Reviews for The Rose Of Sodom

The average rating for The Rose Of Sodom based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-31 00:00:00 Judd Braun I lost my backpack thanks to this book. It was years and years ago, probably my first winter in Japan, and I'd picked up this book at Maruzen. I had heard about Chesterton, mainly from the dedication page of Pratchett and Gamian's Good Omens ("The authors would like to join the demon Crowley in dedicating this book to the memory of G.K. Chesterton. A man who knew what was going on.") and the title looked weird enough to be entertaining. So, I was reading the book on the train, as I often do, and I had my backpack on the floor between my feet. When the train got to my station, I stood up, still reading, and walked off. It wasn't until I had to put the book down again to eat that I realized I no longer had my backpack. This was no small problem, either - the bag had a lot of important stuff in it, not the least of which was my Palm Pilot with all my friends' addresses on it. There were also about two dozen Christmas cards in there, along with other various and sundry things. And it was a good bag, too. Long story short (too late), I never got the bag back. The staff at my school, and even one of the students, were kind enough to call the Keihan lost & found a few times to see if anyone had turned it in, but with no luck. And whoever got it didn't do the obvious thing and look at the return address on every single one of those Christmas cards, nooo.... Ahem. I'm over it. Really. My point is this: beware the seductive power of this book. Beware the enchantments laid upon it, and the dreamlike web that it weaves. For if you let it, this book will enrapture you, and gods help you if that happens. The story is one that sucks you in almost from the first page, when two passionate poets argue the worth and detriment of society. Should it be torn down, and let chaos reign in the world? Is order the true glory of humanity, the crowning jewel of mankind? Should the existing paradigm by praised or destroyed, and is he who advocates the path of anarchy true to that path? From that moment, that confrontation of poet-philosophers, we are drawn into a dark heart of true anarchy, where no one can be trusted to be who he appears to be. And not even the protagonist himself can be absolutely sure where his path will end. Needless to say, I think this book was awesome on many levels. The whole thing reads like a dream, moving in and out of locales with odd fluidity, and it's honestly hard to put it down. It has a great cast of characters, each one distinct and interesting and worth your attention, and a great ending that, while not making a whole lot of sense, is entirely fitting. What's really interesting is the modern applicability of this story. Its major theme is that of law versus anarchy, and when Chesterton wrote this back one hundred years ago in 1908 the anarchist movement was seen as a real threat. These people were not the angry kids, spray-painting Anarchy signs all over the place and listening to punk rock. The fringe radicals of the Anarchist movement advocated violence. They liked dynamite and struck terror in the hearts of the citizenry, much in the way that terrorists still do today. And like modern terrorists, they were driven by a twisted and dark ideology which placed their own motivations above society. In the world that Chesterton has made, the Law is in a perpetual battle with the forces of chaos, the dark and shadowy enemies who are always out to destroy us. Sound familiar? The hunt for terrorists is a great plot for any writer, and hundreds of them - good and bad - have used this trope as a way of telling a story. Chesterton, however, reached into the heart of that idea and found the uneasy twist that we are not always willing to deal with. He found the Nietzschean paradox about what happens when you battle monsters, and saw that it could very well be true. He has shown us that it is dangerous to act without knowing the truth, even if the truth isn't what you want it to be. Neil and Terry were right - Chesterton knew what was going on. This book is just as relevant today as it was a century ago, even if Chesterton never meant it to be. No matter what the subtitle to the book may be, and no matter how he may have meant it, the book is still valuable to us. Well worth reading.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-04-29 00:00:00 Renata Kaps Gilbert Keith Chesterton's own life stories were every bit as madcap and zany as this book is. I'll tell you a bit more, if you like... One day, during his days of his éminence grise littéraire - the days late in his unbuttoned life of entre deux guerres - we find him on his own madcap mystery tour on the de rigeur readings and signings circuit. The total stress and if-this-is-Friday-it-must-be-Paris kaleidoscopic feeling of it all, must have overwhelmed this poor, usually windbaggish bonhomme... For, totally lost and panic-stricken, he cabled his worry-wart wife tersely: "Am in Golders Green. Where SHOULD I be?" Came the prompt longsuffering reply from his wife: "HOME!" And, oh, Yes - fittingly, THESE are the madcap adventures of a mild-mannered Scotland Yard investigator who has stumbled onto an Anarchist plot in Edwardian London, but can't reveal it to anyone. Art mirrors life. Substitute "terrorist" for "anarchist", substitute "post-Brexit" for "Edwardian" London, and you have the makings of a rollicking good yarn. And Chesterton delivers! Being Catholic, he has an acutely suspicious eye for pure evil - which sobriquet precisely fits this odd and ornery assortment of bad guys. And he expertly holds our attention to the end, a dénouement which is truly apocalyptic - in the best religious sense of the word. It has to be that way, you know! Because, you know, the more our awareness grows, the more evil becomes amorphous. Part of the scenery. But... it's there. But that doesn't mean we won't resist it all the more. But our resistance sustains and feeds evil. And all our seemingly innocuous indulgences give it ample space to grow to a blackly cynical adulthood. C.S. Lewis has noted wisely that evil is by nature parasitic. It grows stronger the more we try to be good. Why do you think good kids are more likely to be bullied? That's the raison d'être for Apocalypse. It's like someone calling in the Cosmic Cops. God blows the whistle that ends the game. Whether it's an earthly one or a fictional type as here, apocalypse is the only possible eschatological answer to evil that has grown out of all proportion. So here Chesterton is faced with that same type of crime - one calling for a Deus ex Machina! Modern times, which were really only beginning when he wrote this, had already blurred the lines between good and evil. So what does he do? He confuses us even more! Pure poetic license. That was one of his own favourite stock-in-trades - blurring the lines between extremes and absolutes. You no longer know which side is Up. He creates such weird and wonderful, baroquely crowded, phantasmagorical stories, all a delightful PARODY of our crazy times. And that's why the stunning apocalyptic conclusion of this novel WORKS. It is as fantastic as every changing mood, every twist, every bizarre character in this wonderful story. And what is he telling us? That the result of mass, widespread confusion and anarchy can only be Apocalypse, whether the apocalypse of mental collapse, or the apocalyptic end of the old world, and the Dawn of the New Heaven and New Earth. And that Apocalypse is revealed in the final horrible transmogrification of the Head of the Anarchists... Into the Infernal Diabolical Power behind this planet's innumerable Nondescript Gnostics. I must admit, though, on first reading my heart went out to him. Sympathy for the devil, as Mick Jagger sang! It was a horrid feeling. But it all changes at that point into quite a peaceful, reassuring mini Apocalypse... For in the end, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL! And Suddenly, everything 'dulce et decorum est.' The world returns to its Eden... For ALL IS FORGIVEN! It is no wonder that Chesterton called this yarn a "nightmare"... but it's a nightmare that's loads of fun, and you know why? It's all (every last bit of it?) JUST a DREAM!