Chapters 1-3: Trickery Aplenty

I was impressed by the first three chapters of the book, which headed in a direction I didn't expect. I can't say I'm deeply appreciative of Chesterton's style yet, but it'll probably grow on me, especially if he can maintain such a propulsive plot. The twists and turns all seemed both natural and surprising, which seems like a good sign that he knows what he's doing.

More than anything, the chapters effectively set the scene of a waking nightmare, to borrow the book's subtitle. The twisted architecture and bizarre sunset in chapter 1, for instance, did a good job of making the upside down seem normal. And the two interlocutors, Syme and Gregory, heightened this with their slightly hostile banter about whether the normal or the rare is the truly remarkable. In this respect, I liked Syme's contention that an arriving train is another sign that "man has won a battle against chaos."

The literal descent into the anarchist's lair was a nice bit, punctuated by Gregory's great "We dig deeper and we blow you higher!" line and then by the crazy pact between the two men, with Syme - revealed to be a policeman - having the upper hand when he shows Gregory that the anarchist is now, thanks to their agreement, unable to avail himself "of the help of that law and organization which is so essential to anarchy." Reading that, I was reminded of some post-9/11 reporting on al-Qaeda, which seemed mystified that such tight organization could exist solely to sow chaos. Apparently they'd never heard of the army.

Syme's brutal ability to take advantage of his partner's weakness in the election was stunning. I'm not used to reading speech-driven literature like this, but Syme's speechifying was amazing - and all the more for knowing that he was pulling a fast one on everyone else. Or so we should believe, right? I'm eager to find out in the next few chapters.

Thinking about the big anarchist meeting after reading that section, a few oddities came to mind. For one, the anarchists seemed to be - as far as we could tell - entirely of middle- or upper-class backgrounds. For another, they are - of course - all good Englishmen. In both these respects, they're unlike actual anarchists, who were usually Eastern Europeans and working class. I'm looking forward to seeing how Chesterton picks up these historical facts and plays with them - if he does.