A couple of years ago I read Chesterton’s The Man who was Thursday. I love it. The writing was beautiful in parts, and the story a blend of the absurd and surreal — it was funny, although I did catch on to what was happening pretty quickly. But still, it was quite delightful, and that was not dampened by the Chestertonian moral/religious overlay.

All that is to say that I picked up The Napoleon of Notting Hill with anticipation. Written circa 1903, the story was set in a future London — 1984 — where almost nothing had changed in terms of class, society or technology, with the exception that instead of having a hereditary monarchy, a monarch was selected at random. The story is about the selection of a new monarch who is deeply unserious, and for his own amusement decrees that the various neighborhoods of London should function as independent nations, with their own heraldry and uniformed guards (which the new King designed), and their own traditions and customs. All this is intended to restore some of the ‘romance’ of medieval times, and, to the King’s delight, soon results in armed battles between the neighborhoods — Notting Hill, in a surprise, becoming ascendant.

Anyway, that’s the starting point of the book, but I have to say it didn’t engage me much. Whereas ‘Thursday’ was funny and surreal, this was absurd and unbelievable. It took about 3/4 of the book (it’s short) for me to become at all engaged, and then it was more a matter of curiosity about how Chesterton would wrap it up, rather than caring about the characters or story. Towards the end Chesterton does make a case for his preference for romance and semi-feudal systems vis a vis modernity, but it was mainly interesting as reinforcing my understanding of Chesterton’s view of the world.

Too bad. …But I do intend to give a couple of his ‘Father Brown’ books — about his priest-detective, a try.

# # #

Views: 0