Hilarious Bellicosity: Two Lives of Hilaire Belloc

I have two new biographies in my library now, both about the Anglo-French author Hilaire Belloc. One, written by the secular A. N. Wilson, I read some years ago when I was trying to get a handle on this great friend of G. K. Chesterton; indeed, Belloc made up one half of what George Bernard Shaw humorously dubbed the pantomime creature, the Chesterbelloc. Wilson’s point of view is dry and rather abstract and very literal, taking what might well be casual jokes as true statements of feeling and ignoring what the fiery author said when he was actually “on the record” and writing seriously. Any religious act that Belloc does is seen as a dogmatic hypocrisy. What emerges from Wilson’s account is a rather unpleasant portrait.

Pearce, whose book I have just read, paints the picture from a different angle. He does not doubt the author’s religious sincerity; indeed, it is so strong that Belloc can joke about the mundanity of its practitioners without disparaging the faith itself. It was he who said, “The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.”

When confronted with the accusations of Belloc’s casual Anti-Semitism (a fault all too rife in a world before Nazi atrocities), Pearce points to his published, considered opinions: “There is not in the whole mass of my written books and articles, there is not in any one of my lectures (many of which have been delivered to Jewish bodies by special request because of the interest I have taken) there is not, I say, in any one of the great mass of the writings and statements extending now over twenty years, a single line in which a Jew has been attacked as a Jew or in which the vast majority of their race, suffering and poor, has received, I will not say an insult from my pen and tongue, but anything which could be construed as even a mislike.” Pearce also states, however, that his principal thesis, that the Jews represented an alien body in the society they inhabit, was also a misperception that rightfully drew the ire of Jews and non-Jews alike.  

So, who was Hilaire Belloc? What were the facts about his life and what his claim to fame? Born during a thunderstorm to a French father and an English mother, his early years were spent in the little town of La Celle-Saint-Cloud. His father died young (after becoming bankrupt) and his mother moved them to back to England.  He served a term of military service in the French army, then earned a first-class honors degree from Oxford (but failed to secure a Fellowship, perhaps because of his Catholicism – he produced a statue of the Virgin Mary at his exams). He walked across the United States (well, there were some trains) to find his fiancé and propose to her. He wore mourning for the rest of her life after she died, leaving him with five children. He spent some time as a Liberal Party Member in Parliament. He lost two sons, one in WWI and one in WWII. In 1941 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered and died in 1953.

But of course, his claim to fame was his writing. He only had one steady job for about six years; otherwise, he lived by his writing (“and was often financially insecure”). He wrote over 150 books, including novels, poetry, essays, travel writing, history, politics, and economics. He rather famously entered a zesty controversy with H. G. Wells over his “The Outline of History”. Belloc was a rather thorny debater who did not hesitate to use personal attacks; he did not receive the universal good-will of his friend Chesterton. But his energy of argument (whether in life or in writing) drew crowds and readers aplenty.

Perhaps his most remembered (and least controversial) books are his “Cautionary Tales for Children” and “The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts”, hilariously wicked stories in verse form that mock the usually prim moral tales for children of the time. Anyone who has read Roald Dahl’s “Revolting Rhymes” or the songs of the Oompa-Loompas will realize they have descended from Belloc’s work.

While I cannot say that Belloc is one of my favorite authors (I find his work rather hit-or-miss, and in some cases almost impenetrable) his place in history, his friends, even his problematic personality fascinates me. In some way, I find his life on a par with any work he ever produced, and so I enjoyed these biographies, different as are the tales they tell.