Book Reviewed: The Pagan Madonna, by Harold MacGrath.

Harold MacGrath’s intriguing novel

This novel was written in 1921, which is re-created in a digital format, by the bestselling American novelist Harold MacGrath. The Pagan Madonna is one of a number of novels and short stories he wrote, and some of his novels have made into movies during the Hollywood’s silent era. This story is set in Shanghai, China and narrates a story of a millionaire art collector Anthony Cleigh who cuts into the paths of Jane Norman, a Red Cross nurse from the United States, Ling Foo, a shifty pawn shop keeper, and Cleigh’s son, Dennison. The rational is simple; Jane buys a string of pearls unknowingly that it is a precious piece of antique and has huge monetary value. Cleigh schemes to abduct her and retrieve the merchandize. This intrigue over a personal ornament turns the lives of four people upside-down by Chance--the Blind Madonna of the Pagan. In this adventurous story, would you give a chance for love between Jane and Dennison? Or will it be lost like so many others into thin air?

The last few pages turn into a sentimental breakup for Jane and Denny. The conversation becomes very collected, self-possessed, serene, and tranquil. The relationship ends in a grand finale; Denny gives jewelry box to Jane and asks her to open it. Between the layers of cotton wool she finds a single pearl as large as a hazelnut, pink as the Oriental dawn. One side it is slightly depressed, as though some mischievous, inquisitive mermaid had touched it in passing. “Oh, the lovely thing!” she gasps. “The lovely thing! But, Denny, I can’t accept it!” “And how are you going to refuse it? Keep it. “It is an emblem of what you are, honey.” The poor devil! And he put his arm round her. He understood. Why not? There are certain attractions which are irresistible, and Jane was unconscious of her possessions. Jane tells him, I am “leaving to-night. Bought a sloop down there, and I’m going back there to live. Tired of human beings. Tired of myself.” The lagoon is like turquoise and the land like emerald and the sky a benediction. There was a spell of silence and immobility. Denny couldn’t believe her; for Jane a little shiver ran over her. But that is the way it is going to roll down. She was determined. It is an irresistible thought for Jane who needs time to contemplate on her own, far away. But it is also a reminder of a soul lost in a purely material world searching for inner-peace.

A movie with the same title “The Pagan Madonna” was produced in 1980 by the Hungarian Director Bujtor István that also deals with similar intrigue, theft, conspiracy and collusion. Recommended to readers interested in historical fictions and the work of Harold MacGrath.