Ch. 1 - The Two Poets of Saffron Park

[Chris OConnor]

Ch. 1 - The Two Poets of Saffron Park

[Saffron]

Gee, something about this title makes me think I need to read this book or at least this chapter?!

[DWill]

Right, the book might be up your alley. I read a bit about it, and it's said to be a lesser-known classic. Chesterton is one of stahrwe's main men.

[youkrst]

they call him mellow yellow

i've got the book, thanks Chris and Stahrwe, and i hope to read it, tried a couple of times already but was sleep deprived (as usual) so didn't get far.

third time lucky!

[VMLM]

I just finished reading this chapter... if you all don't mind, I'm going to use this post as something as a sounding board for the impression the chapter has made on me.

The prose flows easily from a colorful depiction of the suburb Saffron Park, to a caricaturesque introduction of its inhabitants and finally to the introduction of two poets and their characters.

The town. A stating point. Described picturesquely. it gives me a sense of manageable beginnings, both a magical place and a safe one. To me this is a sort of diving board, a place from which our main characters will plummet into deep and as of yet unknown plot twists.
The description of the inhabitants in this little place is specially telling I think. Each one posing as something that they aren't, and in so doing each one becomes something of a study case, a work of art, etc.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and make some interpretations. To me this town is meant to represent a certain kind of society. An innocuous place where people go about their daily business while dabbling lightly in some interest (be it philosophy, art or anarchy) which they claim to be passionate about. These silly people talk a lot about their chosen "passion" while knowing very little of it, dress to pose as scholars or artists, and in so doing put on a curious show for those who actually know something about these things.
... And it is in this silly, beautiful setting that we find our two poets. One talks of anarchy, the other of order. Two things they have in common: both command the attention of those who listen to them and both seem to be possessed by a true passion for their "poetry". Everything else about them seems irreconcilable. In fact, one is "law" and the other is "lawlessness"
To me the description of these two as poets makes them more substantial than any other inhabitant of Saffron Park. They talk about their chosen beliefs with zeal and seem to enjoy spinning they're rhetorical threads for others to admire... so is it any wonder that I chuckled at Syme when he dismissed the red headed Gregory, despite his words as fiery as his red hair and his temper? I guess I can't blame Syme, for who could possibly expect to find an anarchist in a place like this?

The conversation that they hold is itself very interesting. I can't help but agree with Syme! It's a bit uncomfortable to me because I think I'm supposed to, and obviously that makes me want to object.
Surely every artist is an anarchist in some way, finding the unique in what others see as commonplace. They must question convention and attempt, through a single moment of creation (or destruction), to change our view of the world.
Yet, art itself is filled with conventions and rules. A painter must learn technique, symbolism, he must understand composition, color, etc. Without these his work will be inconsequential, uninspiring or unintelligible. He may have an image in his head, but he can't hope to bring it out without these conceptual tools to marshal his creative energy. You might say that it isn't the artist's special imagination that makes him an artist, but his ability to bring forth a work of art from his imagination.
...So what is art, what is any human endeavor but the creation of order in the midst of chaos? It's easy to forget what an amazing work of ingenuity a train system is when you use it on your way to work every day, indeed how amazing that every day that train gets to each destination at the exact time that it should.
In the end I agree with Syme that order is the more important of the two, yet I think Gabriel's position has some merit..


I think that's everything that's going to come out of me for now xD. There's a lot of passages that I've underlined while reading, but I don't know that I want to post them all here and discuss them right now.. It's too late, for one thing.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about all of this after I've mulled it over a bit.

[youkrst]

i let the audio book roll ...

http://archive.org/details/man_thursday_zach_librivox

got immersed in the story and before i knew it i was at chapter 10 so i have forgotten what i thought at chapter 1, though i do remember having some thoughts.

i'm going to let the whole thing roll over me because i'm enjoying it and then go back to chapter one and have a look for any thoughts that may occur.

[giselle]

Gee, something about this title makes me think I need to read this book or at least this chapter?!

I thought of this too .. hope you will join us!

As to Saffron Park I wondered if it's a real place, and it is, although actually called Bedford Park a suburb and conservation area in London. Here is some of what Wikipedia says just for background and context:

Bedford Park

It can be justly described as the world's first garden suburb.[1] Although it was not built in the co-operative manner like some later developments (Brentham Garden Suburb, Hampstead Garden Suburb) it created a model that was emulated not just by the Garden city movement, but suburban developments around the world. Sir John Betjeman described Bedford Park “the most significant suburb built in the last century, probably in the western world”. Herman Muthesius, the celebrated German critic who wrote The English House in 1904 said, "It signifies neither more nor less than the starting point of the smaller modern house, which spread from there over the whole country."

The developer was Jonathan Carr who in 1875 bought 24 acres (97,000 m2) of land just north of Turnham Green Station in West London which had been constructed six years earlier. The City of London was only 30 minutes by steam train and the site was blessed with many fine trees. The desire to protect the mature trees led to the informal plan that is major feature of Bedford Park. The first architect for the estate was Edward William Godwin a leading member of the Aesthetic Movement, but his plans came in for some criticism in The Builder, the leading professional journal of its day, and Godwin and Carr parted company. Some designs were commissioned from the firm of Coe and Robinson, but in 1877 Carr hired Richard Norman Shaw the leading architect of his day to be the Estate architect. By then the layout of the Park had been set but Shaw’s house designs, in the Queen Anne style, proved remarkably successful in creating an impression of great variety whilst employing a limited number of house types.

In the 1880s with its church, parish hall, club, stores, pub and school of art, living in Bedford Park was the height of fashion. W. B. Yeats, the actor William Terriss, the actress Florence Farr, the playwright Arthur Wing Pinero and the painter Camille Pissarro lived here. Bedford Park is Saffron Park in G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and Biggleswick in John Buchan’s Mr. Standfast. So fashionable did it become that Bedford Park came in for some gently ribbing in the St James's Gazette in the 'Ballad of Bedford Park'.

[Moire]

I don't have much to say about the first chapter. I do disagree with both "poets". Does a tree's beauty or naturalness necessarily mean that it was due to anarchy and would a lamp have more "poetic" beauty if it were lit by a tree. I think the silliness of the argument is meant to be just that, inane. The end of the chapter was intriguing and I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter.

[stahrwe]

Quite a pleasing beginning for the discussion.

Giselle nailed the identity of Saffron Park as in reality Bedford Park.

VMLN must be a literature teacher. I appreciate everything you said but I caution that you don't assign too much importance to the city or location. Essentially TMWWT is an exploration of free will.

I urge everyone to curtail the symbolic analysis unless it is unavoidable lest we get lost in why was the escargot bad but the lobster mayonnaise good at the cafe? Why did the rotating table descend rather than ascend? And on and on.

I plan to create a called For Further Discussion, or something like that where I encourage participants to post random or even not so random thoughts, quotes, ideas, or even INKLINGs which might pop up as you are reading along.

Thank you all for the interest.

stahrwe

[giselle]

To me the description of these two as poets makes them more substantial than any other inhabitant of Saffron Park. They talk about their chosen beliefs with zeal and seem to enjoy spinning they're rhetorical threads for others to admire... so is it any wonder that I chuckled at Syme when he dismissed the red headed Gregory, despite his words as fiery as his red hair and his temper? I guess I can't blame Syme, for who could possibly expect to find an anarchist in a place like this?

I think Chesterton is having a bit of fun with us. There is a lot of irony and even contradiction going on in this chapter on 'two poets' and I suspect the author will keep this irony up throughout the book.

The main point that stood out for me in Chapter 1 was Gregory's reaction to Syme not taking him 'seriously' as an anarchist. As VMLM says, who would expect to find an anarchist in a place like this? but then again, where would you expect to find an anarchist? and how would you know one of you did find one? This is an example of Chesterton's irony I believe. Gregory is the 'established' poet and Syme is the newcomer - yet oddly being an established poet implies some form of order and recognition and perhaps deference but one would think that a real anarchist would not want to be part of such an order or even recognize that such an order exists. But clearly Gregory is angry that Syme would not recognize him or the superiority of his ideas.

I think another interesting point in Chp 1 is the concern that Rosalind has for Gregory, not for his ideas or something that might please Gregory, but for whether or not he would use 'bombs' in his pursuit of anarchy. She is concerned for his safety but doesn't take his ideas seriously. As an anarchist, Gregory knows that a great many people will just write him off as a wing-nut and laugh behind his back and this does not please him at all, he is a serious anarchist to be reckoned with.