SOURCE: "The Irony of Life," in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. III, No. 14, October 30, 1926, p. 253.

In the following review, Werner provides some of the facts behind the fiction of L'Or, Cendrars's account of Johann Sutter's life.

The romantic mind of a French poet has conceived a superb book concerning the Swiss adventurer who was the first enthusiast for California, and who ended his days at Washington as a penniless petitioner for his rights. Blaise Cendrars's L'Or, carefully and intelligently translated by Henry Longan Stuart, is one of the most fascinating biographical studies that has been published since Lytton Strachey published his "Eminent Victorians."

The author of that extraordinary poem, "Le Panama ou les Aventures des Mes Septs Oncles," has found a large outlet for his keen poetic imagination in the ironic story of Johann August Sutter. Unfortunately for the sense of the dramatic with which M. Cendrars...