The Napoleon of Notting Hill
7 hrs. 31 min.
Language
Russian
Author
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Author
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Narrator
Yury Rudnik
Narrator
Yury Rudnik
Description
The debut novel (1904) by G. K. Chesterton, the setting of which is moved 80 years into the future (later, the same year 1984 was used in the title of J. Orwell’s dystopia). England has already successfully “caught the disease of democracy” and turned from an inherited parliamentary monarchy into “a despotism of a random sample”: the sovereign king is selected among all citizens through an ordinary lottery. After the death of each new monarch, the choice falls on a minor clerk, Oberon Quinn. A fantasist and oddball with the tricks of a fairground clown, King Oberon I turns his reign into an amusing game—and first of all decides to revive the spirit of old, good England. By decree, the historical districts of Greater London receive the status of separate cities (as they were in the Middle Ages), acquire coats of arms, flags, fortress walls, and squads of halberdiers to protect them. The subjects don’t resist the seemingly harmless royal folly at first, and gradually they get pulled into the game. But there is one man—a lord, the mayor of Notting Hill, Adam Wayne—who takes the monarch’s scheme seriously and begins to fiercely defend the “ancient liberties and privileges” of his district against the claims of their neighbors.
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