The Cream of the Jest: A comedy of evasions

by James Branch Cabell

"The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasions" by James Branch Cabell is a philosophical novel published in 1917. Writer Felix Kennaston discovers a mysterious broken disk in his garden, which becomes a sigil that unlocks vivid dreams of Ettare, an idealized woman he encounters across different historical periods. As he pursues beauty and meaning through these nocturnal visions, the line between dream and reality blurs. The novel explores humanity's eternal longing for an unattainable ideal, culminating in revelations about the sigil's true nature and what it represents.