#adam wayne

            The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton is the first work of his that I did not like. The book is one of Chesterton’s earlier works. It was published in 1904, and thus proceeds his later more polished writing like The Man Who Was Thursday and the Father Brown series.  

            The story takes place in the year 1984, but not everything has changed with the dates on the calendar. Technology, fashion, and society appear almost identical to the way they were in 1904. There are differences in government though. The British Empire still has a king, but it is no longer a hereditary monarchy. The king is chosen at random from the populace.

            There are also major geopolitical differences in this hypothetical future. Although the details are few, it is said that there are no longer any small nations left, as they have been all conquered by large states like the British Empire. The exact composition of the world is unknown, but Nicaragua was the last small independent nation before it was conquered by the Americans.

            People on the whole are fine with slow and gradual change, or simply keeping things as they. Routine and repetition rule the day. There is a sort of quiet monotonous peace over London until a new king is randomly chosen. Auberon Quin is selected as the new monarch, and he gets to work immediately on his grand practical joke.

            King Auberon decides to create a system wherein each London neighborhood acts as a feudal fiefdom, complete with heraldry, pageantry, their own militaries, medieval halberds for said militaries, coats of arms, and all the rights and powers due to independent cities. King Auberon loves his joke, and almost everyone else hates it. The problem is one young man from Notting Hill takes this all very seriously, Adam Wayne.

            I did not find myself invested in any of the major characters and did not particularly care what happened to them. I had a difficult time getting invested in this book overall.

            Auberon, who is followed for a good portion of the story, is completely insufferable in my opinion. I never found his foolery as anything but annoying, although that does put me in sympathy with his associates and subordinates. That by itself was not enough to keep my interest.

            Adam is a more interesting character. His reflections on the deeper mean of Notting Hill, particularly the shops along Plum Street, are the best parts of the book. In these sections I could see Chesterton’s talent and genius shinning through just as they do in his later works.

            Adam was annoying in his own right too. His utter devotion to the seriousness of independent cities, a seriousness that at first only exists in his own mind, was wearing after a short while. I think that I understand part of the message that Chesterton was conveying: that there is a great meaning and power in even small everyday things and places if we are willing to look at them from the right angle. I wish this could have been conveyed through a better story though.

Ah, isn’t that the song that’s turning all the non-directioners into directioners these days? It’s a pretty good song. :)