Like many others who have written reviews, I read Jurgen long ago and was totally captivated. This hardly meant that I even came close to "totally understaning" it. In my 20's I was able to teach it and other works by Cabell. I am now in my 70's and am able to re-read the great and not so great books of my youth. My advice to new reders is just to read it and don't be intimidated by the blend of history and faantasy, the archaic and fake-archaic spellings, and the constant anagrams. Eventually some things will be clear. They are not "secret meanings," just additional layers. Enjoy, then (if it strikes you) dig more.Jurgen is not cheap victorian porn as at least one reviewer has suggested. It is a vicious and brutal attack on the prudish and hypocrtical criticism that are as much a reality today as they were in Cabell's day. The brutal kingdom of Philistia destroys as much "evil" today as it did in Jurgen's novel.A clue to entering Cabell's world here is his return to the garden between dawn and sunrise, where Jrgen starts his second journey through life. This dream of returning to reclaim the beauties and adventures of youth and to get a second chance may be common to all men or just to the lucky few. It was a time when the objects of our desire were not quite as beautiful as they seemed and when even our greatest adventures were not quite as great or as adventurous as they seemed then. Going back allows us to view them from the perspective of age and time, and if we have become wise, to sort them out.Cabell ended another book (The Devil's Only Son) with one charater observing that "dreams are the disease of youth; growing up is being cured of them." Enjoy reading Jurgen. Enjoy returning to the dreams of youth. Join Cabell in the sadness that comes not from the fact that we are no longer young, but from the realization that these were just dreams. . .