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The Napoleon of Notting Hill

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 1,083 ratings · 97 reviews

In a London of the future, the drudgery of capitalism and bureaucracy have worn the human spirit down to the point where it can barely stand. When a pint-sized clerk named Auberon Quinn is randomly selected as head of state, he decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement. One man, Adam Wayne, takes the new order of things seriously, organizing a N...more

Paperback, 188 pages

Published July 1st 2008 by Waking Lion Press (first published 1904)

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Dec 08, 2009 Dan Schwent rated it 5 of 5 stars

I once read an Amazon list titled "Chesterton is the Besterton." Now I understand why.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is set in an alternate 1984, one that isn't much different than 1904. Technology stopped progressing and most people stopped caring about government. Democracy has given way to despotism, because one idiot's opinion is as good as the opinion of all of them, to paraphrase the text. All of this changes when Auberon Quin is randomly selected as the King of England.

Python-esque humor ab...more

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Jan 11, 2008 D. J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very strange book. I can honestly say that I've never read anything quite like it before and probably never will. It's a rather surreal story that is equal parts philosophical allegory, fantasy, dystopian fiction and satire. It's all of these things and nothing. Totally original in its genius; totally maniacal in its unfolding. This book is not at all typical. There is no basis for comparison, and I'm still reeling from what I've just read.

The story takes place in 1984, but London's technolog...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Don Incognito rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: conservatives, Romantics

Recommended to Don Incognito by: Thomas Fleming

Shelves: owned

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is one of the best books you've probably never read. Even for some literature majors and heavy readers, probably; it was never required reading for me. Conservative intellectuals are familiar with it. That's how I heard of it--a reference from paleoconservative critic Thomas Fleming.

(view spoiler)...more The Napoleon of Notting Hill is one of the best books you've probably never read. Even for some literature majors and heavy readers, probably; it was never required reading for me. Conservative intellectuals are familiar with it. That's how I heard of it--a reference from paleoconservative critic Thomas Fleming.

(view spoiler)[Written in 1904, The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a fantasy set in 1984--coincidentally, the same year George Orwell's later novel is set in. In this future England, the Windsor dynasty is gone. There is a monarchy, but it consists of the crown being periodically given to random citizens. The political instability of the world has ended, with there being no wars because all the great powers made treaties with each other and also conquered all the remaining small independent nations.

An idealistic and Romantic young man feels distressed at changes planned to his neighborhood (Notting Hill) by the government and local businessmen. Tearing down buildings or other existing structures to build new roads--that sort of thing. But he wants the neighborhood to stay exactly as it is, because it's his home.
Accidentally encouraged by a sudden royal proclamation that all neighborhoods are to display the trappings of medieval England (the new randomly selected king means it to be nothing but a big joke, and expects the citizenry to take it no more seriously than he does), the protagonist convinces some of his fellow Notting Hill residents to take up arms against the march of progress.

At the time, this was the best novel I had read in years. It's the most Romantic (not romantic) novel I've read since Cyrano de Bergerac, but less childish and more philosophical. I felt inspired.

Since this is also the most quotable novel I've read in years, I offer a few of the best quotations, to entice you into reading this masterpiece:

"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. ... It is the old things that are young."

"For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother...there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world."

"If we have taken the child's games, and given them the seriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch garden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a temple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?"

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is, in significant ways, the mirror image of Don Quixote. How? Don Quixote is an allegedly insane man who travels out into the world to fight evil, whatever forms it may take. He is driven by, among other things, belief in a heroic past that is probably imaginary, which he read about in books. [Background: DQ, whose real name is Alonso Quixano, is an obsessive reader of heroic fiction about medieval Europe--the chivalric age. Miguel de Cervantes depicts these books as nonsensical, historically inaccurate, and good only for entertainment. Quixano reads too many of them, and eventually "goes mad" as a result. Only then does he become Don Quixote and go questing.]
Adam Wayne (the protagonist of The Napoleon of Notting Hill) is an idealistic but sane man who stays at home to fight a material evil (the plan to tear down part of his neighborhood) that happens to represent the abstract evil of Progress. He is inspired by the societal traditions of medieval England, but unlike DQ, he is neither fighting unspecified evils nor living in the distant past mentally. Wayne is fighting for his immediate neighborhood in the present. (hide spoiler)]

I reread this book on July 6-7, 2011, and was inspired again.(less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Apryl Anderson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(24.12.1993), A very strange read, similar to the Man who was Thursday. It was weird, surreal, fighting in the dark, etc. Fortunately, Chesterton makes his point at the end— what is reality? And is life funny? Well, he didn’t impress me with this one. Yes, our common, dull existence is ironic. We forget what we’re living for (some don’t even know). Is it worth dying over your own claimed territory? Is the patriot a hero or a madman?
The most impressive statement in the tale was in regards to Cru...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in October 2003.

In some respects, Chesterton's first novel seems almost contemporary in outlook; in others, it is stuck in its time, now almost a century in the past. One of the great problems of our age (at least in the West), according to politicians, is political apathy; that is a link between today and the Britain of 1904. The Napoleon of Notting Hill is set in 1984, a famous year in science fiction, and the consequence of that apathy has been to turn pol...more Originally published on my blog here in October 2003.

In some respects, Chesterton's first novel seems almost contemporary in outlook; in others, it is stuck in its time, now almost a century in the past. One of the great problems of our age (at least in the West), according to politicians, is political apathy; that is a link between today and the Britain of 1904. The Napoleon of Notting Hill is set in 1984, a famous year in science fiction, and the consequence of that apathy has been to turn political office into the result of a random selection process. The fact that this is virtually the only change to have occurred in an eighty year period is Chesterton's side-swipe at the prophets who attempted to say what would happen in the twentieth century, a pastime as popular then as it has been again with the turn of the twenty first. (The first chapter consists mainly of ridicule of some of the ideas of these would be prophets, each one made ludicrous, and the principal butt of the attack is the scientific utopianism of H.G. Wells, ironically the most accurate of the prophecies, at least in its prediction of the dominance of technology.)

What sparks change in this vision of a static culture - like Wells in The War of the Worlds, Chesterton compresses his world to southern England - is the appointment of Auberon Quin as king of England. Quin is a practitioner of a dying art - humour - and his big joke is to create gaudy (and extremely uncomfortable) uniforms in medieval style and force the sober officials of the London boroughs to wear them on official occasions. This runs into one problem - Adam Poole, the Provost of Notting Hill, is a man without humour, who has an obsessive devotion to his home neighbourhood which has been fired by the cod-patriotic rhetoric which Quin uses to set up his scheme. From this it is a short step to open warfare between Notting Hill and its surrounding boroughs.

The introduction to this Wordsworth Classics edition suggests that Chesterton had a serious point (I'm not completely convinced that he did), which was that a war would be a good solution to the political apathy he saw around him. He goes on to say that such a position became unthinkable after the carnage of World War One, but I think that is a naive view of the world. It could easily be argued that the recent conflict in Iraq and the response of the US and other Western nations was manipulated for a variety of reasons which included this one; just look at how huge the media circus surrounding the fighting was right from the start. Earlier, the Falklands Was was escalated by Margaret Thatcher and her ministers to lay the basis for her subsequent re-election as British prime minister. At least this sort of behaviour has been fairly widely condemned as unacceptable.

If Chesterton did want to make a serious point, then another candidate could be based on the contrast between Quin and Poole, the one unable to take things seriously, the other unable to do anything but. Both prove equally responsible for the destruction of peace in Britain. In the pomposity of Victorian local government, there was much that was hard to take seriously, and Quin is to some extent a self-portrait by a man who clearly saw how ludicrous it could be.(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Annette rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers of the "Emberverse" series as an alternate take on similar themes

Shelves: christian-worldview, classics, historical-fiction, gutenberg

The London of the "next century" has defied all the prognosticators by being precisely the same as the current London, only more so. That is, more atheistic, evolutionary, capitalistic, a-romantic, and basically dreary than ever - even as it remains populated by hackney cabs, gas lights, and horse-drawn omnibuses. Furthermore, having dispensed also with the foolishness of a hereditary monarchy, the king is now selected by pure lottery. Oh, and by the by, war has been eliminated! One Auberon Quin...more The London of the "next century" has defied all the prognosticators by being precisely the same as the current London, only more so. That is, more atheistic, evolutionary, capitalistic, a-romantic, and basically dreary than ever - even as it remains populated by hackney cabs, gas lights, and horse-drawn omnibuses. Furthermore, having dispensed also with the foolishness of a hereditary monarchy, the king is now selected by pure lottery. Oh, and by the by, war has been eliminated! One Auberon Quin, a young man who has chosen to deal with the meaningless dreariness of his existence by courting a foolish, infantile sense of humor entirely unfit for polite society, is elected to this largely - but not entirely - ornamental position as the story opens. Bored out of his mind, he one day meets a young boy playing at swords, and decides on a whim to re-create the whole medieval structure of walled and gated cities, gaily clad halberdiers, banners, mottoes, and the like - the whole paraphernalia of romantic England, in other words, as a joke on his stiffly un-humorous friends. The "serious" men of his generation wince and complain, but eventually acquiesce just so that life may proceed as usual. And it is all business as usual for about a decade - until one man begins to take the whole farce seriously.

I had trouble getting into this relatively short ( < 200 pg) novel, and actually put it down for a while to read other books. Quin really is a desperately uncomfortable character, and the situation is not helped by my own distance (time and geographic) from the time and place being mocked. But I started getting interested at about the time the title character showed up, and happily finished it. The closing dialog between Quin and Wayne - the mocker who can see only what is foolish and humorous, and the fanatic who can see only what is heroic and romantic - is well worth reading in and of itself.

I was also struck by the similarity of themes here and in S.M. Stirling's "Emberverse," especially the latter books. Again we have adults playing at medieval, romantic fictions - SCAers, Tolkien fanatics, American Indians, faux-Wicca/Druid/Bardic Scottland, and the like. They do so out of far more necessity than Quin in this book, but like him and his cohort, never losing a sense of irony and farce - a sense their children find utterly incomprehensible. Both tales illustrate how quickly that which we play at becomes that which we (or at least our descendants) truly believe - and the serious consequences thereof. (less)

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Jan 12, 2012 Lisa N rated it 3 of 5 stars

A political satire written in 1904, about a futuristic London of 1984. The king is randomly chosen from among the citizens. Full of subtle wit, but I had somewhat of a hard time following the plot and quite frankly found it a little boring after the novelty had worn off.

Some of my favorite quotes—gives a sense of the writing style--

“The sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of them one as much as another. All that we w...more A political satire written in 1904, about a futuristic London of 1984. The king is randomly chosen from among the citizens. Full of subtle wit, but I had somewhat of a hard time following the plot and quite frankly found it a little boring after the novelty had worn off.

Some of my favorite quotes—gives a sense of the writing style--

“The sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of them one as much as another. All that we want for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over some petitions and sign some proclamations.”

“In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State.”

“He never opens his mouth without saying something so indescribably half-witted that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt at characterization.”

“He discovered that fact that all romantics know—that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song.”

“He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and found the place where the East and the West are one, and extreme idiocy is as good as sense.”

“He has a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind which raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with honours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a single man.”

“However much, physically, ‘about town’ a woman may be, she still models herself on nature….she models her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our nobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign of civilization.”

“A great chance is offered you of repelling that slander which, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributes poltroonery (cowardice) to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. Why should not hairdressers be heroes?”

“Nature has her farces, like the act of eating or the shape of the kangaroo”

“If what is achieved by all these efforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so extravagantly toil and die in them?”
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Jul 29, 2011 Leonie rated it 4 of 5 stars

In a futuristic vision of London in which 1984 is much like 1904 but run like clockwork so that everything is very quiet and sombre and war is eliminated, a strange little man with a perverse, satirical sense of humour is randomly elected king. To amuse himself, he recreates the city as a kind of medieval pageant, endowing the boroughs with traditions and ceremonies of his own invention and forcing various respectable types to be Provosts of their area. It all goes wrong when one young man compl...more

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Aug 03, 2009 F.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday' is - whilst heartily recommended - one of the most peculiar novels I have ever read. Having just read 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill', I can say it's just as odd but much funnier.

This is the author's take on science fiction, or perhaps a kind of anti-science fiction. Having taken time to dismiss such prophets as H.G.Wells in the opening paragraphs, Chesterton portrays a late 20th century where things are much the same as the early twentiesth century. There...more

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Sep 30, 2009 Werner rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those who want a read that's off the beaten track

Shelves: science-fiction

Broadly speaking, this 1904 imagining of the world of the late 20th century and beyond can be called science fiction, but it's strictly a speculation in the social, not the technological, sciences; Chesterton had little interest in technology, --and, indeed, posits a future with no new technology, its material culture unchanged, when the novel opens, from that of his own Edwardian world. It's also an imagining that, in some particulars, could almost be called surreal, and much of it is laced wit...more Broadly speaking, this 1904 imagining of the world of the late 20th century and beyond can be called science fiction, but it's strictly a speculation in the social, not the technological, sciences; Chesterton had little interest in technology, --and, indeed, posits a future with no new technology, its material culture unchanged, when the novel opens, from that of his own Edwardian world. It's also an imagining that, in some particulars, could almost be called surreal, and much of it is laced with Chesterton's characteristic dry but zany, screwball humor (the flavor of which is conveyed by the opening words, "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong...."). Readers should be warned at the outset that plausibility isn't his strong suit; or, really, his strong concern, either. His concern, rather, is with making certain points.

Some of the most important and obvious of these points are social in nature. Chesterton already lived in an age, like our own, in which the powers that be exalted the centralization of political and economic power and the homogenization of culture and society; their vision of Utopia was one in which all the world was subsumed into one huge mass society with all human differences and all local particularism erased, and all of it dominated and pervaded by an all-consuming ethos of materialism. (Of course, in our day, this process is a lot further advanced than it was in Chesterton's.) Chesterton recognized that goal as the nightmare that it in fact is, and set against it a vision of small-scale society and particularism, where considerations other than monetary profit would be determining factors in human behavior. His vision, in fact, is an early forerunner and adumbration of the one E. F. Schumacher outlines in Small Is Beautiful (to which Martin Gardner alludes in the helpful introduction to the Dover edition, which is the one that I read).

Another of his points is philosophical, dealing with the relation of humor to seriousness. At first blush, the humorous tone of much of the book seems out of place in a novel dealing with serious issues, and a plot that involves serious war, with real blood running in the streets. But Chesterton would say that, in a universe that involves so much apparent absurdity, both humor and fervent seriousness need to be part of the same mind, if that mind wants to stay sane.

There are problems with the execution of this novel. Some of its basic premises --a 1984 London technologically unchanged from 1904; the idea that a technocratic society would dispense kingship by lot, or limit itself to employing swords and halberds in warfare; and especially the possibility of Adam Wayne getting anybody, let alone a whole neighborhood, to follow him-- are wildly implausible. The scheme for the development of a new neighborhood-destroying roadway (foreshadowing the destructive "development" that, in the real 20th century, gutted most of our cities) isn't explained in detail. And some readers might feel that Chesterton glorifies warfare (though I don't think that's his intention). But there is also a lot of carefully-crafted symbolism (as pointed out by Gardner) here; and the ending --which earned the book its fourth star from me-- is really powerful.(less)

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view all 4 comments

Bruce Werner,

Your review recalled to me a controversy I once engaged in with one of the editors of a magazine called Gilbert! Chesterton called his social p...more
updated Oct 03, 2009 08:01am

Werner Yes, Bruce, that would have made for a great discussion! Human nature being what it is, it will always be a challenge, under any social order, to keep...more
Oct 03, 2009 09:58am

Feb 09, 2011 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

It has some really funny parts and a unique set-up: A utopian future where everyone agrees to be ruled by a randomly selected king (like jury duty), where the jury pool is made up of boring, dependable english people. But the king selected is an absurdist who decides to use his humor to create a large-scale practical joke. He wants to give all the suburbs their own heraldry, customs and rights: basically to see these businesslike modern people re-enact a Renaissance festival. It's extra absurd i...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Jan-Maat added it

Shelves: 19th-century, british-isles, fantasy, fiction

Odd, odd book that has an alternative Victorian Britain reverting to a happy neo-medievalism in which the commonest of goods has become mysterious and beautiful.

This all comes to pass because the hereditary principle has come to an end and an eccentric civil servant is choosen by lot to become the new Monarch. His creative reinterpretation of London place names at a public lecture (for example Hammersmith becomes the place where the smiths beat the knights from Knightsbridge with their hammers)...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Gabriel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not as elliptical as "The Man Who Was Thursday," but easily as enjoyable. Posited as an attack on the self-seriousness of Wells, and reads like Wells with a sense of humor (and a bit more intelligent as well). Not that I don't like Wells, too.

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Aug 06, 2011 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

Set in 1904, Chesterton writes about England in 1980 with static technology. This is a book about those who consider the world as simply a joke and those with unbridled passion for a cause.

King Auberon Quin, appointed by lottery, restores medieval living to England. One man takes the king's proposal to reinstate region pride and staunchly opposes a trans-London road that traverses his county (Notting Hill consists of one to three of London's streets-perhaps 300 people total in the cout=nty).

A wa...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

not merely the pellucid imaginings of a 20th-century notting hill (written in 1904), but also a provocative perspective on passion. i had little sympathy with the latter, but it doesn't matter. a great yarn.

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Mar 22, 2013 Abhinav rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-cj-library, 2013-reading-saga, humour, satire, semi-favorites, i-own-an-ebook, i-own-a-copy

Let me start this review by stating how surprised I am to know that none of the people on my friends list here have read this book. I mean, this has to be one of the best debut novels ever written in the 20th century by a not-so-unknown English author & yet this book fails to make even the to-read list of so many people.

My acquaintance with Chesterton's works was made through the numerous stories featuring Father Brown I came across in detective story compilations. Though Father Brown isn't...more Let me start this review by stating how surprised I am to know that none of the people on my friends list here have read this book. I mean, this has to be one of the best debut novels ever written in the 20th century by a not-so-unknown English author & yet this book fails to make even the to-read list of so many people.

My acquaintance with Chesterton's works was made through the numerous stories featuring Father Brown I came across in detective story compilations. Though Father Brown isn't exactly Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, they still made for a decent & enjoyable read. That's what my perception of G.K. Chesterton honestly was until I chanced upon this book.

The story is incidentally set in 1984 & England has adopted despotism, having rid themselves of democracy as a way of government. Auberon Quin is a jokester whose weird sense of humour seems to irk his friends & by a twist of fate, he is crowned King. Quin takes everyone on a ride, making fun of himself as well as his 'subjects' as the absolute power in his country. Riot ensues when he draws up a Charter of Cities empowering each of his subjects to set up their own fiefs. A fanatical young man named Adam Wayne takes things too seriously & proclaims himself to be the Lord Provost of Notting Hill, thus jeopardising a civil project & risking a war. Will Quin entertain someone like Wayne? Who wins the war? And what will become of Notting Hill?

Chesterton's prose is beautiful & delightful to read - you often come across the kind you happen to read in books set in the backdrop of the Roman Empire. The book is obviously a work of satire & though there weren't any laugh-out-loud moments for me throughout, it's full of wry & subtle humour & I noticed that I had this grin on my face as long as I read this. The characters are well-written, esp. those of the protagonists Auberon Quin as the satirist & Adam Wayne as the fanatic.

The battle scenes are very vivid & though there is blood spilled, Chesterton ensures there isn't a gory element to that. The conversations & battle speeches more than often verge on the epic, despite the fact you know what you are reading is rather foolish & makes no sense.

What I loved about this book is how Chesterton leaves the issue of government open to interpretation. As in, would it be better if we continue with our dull, unexciting lives under the guise of democracy, or be in constant uncertainty every morning as to what new joke awaits in the course of the day? I found myself rooting for Wayne when he wages a war against fellow 'feudal lords' to maintain the independence of Notting Hill & later, I wondered if life under a fanatic like Wayne would indeed be any good.

The only reason I am not giving this full marks is because of my own inability to grasp every element of hidden allegory in this novel, but I think I'll come back to read this again once I've educated myself on the political situation of England of that time.

4 to 4.5 stars to this masterpiece of English classic literature. This is as good as a debut novel gets, so I'd say - don't miss it! Highly recommended for one & all.(less)

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Sep 10, 2011 lamesalmon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Using the conceit of a future London splitting into neighborhood-based factions steeped in olde-timey grandeur, this book examines the meaning of nationalism, loyalty, and sincerity. It ultimately concludes that (view spoiler)...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Rhonda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: chesterton-book-club

This was Chesterton's first novel from 1904 and inspired the likes of Orwell. Set in 1984, the populace has decided to choose a silly man as king. He focuses his time in power on important things like uniforms, crests and the proper way to speak to a king. When a serious man takes his comedy to heart a war begins in one neighborhood.

I really like Chesterton, but I have had trouble getting into his novels besides Father Brown (Perhaps this say more about me than Chesterton). It took me a long ti...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Joseph Sverker added it

I don't think I quite got this book. It is not particularly difficult in any ways. I just don't understand why he wrote it. The book is about a king wanting to make a joke and divides London into small kingdoms one could say. War erupts and some people don't get the joke. This surely must be some analogy or something, but I am too remote to quite understand it. There are alays with Chesterton a nugget or two of interesting thoughts, and there were some here too, but this is not the book to start...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Lorenzo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british, aaa-my-library, 2012-readings

Unusual and engrossing "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" kept me company amidst the chaos of Terminal 3 in Heathrow while waiting to embark on the first long distance flight of my life.

My impression is that Mr Chesterton was too much far ahead for his times but didn't care a bit having a good sport in poking fun at defying literary conventions.

This odd little novel could be read in many ways: as a satire of British politics and the frail concept of modern democracy, as a dystopian entertainment o...more

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Nov 11, 2010 Megan Reichelt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, classics, fantasy-sci-fi, spiritual

It is 1980 (the future) but everything is pretty much the same as at the turn of the century. Everything has become more gray, more normal, and the king is chosen through alphabetical order, since it is just as good as through birth.

In this humorless world lives Auberon Quin, a satirist, who thinks everything is funny. When he is chosen to be king, he decides to turn the world on its head. He draws up a proclamation, separating London into her different burroughs, making them walled cities, and...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Sparrowfall rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book proves to me that a great virtue of conservatism lies in its appreciation of and respect for diversity -- the diversity of local histories and traditions. This sort of diversity can lead to execesses and exclusionary practicies. But when properly viewed and lived (and when other local customs and histories are viewed in the same manner) the small, proud history of a community can be a noble and moving thing because it is so fundamental to our ways of life and it connects us profoundly...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Salonniere rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Not every book, in fact, probably very few in the world, can draw in a reader from the first page or even the first chapter. The Napoleon of Notting Hill fortunately stands out as one commanding that instantly intriguing factor.

The story is short, comparitively, but every scene, every character, and every dialogue is thus full of vivid yet humorous description and a dash of satire. Though heavy on conversation at parts, the exchanges are frequently hilarious and meaningful. The story even heads...more Not every book, in fact, probably very few in the world, can draw in a reader from the first page or even the first chapter. The Napoleon of Notting Hill fortunately stands out as one commanding that instantly intriguing factor.

The story is short, comparitively, but every scene, every character, and every dialogue is thus full of vivid yet humorous description and a dash of satire. Though heavy on conversation at parts, the exchanges are frequently hilarious and meaningful. The story even heads in the direction of adventure, especially when the battle for Notting Hill begins - and the entire time, no humor is lost. Idealistic Adam Wayne, the titular Napoleon, with stars in his eyes and a sword in his hand, is just as fascinating of a character as the delightfully ridiculous King Auberon, as the two clash in a deadly game of war over a neighborhood. Laugh-out-loud moments will occur, either from Auberon's antics or a rather surprising turn of events involving a water tower, as just two examples. Philosophical forget-to-breathe moments of depth will also arise, and the ending leaves a lot for the reader to consider.

The ultimate message of the story, which I'm sure could be interpreted in countless ways, proved powerful at least for me. The wonderful truth is that Notting Hill combines so many facets of a good read that it definitely deserves more attention that it seems to have earned. I had never heard of the book until I found a copy completely by accident. This novel deserves fully the honor of being a classic. If I had one complaint, I will admit that in maybe one or two parts it did prove a little slow, but the rest made it will worth the time. Chesterton's got a distinctive and entertaining story-telling voice that I will have to read more of.

Also, for what it's worth, the version I read included the original illustrations, which greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the tale. The edition was also prefaced by a beautiful poem that complemented the nature of the story remarkably well.

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Jul 29, 2011 Dave/Maggie Bean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-and-irish-lit

Yeah, I like Chesterton. And I love this novel. Written at the beginning of his career, The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a multi-layered allegory and philosophical statement, rolled into one. Published in 1904, …Napoleon… is, as the synopsis states, "a futurist fantasy… set in 1984." Opening with a good humored (but stinging) broadside at futurists and ersatz prophets in general, Chesterton goes on to set the stage: an anemic UK in which the public’s world-weariness and cynicism actually render i...more Yeah, I like Chesterton. And I love this novel. Written at the beginning of his career, The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a multi-layered allegory and philosophical statement, rolled into one. Published in 1904, …Napoleon… is, as the synopsis states, "a futurist fantasy… set in 1984." Opening with a good humored (but stinging) broadside at futurists and ersatz prophets in general, Chesterton goes on to set the stage: an anemic UK in which the public’s world-weariness and cynicism actually render its despotic government unnecessary.

Onto this stage (and destined to change it forever) stride the book’s two protagonists: Auberon Quin (a near-lunatic, somehow chosen to be king) and Adam Wayne, the Provost of Notting Hill. The roles they choose (ironically, given Chesterton’s rejection of determinism – both men simply remain true to their fundamental natures) ultimately lead to a war that sees Notting Hill pitted against the rest of London.

Beyond expressing his distaste for empires (Chesterton rightly noted that they were destructive, mechanistic, and antithetical to genuine diversity and individuality), he examines the seemingly antagonistic (but actually complementary) poles of human consciousness. Admittedly, he treads perilously close to Hegel, but unlike Hegel (a strategist disguised as a philosopher, even as Marx and Engels were ideologues disguised as economic historians), Chesterton was a true philosopher, and entirely too Western in his thinking to concede any accord between Christ and Belial, as it were. Far from suggesting that principles are infinitely mutable, or that any kind of "synthesis" occurs when matter contacts anti-matter, Chesterton focuses his attention on the fallible, limited human mind, and the things it often erroneously perceives as opposites. The final dialogue between Wayne and Quin therefore echoes the Book of Ecclesiastes ("To everything, there is a season…"), and I suspect that it may have influenced Neal Peart of Rush, as well. There has to be a logical explanation for the existence of "Hemispheres," afer all... :-)

"The equal and eternal human being will alter that antagonism, for the human being sees no antagonism between laughter and respect…When dark and dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic [Wayne], the pure satirist [Quin]…But in healthy people, there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes of the brain of a ploughman."(less)

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Sep 08, 2012 Alec rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, satire, war

GK Chesterton gets a lot of stick for being an arch-conservative, stolid and old-fashioned, supporting outdated morals, values, prose and beliefs at a time when modernism was shocking and delighting the literary world. In a way, this is justified. In the same way that, say, Gerard Manley Hopkins was a modernist who happens to have been born a Victorian, Chesterton sometimes seems like a Victorian displaced by about thirty years.

However, despite occasional moments of forehead-slapping sexism and...more

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Joey Odendahl I enjoyed your well written review. But I think there are a lot of Chesterton scholars who would disagree with you on the supposed sexism of "The Napo...more
Dec 28, 2012 04:56pm

Alec Hi there, and thanks for the comment and the intriguing link. I would love to read more on gender in Chesterton if you can recommend anything - that A...more
Jan 01, 2013 11:59am

Joey Odendahl Dale Ahlquist's further word on the topic...

"Chesterton was not sexist; he was anti-feminist, which is much different. He thought women were, in gener...more
Jan 02, 2013 02:36pm

Jan 21, 2013 Melaszka rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book when I first read it 20 or so years ago and loved it just as much on rereading it this weekend.

I do not share Chesterton's religious faith or his politics - I do not go to his books for endorsement of moral or fiscal conservatism. Although I occasionally find that unpalatable attitudes to gender, race and religion in his other works mars my enjoyment (e.g. I'm currently finding The Flying Inn just too Islamophobic to ignore), generally his ideology is something I can gloss over...more I loved this book when I first read it 20 or so years ago and loved it just as much on rereading it this weekend.

I do not share Chesterton's religious faith or his politics - I do not go to his books for endorsement of moral or fiscal conservatism. Although I occasionally find that unpalatable attitudes to gender, race and religion in his other works mars my enjoyment (e.g. I'm currently finding The Flying Inn just too Islamophobic to ignore), generally his ideology is something I can gloss over, as there's so much else to his books than ideology. Plus he's not a dogmatist - his enthusiasms and allegiances are usually far less straightforward than they appear and are cloaked in paradox.

Nor do I go to his books for the narrative coherence or characterisation of a traditional novel. Complaints that "the plot is implausible", "the characters two-dimensional", "the descriptions of battle lacked tension" or questions of whether or not the book is "supposed to be science fiction" seem to me to be somewhat missing the point.

I go to Chesterton as a poet and a humorist. Yes, the plot's implausible, the relish in bloodshed would be distasteful if it were even remotely naturalistically drawn, the narrative meanders and digresses, but the language fizzes and zings and Chesterton paints startling, inimitable, vivid word pictures like the art school graduate he is. His paradoxes and aphorisms are often laugh-out-loud witty, even when I utterly reject the world view that has spawned them.

If anything, the book's utter implausibility is part of its charm. There's a childlike anarchy to it all which I adore. It reminds me a little of Jasper Fforde, whose books I also love.

And while, as a left-leaning, pacifist, feminist, pro-multiculturalist vegan, I clearly have little truck with Chesterton's ideological views, I can still appreciate the heroism of Wayne, the enthusiast who's prepared to give his all to defend what he believes in, and the age-old story of the little guy who wins out against the big guys, against all odds.(less)

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Jun 30, 2010 Jose Kilbride rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, fantasy, science-fiction

This is a story about a joke. It is also a story about belief, and the conflict that arises because of that belief. It is a story about how a joke and belief can change a world by changing the minds and spirits of those who inhabit it.

A man becomes King, and treats this responsibility as a joke, capering and buffooning his way through life, realising that in the coming together of great nations a stilted seriousness has long since stifled humour.

In his humour he conceives a grand joke, and enfor...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Rodrigo Cesáreo Pampin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

¿Cual fue el problema con este libro? quizá que lo leí en ingles, y que sumado al lenguaje de Chesterton, a veces no sabia si no entendía el idioma o al autor...
Una cosa muy recomendable es que conozcas Londres, yo lo empece ahí, y cuando volví a mi casa lo colgué bastante.
Diria entonces, que no tiene una trama atrapante, pero que igualmente es una historia hermosa (y esa es la palabra correcta), y por eso le deje el puntaje que le deje.

-----------------------------------------------

What was th...more

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Sep 24, 2009 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900s, edwardian, humor, london

The great library downtown has been overrun with mold, and nearly all British and American literature is in quarantine ... this could be a very long, slow autumn. But fortunately, last week I found a few stacks that escaped the infection, and on them I came across Chesterton's delightful first novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), a metropolitan fairy tale for grown-ups, set in Peter Pan's own neighborhood.

Unlike Barrie, Chesterton doesn't sprinkle us with fairy dust and whisk us off to Ne...more

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Jan 24, 2010 Terence rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Terence by: Wikipedia article

Shelves: sf-fantasy

The first chapter of Notting Hill lays out the author’s theory about the “art of prophecy.” Prophets observe the fads and fallacies of their own eras and project their logical conclusions into the future. Thus, H.G. Wells envisions a secular, scientific utopia where religion and superstition are banished to histories. Or there’s Cecil Rhodes’ vision of a British empire, racially separate from its “dark children” but ruling benevolently over the world. In our own time, I think Chesterton might ha...more The first chapter of Notting Hill lays out the author’s theory about the “art of prophecy.” Prophets observe the fads and fallacies of their own eras and project their logical conclusions into the future. Thus, H.G. Wells envisions a secular, scientific utopia where religion and superstition are banished to histories. Or there’s Cecil Rhodes’ vision of a British empire, racially separate from its “dark children” but ruling benevolently over the world. In our own time, I think Chesterton might have singled out Ray Kurzweil and his Singularity or the cyberpunk genre, in general as examples of this phenomenon.

In Chapter 2, Chesterton (writing as someone looking back on the 20th century) explains what really happened. In two words, “Not much.” A century on from Wells’ and Rhodes’ era, England looks not much different than it did then, except moreso. Britain is one of several Great Powers (read Western Europe and America) that have subsumed all other polities, enforcing their “civilization” and mores worldwide, and bringing about a stultifying peace. The common man has lost faith in Revolution – that there can be something better than what IS. Change comes about through the slow, gradual, almost invisible process of Evolution. “Nature’s revolutions are the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction in favour of tails.” (p. 14)

From the same chapter:

“Democracy was dead, for no one minded the governing class governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made King. No one cared how; no one cared who. He was merely a universal secretary.

In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as they have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had become an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man doing anything but the thing he had done the day before.” (pp. 14-15)

Yet the seeds of chaos are present in this situation as that “universal secretary” has absolute authority, and it happens the office falls to a certain Auberon Quin, whose description I transcribed in an earlier Comment but is so wonderful that it bears repeating here: The little man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been designed by nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat dark hair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look of a child's `Noah'. When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook him for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he spoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been more intelligent. (pp. 18-19) Quin cheerfully takes up the scepter because, for him, it’s all an immense joke, and he happily putters about the Palace acting the eccentric. One of his more quixotic pronouncements is to issue the Charter of the Cities, which gives the boroughs of London effective independence. For 10 years, the city gets by with little substantive change in quotidian routine except that the new Provosts must dress up in ridiculous, Medieval costumes and be attended in all public spaces by halberdiers until the provostship of Notting Hill falls to Adam Wayne, a 19-year-old romantic with an exaggerated sense of patriotism regarding his neighborhood. When the other cities of Greater London plan to build a road that passes through Notting Hill, Wayne stirs up his subjects to resist, with force if (it turns out, when) necessary. A marvelous example of his rhetoric occurs on page 74, when Wayne accosts a grocer and calls forth his love of Notting Hill:

“I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal a vision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall like many tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but rather to be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrow nationalism be the danger of the pastry-cook, who makes his own wares under his own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the grocer. But I come to you in the name of the patriotism which no wanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I ask you to remember Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitan magnificence, she has played no small part. Your dates may come from the tall palms of Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the tropics, your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of the Dragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have been spoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans speared under the Polar Star. But you yourself – surely no inconsiderable treasure – you yourself, the brain that wields these vast interests – you yourself, at least, have grown to strength and wisdom between these grey houses and under this rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made your fortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the ends of the earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and fruits from the South; rices are from India and spices from Ceylon; sheep are from New Zealand and men from Notting Hill.”

Chesterton decries the dulling down, the stripping of meaning that he sees overtaking society and asks, in Wayne’s voice:

“Is the normal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower than those special states of the soul which call out a doubtful and dangerous glory? Those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which are made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should come first to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace or the half-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come first, the man great in the daily round or the man great in emergency? (p. 73)

Wayne (and Chesterton, I think) is clearly on the side of Revolution – believing in something greater than what is and a life meaning more than just existence. The result is war between the boroughs, a war that rapidly escalates from a street brawl to one with armies and sieges and all the death, tragedy and stupidity of such violence. But is also rekindles (by implication) creativity and charity and other positive virtues. As Wayne says to King Auberon in “The Last Battle” as they gaze out over the battlefield:

“It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of life, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the world – a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old dreary days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get faster, and all the world would be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even as a child I used to say to myself, `Far more likely that we shall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.’ And so it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle.” (p. 148)

And a little later on, when Wayne pulls down an oak tree on himself and the enemies besetting him:

“I am doing now what I have done all my life, what is the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to something. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and see the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal, and wise, and cosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you – all that he could offer to Christ only to be spurned away. I am doing what the truly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of a tree, saying, `Let this tree be all I have’, that moment its roots take hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill is everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall.” (p. 152)

The final chapter, “Two Voices,” has proven to be the most difficult for me to get through. Not because of its length (5 pages in this edition) but because I want to reconcile Chesterton’s conclusion – “Whatever makes men feel old is mean…. Whatever makes men feel young is great” (p. 153) (which I accept to a degree) with my own misgivings about what the author is willing to accept in pursuit of that “youth.” Specifically, that there’s an equivalence between “a great war or a love story.” I would like to believe that we can be eternally childlike in our capacity to marvel at the world and strive for something better and greater, yet adult enough not to revel in the darker nature of that innocence, the “glory” and “virtue” of war and patriotism. In an age when the “Dark Side” has access to weapons like A-bombs, depleted uranium, weaponized anthrax and cluster bombs, not to mention your average machine gun, among other obscenities, I don’t think we can afford Chesterton’s blithe, joyful acceptance of violence as part and parcel of a healthy, vibrant society. (It is noteworthy that the most potent weapons used in the book’s war are swords and spears.)

In conclusion, this is a marvelous book even if you don’t want to try and wrap your brain around the moral quandaries Chesterton raises. It’s funny, crisply written and makes you think, and what more could you ask for in a book?(less)

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About G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) cannot be summed up in one sentence. Nor in one paragraph. In fact, in spite of the fine biographies that have been written of him (and his Autobiography), he has never been captured between the covers of one book. But rather than waiting to separate the goats from the sheep, let’s just come right out and say it: G.K. Chesterton was the best writer of the twent...more Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) cannot be summed up in one sentence. Nor in one paragraph. In fact, in spite of the fine biographies that have been written of him (and his Autobiography), he has never been captured between the covers of one book. But rather than waiting to separate the goats from the sheep, let’s just come right out and say it: G.K. Chesterton was the best writer of the twentieth century. He said something about everything and he said it better than anybody else. But he was no mere wordsmith. He was very good at expressing himself, but more importantly, he had something very good to express. The reason he was the greatest writer of the twentieth century was because he was also the greatest thinker of the twentieth century.

Born in London, Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly. (To put it into perspective, four thousand essays is the equivalent of writing an essay a day, every day, for 11 years. If you’re not impressed, try it some time. But they have to be good essays, all of them, as funny as they are serious, and as readable and rewarding a century after you've written them.)

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper.

This man who composed such profound and perfect lines as "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried," stood 6’4" and weighed about 300 pounds, usually had a cigar in his mouth, and walked around wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, tiny glasses pinched to the end of his nose, swordstick in hand, laughter blowing through his moustache. And usually had no idea where or when his next appointment was. He did much of his writing in train stations, since he usually missed the train he was supposed to catch. In one famous anecdote, he wired his wife, saying, "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" His faithful wife, Frances, attended to all the details of his life, since he continually proved he had no way of doing it himself. She was later assisted by a secretary, Dorothy Collins, who became the couple’s surrogate daughter, and went on to become the writer’s literary executrix, continuing to make his work available after his death.

This absent-minded, overgrown elf of a man, who laughed at his own jokes and amused children at birthday parties by catching buns in his mouth, was the man who wrote a book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. This was the man who wrote a novel called The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish Independence. This was the man who wrote an essay in the Illustrated London News that inspired Mahatma Gandhi to lead a movement to end British colonial rule in India. This was a man who, when commissioned to write a book on St. Thomas Aquinas (aptly titled Saint Thomas Aquinas), had his secretary check out a stack of books on St. (less)

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“There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.” — 52 people liked it

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.” — 15 people liked it

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