Talk:Lord of the World

Youtube video link to full film
The author of the video posted it on Youtube. This said, I am not comfortable enough to be sure about the state of the law with regards to such cases. Is it "public domain" or does it fall under a copyright or copyleft category once this happens? Simple technicality, yet one I do not know much about. If you know about such things, feel free to edit main page accordingly by stating clearly "public domain" or else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.127.198.72 (talk) 17:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Volor
I've redirected the Volor page (a much tagged sub-stub) here. The author refers to large, delicate, floating machines with wings and a screw. There are elements reminiscent of a Zeppelin or an Ornithopter.

Once again before he moved there came a long cry from overhead, startlingly beautiful and piercing, and, as he lifted his eyes from the glimpse of the steady river which alone had refused to be transformed, he saw high above him against the heavy illuminated clouds, a long slender object, glowing with soft light, slide northwards and vanish on outstretched wings. That musical cry, he told himself, was the voice of one of the European line of volors announcing its arrival ...

The Paris volor should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring out into the darkening heavens, had seen the stars come out like jewels one by one, but no slender winged fish pass overhead.

The white volor, so well known now to all who were in London that night, had remained stationary outside the little south door of the Old Choir aisle, poised about twenty feet above the ground ... The volor descended; the master stepped on board, and once more the vessel rose to a height of twenty feet. It was thought at first that some speech would be made, but none was necessary; ... silence accompanied his actual passage. Two hours after sunrise the white ship rose over Hampstead and disappeared towards the north...

Once he had been moved in spite of himself, as one of the huge German volors had passed in the night, a blaze of ghostly lights and gilding, resembling a huge moth with antennæ of electric light ...

The exit-door had now been snapped, and as Percy stood at the opposite window looking out at the high wall that would presently sink beneath him, throughout the whole of the delicate frame began to run the vibration of the electric engine. There was the murmur of talking somewhere, a heavy step shook the floor, a bell clanged again, twice, and a sweet wind-chord sounded. Again it sounded; the vibration ceased, and the edge of the high wall against the tawny sky on which he had fixed his eyes, sank suddenly like a dropped bar, and he staggered a little in his place. A moment later the dome rose again, and itself sank, the city, a fringe of towers and a mass of dark roofs, pricked with light, span like a whirlpool; the jewelled stars themselves sprang this way and that; and with one more long cry the marvellous machine righted itself, beat with its wings, and settled down, with the note of the flying air passing through rising shrillness into vibrant silence, to its long voyage to the north

it was necessary to go a little slower over the Alps themselves, owing to the extreme rarity of the air, and the difficulty in causing the screw to revolve sufficiently quickly to counteract it.


 * The thing is that volors also feature in The Dawn of All by the same author, at least.--131.159.76.228 (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Fulton Sheen talks about the book
I have seen numerous claims that Fulton Sheen listed the book among three books of special note for modern readers, but I can not find a direct quotation from him. It may even be in an introduction to the book in a printing around his time but I am unable to find anything with certainty. I note it here in the hopes that others may have better luck. Wowaconia (talk) 02:04, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've been looking without success, too!Kingstowngalway (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I've seen this "As noted in the novel’s preface, Lord of the World has been called by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “One of the three greatest depictions of the advent of the demonic in modern literature” (p. vii)." from http://www.catholicfiction.net/book-review/lord-of-the-world.php But this isn't enough for a citation at wikipedia standards would need to see actual page and would need to get Sheen's context, I'm sure he named the other books as well which would be odd not to mention if we are going to quote him here. --Wowaconia (talk) 02:18, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Came across promotional materials for the book that purports to give a fuller version of Sheen's quote on this book, but still no citation of where and when this quote came from; "Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen says 'The three great apocalyptic pieces of literature dealing with the advent of the satanic are Father Hugh Benson's Lord of the World, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov, and Soloviev's Three Conversations on War.'"   from https://www.abebooks.com/9781930873100/Lord-World-Robert-Hugh-Benson-1930873107/plp --Wowaconia (talk) 13:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

If we assume the quote above is from Sheen, The Brothers Karamozov mention is likely about the Grand Inquisitor segment, and the Soloviev work is likely about his "Tale of the Antichrist" segment which is summarized by this Catholic publication: https://m.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/soloviev-and-his-tale-of-the-antichrist --Wowaconia (talk) 13:35, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
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plot summary far too long
"as Advent moved to Christmas". I encourage someone familiar with the plot to cut this to perhaps one third or one quarter of what it is.

And I don't understand the meaning of "literally" in the last sentence, "Literally describing a deus ex machina, the last words of the novel are: "Then this world passed, and the glory of it." These 'last words' do not seem to describe a "deus ex machina".

And why all the pictures? Interesting in a book about the novels, but not here. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 20:43, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Agree, made an attempt at shortening. Removed "deus ex machina" reference, it does not make any sense. --Loard (talk) 13:17, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Is this "shortened plot summary" the synopsis we have now? I stumbled into this page having never heard of the work, and it looks like I'm now going to go somewhere else to learn the basics of the setting and plot... 71.238.116.27 (talk) 15:20, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Like the previous user I too only stumbled on this a few days ago. The detail as it reads does illuminate things for the uninitiated reader (as I previously was having not heard of the novel). One way it could be shortened and shorn of some detail would be for someone better read than I am in Benson's literature to create separate main articles on the central characters that recur throughout the novel, eg Felsenburgh, Francis and Brand, so that this article's plot summary is given more to narrating the story.Cloptonson (talk) 18:51, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I favor keeping the full length of the plot summary. This is the kind of book where the ideas are what's important and I'm grateful not to have to wade through the book itself to learn them. Cpacker666 (talk) 01:48, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Police informant and Marxist uprising
Could someone confirm that:

1) "Fr. Franklin suspected that Fr. Francis may be a police informant"? He seems anxious not to stay friends with an atheist, but nothing clearly points to "police informant" theory (unless Benson said something to that effect, which is meta-textual).

2) "Marxist uprising toppled the Son of Heaven"? Novels isn't clear on it at all - my reading is that "Eastern Convention" possibly run by "Sufis" is gearing up to war. Then Felsenburgh gives a lot of speeches and the Convention is dispersed. Some hail him as Mahdi. Emperor's role is unclear - he may be part of the war effort, but then seems to support Felsenburgh ("Empire is sending him everywhere", clearly not the American Republic) and thanks him afterwards. Phrase "Son of Heaven" is used only once and I can't see any clear indication that the Emperor was ever toppled. --13:29, 13 February 2019 (UTC)Loard (talk)

Ramsay MacDonald as model for Julius Felsenburgh
It is mentioned in the caption to his picture, but not in the text (where it could have appeared in the section 'Influences') that Ramsay MacDonald, in Benson's lifetime not yet a minister in government, was a probable model for Felsenburgh. It would be an improvement if it could be put into the text with citation and some indication of the degree to which Benson was familiar with MacDonald or had quoted opinions of him. The text only mentions another candidate, Evan Roberts. I also query the uncited statement that the Labour Party were an amalgamation of Marxist groups, when not all Labour MPs and activists had an agenda to achieve socialism by violent revolutionary means or looked to atheistic Karl Marx as their model.Cloptonson (talk) 19:15, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Which Benson brother Lodge wrote to? (section Release and reception)
Please can someone clarify which of R H Benson's brothers Sir Oliver Lodge wrote the quoted letter to - was it Edward Frederick or Arthur Christopher?Cloptonson (talk) 10:06, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Insistence on "Marxism" instead of "Socialism" or "Communism"
Even in the fragments that don't directly tell the plot of the book, the article describes all prominent socialists as "Marxists", which denotes a specific sociopolitical school rather than all socialist ideologies. For example: H.G Wells, a socialist who criticised Marxism, is called a Marxist in the text. Ozajasz (talk) 10:35, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with your comment, see my own of 2021 above.Cloptonson (talk) 18:10, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

NPOV
In its present state, the article is almost entirely concerned with the opinions of those who 1) were/are Catholic and 2) heaped/heap gushing or close-to-gushing praise upon the book. Where are the opinions of those Catholic who don't believe the book to be deserving of such gushing praise? Where are the opinions of non-Catholic Christians, e.g. those Protestants that the book claims would be so easily overrun by Marxist forces? Where are the opinions of those who are completely outside the Christian orbit, and I don't mean those who were supposedly delighted by the book's ending? And, since this was published as (and has effectively turned out to be) a work of fiction, albeit with a strong religious bent, why are there no opinions on the book's literary merits?

Additionally, I second User:Ozajasz's concerns about how the article uses the term 'Marxist' to describe any and all socialist/left-wing viewpoints rather than a specific strand thereof. Furthermore, Anna Abrikosova is described as 1) a former Marxist despite there being nothing in her article to indicate she ever exhibited socialist/left-wing views and 2) a "future martyr" despite her death being due to natural causes (i.e. spinal cancer) rather than any deliberate action by Stalin's death squads; while one could argue that gulag conditions contributed to her death, it remains far removed from that which met the average martyr of the Roman era, Magdalene of Nagasaki, Andrew Bobola, and so on. - Dvaderv2 (talk) 21:41, 1 November 2022 (UTC)