I return to it and the more it speaks to my action. I only late realized that its a comment on Goethes Faust, too. But then disdain several starts Ive yet to get wind Faust all told the way through and Ive read Jurgen four or five times. Because of Jurgen Ive read other books by Cabell, and sluice acquired a fairly rare set of his works. I havent read them all yet, simply Ive read some. Some are just entertainments, but in others he melds good storytelling temperh something deeper. His Figures of Earth, for example, is not only a funny book, but it says more thats painfully true about our existence that Ive never comprehend another author say. The way he mixes satire and humor and wit and a statement about humankind all together is something I aspire to in my own writing. From Jurgen I got the first outside assay t hat someone other than me found life to be a obscure dark clowning. I already felt this, but didnt trust in my own feelings. In school I was encouraged to see life as a very salutary affair, and to dismiss the comic fountainhead of view as being pleasant but trivial. But I didnt and dont believe any of that in my heart. Jurgen helped me listen to my heart. As it happens, I dont mean theres really anything to be done about it. For better and for worse, my writing is at least somewhat comic even when there are serious issues at stake, and I cant change who I am or how I see things. But Ive also learned over the years that comedy and tragedy are very close. The difference is not so much one of subject matter but of attitude. Both can brood serious issues. And while tragedy is the mode of regret, comedy is the mode of forgiveness. Without intending it, I find that everything I write turns out to be about folly, illusion, self-deception.