Lord of the World

 

Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson (1907)

“In one of the first such [dystopian] novels of the twentieth century, Robert Hugh Benson imagines a world where belief in God has been replaced by secular humanism. Lord of the World describes a world where Catholics are falling away, and priests and bishops are defecting. Only a small remnant of the faithful remains. Julian Felsenburgh, a mysterious and compelling figure arises, promising peace in exchange for blind obedience. Those who resist are subjected to torture and execution. Soon the masses are in Felsenburgh's thrall, and he becomes leader of the world. Into this melee steps the novel's protagonist, Fr. Percy Franklin. Dauntless and clear-sighted, Franklin is a bastion of stability as the Catholic Church in England disintegrates around him. Benson's harrowing plot soon brings these two charismatic men into a final apocalyptic conflict.” – Amazon.

          This rather bald summation by Amazon does not do justice to Lord of the World, but then it would be very hard indeed to do so. It makes it sound like a simple work of propaganda of Christianity against secularism; it is instead an almost prophetic analysis of much that happened in the development of attitudes between 1907 (the date of publication) and 2007 (the approximate year the story takes place).

          Besides of the ideological conflict between Franklin and Felsenburgh (who appear to be somehow contrary doppelgangers of each other), the ramifications of the new secular state are played out within the dynamics of a single family. The husband, whose government job leads him gradually into ever more bloody acts of persecution; the wife, whose natural humane instincts rebel against the riots and conceptual demands of the state; and the husband’s mother, a weak and vacillating woman who wavers between her old faith and the herd instinct that is driving her to the secularly sanctioned suicide centers. There is also a family friend, a priest who eventually apostatizes in the face of growing governmental power. Through their eyes we see a glimpse of Felsenburgh’s all-too feasible rise to dominance and the implications of his new world order.

          The modern reader might find much to struggle with here. It starts rather slowly with a preface summarizing what happened during the century since 1907. The future science described has an almost steampunk aesthetic that might seem merely quaint. But as one progresses and catches the trick of Benson’s prose (over a hundred years old, and British at that – but that should be no problem for anyone who reads, say, H. G. Wells), one is drawn ever deeper into the almost breathless drama of a world swelling towards apocalypse.

   Robert Hugh Benson (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Roman Catholic priest and writer. In 1903, Benson, an Anglican priest, was received into the Catholic Church; he was ordained a Catholic priest the next year. He was also a prolific writer of fiction, writing the notable dystopian novel Lord of the World, as well as Come Rack! Come Rope!. His output encompassed historical, horror and science fiction, contemporary fiction, children's stories, plays, apologetics, devotional works and articles. He continued his writing career at the same time as he progressed through the hierarchy to become a Chamberlain to Pope Pius X in 1911 and gain the title of Monsignor, before his death a few years later. - Wikipedia.