The motive of astonishment in the work of G. K. Chesterton

Porinets Yurii Yur'evich PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Literature at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia 191186, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, ul. Nab. R. Moiki, 48 porinets2015@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The motif of surprise is one of the central motifs in the work of G. K. Chesterton. The question of the meaning of this motif in the artistic world of the writer in literary studies was only partially touched upon (for example, in the works of N. L. Trauberg and E. V. Vasilyeva), but was not considered in detail.

The very word "surprise" is repeatedly found in the works of Chesterton. It is present in his treatises ("Orthodoxy", "Eternal Man"), literary biographies ("Charles Dickens"), numerous essays, short stories and novels of the writer. Obviously, Chesterton attaches special importance to it. The face of Rosamund Hunt in the novel "The Man is Alive" bears "the imprint of the most childish surprise" ^{[1, p. 37]}. With "childish surprise" ^{[2, p. 292]} Gail asks her question in the story "Ruby Light". When the heroine of the story "The Evil Fate of the Darnway family" sees Harry Payne, it is said about her that "the surprise that lit up on her face made this face even more amazing" ^{[3, p. 495]}. In the book about Dickens, Chesterton speaks of the "sacred gift of surprise" ^{[4, p. 82]}. The writer notes that Dickens' Pickwick has enough "humanity to wander and wonder" ^{[4, p. 65]}. The word surprise stands for the writer on a par with the word "joy. In the essay "A few words about simplicity" he writes: "Only one simplicity is worth the effort – the simplicity of the heart, the simplicity of surprise and praise" ^{[5, p. 284]}.

In the treatise "Orthodoxy" Chesterton calls "the need to be surprised" an "ancient instinct" ^{[6, p. 318]}. Elsewhere in this treatise, the writer speaks of "an innate sense of interest and amazement" ^{[6, p. 319]}. Thus, it can be argued that for Chesterton, the feeling of surprise is one of the most important in a person, it is inherent in him from the beginning. It is thanks to surprise that a person can rejoice in what is happening in the world, feel alive and renewed. "And the strongest of them is the feeling that life is as precious as it is amazing. Life is beautiful because it is an adventure; life is an adventure because it is a chance" ^{[6, p. 320]}, Chesterton writes. The feeling of surprise connects a person with the world, reveals to him the true essence of the universe and himself. "Once or twice in his life, a person sees the world from the outside, and feels life itself as an untapped adventure" ^{[7, p. 126]}, says the novel "The Ball and the Cross". According to E. V. Vasilyeva, Chesterton's work is permeated with "surprise and delight" ^{[8, p. 133]}.

The motive of surprise is inextricably linked for Chesterton with the motive of a miracle. They are virtually impossible for a writer without each other. Speaking about his childhood, Chesterton claims that "everything about him was a miracle" ^{[9, p. 31]}. "I always felt that everything in the world is a miracle, because everything is wonderful; then I realized that everything is a miracle in the stricter sense of the word: a certain will causes everything again and again. In short, I have always felt that there is magic in the world; now I have felt that there is a wizard in the world" ^{[6, p. 328]}. Thus, it is obvious that surprise is connected for Chesterton with a religious Revelation. Surprise returns simplicity, meaning to the world and brings happiness. Everything in the universe is amazing and wonderful. The world is wonderful because "we will never invent it; even the thought of it would seem silly or too beautiful to us. Our world is the best of impossible worlds" ^{[4, p. 177]}, – the writer claims.

 From Chesterton's point of view, the world is not something that can be questioned. For him, life is a "pleasant surprise" ^{[6, p. 320]}, a gift, an "amazing gift" ^{[6, p. 323]}, "everything in the world is amazing" ^{[6, p. 350]}. Chesterton himself calls his vision of the world "the fairy godmother's philosophy" ^{[6, p. 323]}. His worldview is often called, as he called Dickens' worldview, "the philosophy of joy" ^{[4, p. 177]}. As S. S. Averintsev writes, Chesterton believes that "being is good not because it is going for the better, but because it opposes non-existence, and no matter how the battle ends, it is necessary to gratefully accept its risk, its indecision, its unpredictability, which, as already mentioned, is associated with freedom of human choice" ^{[10, p. 331]}. In the words of Chesterton himself, "Everything is fine compared to nothing" ^{[9, p. 68]}.

E. V. Vasilyeva reasonably believes: "It can be argued that Chesterton's "philosophy of joy", which presupposes the wonderfulness of the world and joyful surprise and gratitude of a person in relation to being, is realized in the artistic picture of the writer's world" ^{[11, p. 104]}. The main character of the novel "The Man who was Thursday", Syme, facing the threat of death, keenly feels the beauty of the world. Later, having already woken up from his dream, having experienced his fantastic adventure and having already learned to wonder at the world, he "felt that he had found unimaginably good news, next to which everything becomes insignificant and precious in its insignificance" ^{[12, p. 258]}. The feeling of gratitude for being incredibly alive is also experienced by Father Mikhail in the novel "The Ball and the Cross". The same condition is experienced by Dr. Eames in the novel "The Man is Alive" in the scene when Smith threatens him with a revolver. The fashionable poet Dorian Wimpole in the novel "The Migratory Tavern", finding himself in an unusual situation, alone in the forest, experiences the same feeling.

Chesterton believes that modern man has lost his identity, people have lost their sense of the reality of the world, the ability to be surprised, to enjoy every day as a new one.  This is one of the manifestations of the disease of modernity. In the novel "The Return of Don Quixote", the disease of the world is called "blindness to colors" ^{[13, p. 58]}. "If a person has lost his surprise, he must be treated, and in a completely different way (...) Whatever the cause, he is blind" ^{[14, p. 110]}, writes Chesterton. In "The Eternal Man" it is said that "it is necessary to return to him (the man – Yu. P.) childish simplicity and childish surprise – that realism, that objectivity, which is not without innocence" ^{[14, p. 109]}. The description of Innocent Smith's belongings is accompanied by a comment that he is "truly a child", "a baby" ^{[1, p. 22]}. The closeness to childhood is emphasized by Chesterton in other characters (Father Brown, Professor Green, Father Michael, Makien, Dr. Bull and others). It is no exaggeration to say that a character similar to a child is found in almost every work of the writer. Childhood and surprise are closely linked in Chesterton's work. It is important for him that the child is surprised by things that are in their places, perceives the world with credulity, accepts the world as it is.

The writer believes that in order to return such a vision of the world, "in order to become impartial in a sane, the only true sense of the word, it is necessary to see everything anew" ^{[14, p. 109]}. In the novels of the writer, the plot repeats itself, in which the characters, faced with something unexpected that does not fit into their usual ideas about the world, are surprised by what is happening and experience a strong shock. Heroes change, abandon false ideas about the world, as a result of which the world is transformed for them. This can be called a breakthrough to true being, the world really takes on true outlines for the characters.

  Chesterton's heroes, who have realized the amazing properties of the world, strive to share this vision with others, to pass it on to others. Dorian Wimpole renounces modernist creativity and begins, together with Patrick Dalroy and Humphrey Pump, to compose ballads in which he glorifies simple, natural things (the beauty of the world, love, friendship, feasts). Syme generously shares his thoughts about the world with friends found in the process of adventure. Father Mikhail saves all the characters in the finale of the novel "The Ball and the Cross". "I will walk through the world like an accidental miracle – I will fly carelessly like a tumbleweed, appear silently like the rising sun, flash suddenly like a spark, and disappear without a trace, like a silent marshmallow. (...) I will point the muzzle of a revolver at the forehead of a Modern Man. But not in order to kill him, and then to bring him back to life" ^{[1, p. 85]}, – says Innocent Smith in the novel "The Man is Alive". In this novel, the reader is presented with a description of the playing world, a world that laughs, that smiles. Chesterton depicts a world that is becoming, a world that seems to be born before our eyes, in which everything is changing places.  It is no coincidence that when Inglewood sees Rosamund's tears, it seems to him "as if heaven and earth have changed places, the ceiling has become the sea, and the floor is dotted with stars. It is impossible to convey in words how it amazed him" ^{[1, p. 40]}.

Chesterton is trying to give the reader back the opportunity to see things as they are. It becomes possible to do this if you try to see the world as if you had never seen it before, abandoning the usual view of things. As L. V. Sum writes: "After seeing a detail in a new combination, we will finally understand how important this detail itself is" ^{[15, p. 198]}. It is for the sake of achieving such an effect that Chesterton uses the paradox technique, which can be rightfully called central to his artistic work ^[16-17]. Although N. L. Trauberg's clarification that "Chesterton is paradoxical not only because he wanted to wake up the reader with surprise" ^{[18, p. 19]} is legitimate. With the help of a paradox, the writer tries to overcome the apparent contradictions of this world. The world seen paradoxically appears to be a world of order and harmony. "Amazing things" led Chesterton, in his words, to the recognition that "one must love the world without relying on it; rejoice in the world without merging with it. I learned that Christians have a personal God and that He created a world separate from himself" ^{[6, p. 349]}. The collections "Hunting stories", "Paradoxes of Mr. Pond" and "The Club of Amazing Crafts" and others are based on the reception of the paradox. In the stories included in these cycles, unexpected things happen, overturning stereotypical ideas about the world, returning clarity of vision and judgment to the characters, revealing the true world to them.

In the novel "The Man is Alive", the characters, under the influence of Smith, first ascended to the roof, see the world from a different point of view. They experience feelings of wonder. It seems to them that they have found themselves in eternity, which they perceive as nonsense, "nonsense, confusion", "that they are in the radiance of bright and radiant ignorance, which was the beginning of all beliefs" ^{[1, p. 24]}. Innocent Smith's first appearance in this novel coincides with the description of the raging elements, the "winged whirlwind" ^{[1, p. 8]}. Like the wind, the hero brings renewal to the lives of the heroes. The author emphasizes the absolute surprise of what is happening.  E. V. Vasilyeva rightly writes that Smith "with the help of representations-games frees moral concepts and principles from meaningless words that have lost their original meaning. An idea or principle, having turned into action, becoming life, acquires a lost, forgotten meaning, is born for a new life" ^{[19, pp. 403-404]}. Under the influence of Smith, the characters seem to wake up, abandon false ideas about the world, the real world opens up for them, which Michael Moon in the novel calls "the land of facts" ^{[1, p. 39]}. It can be argued that in Chesterton's novels, up to a certain point, the characters are in a state of inner sleep, a kind of stupor, which symbolically indicates their proximity to death. After the transformation that happens to them, the characters seem to begin to live a genuine life, a life that can never end, because it is inextricably linked with eternity.

Father Brown, the main character of Chesterton's series of detective stories, also performs incredible deeds that destroy stereotypical ideas about the world and about people. His actions and way of thinking surprise those who encounter him, his vision of the world opens up the world to other characters anew. Where a priest appears who seems to be the embodiment of the ordinary, something unheard of happens. And he himself is called "an amazing priest" in the story "Robber's Paradise" ^{[20, p. 208]}, and in the story "The Evil Fate of the Darnway family" – "an amazing man" ^{[3, p. 496]}.

For Chesterton, it's not just the unexpected, the amazing, the unheard of that is surprising. No less surprising for him is the ordinary, the familiar. It is characteristic that the writer wrote an essay "In defense of gray." Chesterton was convinced that "the ordinary is more valuable than the unusual, it is even more unusual" ^{[6, p. 310]}. In his paradoxical manner, Chesterton overturns the usual idea of Jourdain, who "learns with delight that he has been speaking prose all his life" ^{[4, p. 67]}, does not agree with his author's ironic assessment. The writer admires the fact that the hero "had the simplicity to rejoice at an unknown piece of information, moreover, a piece of information that has been known for a long time" ^{[4, pp. 67-68]}. Everything that is in its place testifies to the harmony of the world, this is no less a miracle than what is commonly called supernatural. "Good is good, bad is bad, this is a miracle, inexplicable by any words" ^{[1, p. 107]}. For Chesterton, "duties and conventions are the surest way to see the grass green and the rose scarlet" ^{[4, p. 68]}.  

The motive of surprise is connected in his work with the motive of love. Love always surprises the heroes. In the story "Colonel Cray's Salad" about lovers it says: "Brown did not hear the words, but their faces spoke of surprise, not sadness" ^{[21, p. 315]}. Love is shown by Chesterton as an epiphany. It is as if a phenomenon of another world is happening through it. Another person, seen in a new light, turns out to be an absolutely incredible miracle, and causes surprise. The writer is characterized by the image of love as a feeling that reveals to the heroes the miracle of the universe. Chesterton calls love "wonderful and unexpected" ^{[6, p. 324]}. "The earth was transformed" ^{[13, p. 100]} for the hero of the novel "The Return of Don Quixote", Herne, at the moment when he saw Rosamund in a new light. In fact, for Chesterton, it is the feeling of love that combines the ordinary and the extraordinary. In the novel "The Return of Don Quixote", love helps Hearn to see in the ordinary and typical from the point of view of a realistic novel Rosamund Severn a beautiful princess "both in a medieval dress and in a modern one" ^{[13, p. 79]}. Love as a feeling that rediscovers the world, associated with surprise and gratitude, is also revealed in other works of Chesterton ("The Ball and the Cross", "The Flying Tavern", "The Man who was Thursday", "The Man is Alive" and others).

When another character in the novel "The Return of Don Quixote", Merrel, sees Hendry's daughter for the second time, he sees her as if for the first time. The author, who has already described it earlier, notes: "The girl who looked out of the window appears in our story for the first time" ^{[13, p. 66]}. Later in the novel, it is said that the girl immediately liked Merrell, and therefore he saved her father from the madhouse. There is a visible contradiction in the novel here. Although it is overcome by the fact that this is not a realistic novel. It is no coincidence that it is at this moment that the author emphasizes this for the second time. For the first time, Chesterton contrasts his novel with the realistic one in the episode when Murrell tries to find the unique paint he needs in the supermarket. It is interesting to note that the author first says that he will not talk about this incident, and then gives a fairly detailed synopsis of the hero's conversation with the sales girl. The action is artificially delayed, nothing happens, the hero stops on the spot instead of continuing the search. If we consider Merrell's journey in the novel in search of paints as a kind of chivalrous feat, which is directly emphasized several times in the text (the hero himself is directly called a knight several times, he not only gets Dr. Hendry's paint with great difficulty, but also protects the artist himself from persecutors, generously bestows the owner of the cab and saves the "virgin in trouble"), then we can conclude that the episode in the supermarket is an ironic analogue of the knight's adventure in an enchanted castle, the time in which the hero seems to turn off during his stay there. Thus, the novel creates a sense of the routine of what is happening. Chesterton seems to offer the reader to familiarize himself with the content of the "boring" ^{[13, p. 50]} modern realistic novel, whose interest is focused exclusively in the field of social relations, the material sphere. Here the author, in his subjective manner, polemizes with modern literature, showing it somewhat one-sidedly, snatching from it those aspects that correspond to the subject of his polemic. The modern novel, as it appears in the text, is a boring, predictable work in which everything that pushes down seems "natural" ^{[13, p. 66]}. There is nothing to be surprised at in this world, exceptions and a happy ending are impossible. In Chesterton's novel, a completely different logic operates, events are not determined by anything. Despite the predictability of many plot twists, which Borges wrote about in connection with Chesterton's detective texts, and the fact that "a close reader" ^{[22, p. 399]} can guess the denouement much earlier than it is described, the novel is built on the principle of the impossible and amazing. The fact that the hero practically did not see the doctor's daughter, but he liked her so much that he is ready to perform a feat for her, does not contradict the internal logic of the narrative. It looks completely unrealistic, which is deliberately emphasized by the author. It is no coincidence that the text before this scene says: "When he turned the corner, a sunbeam cut through the steep street, weighty as the rays that cut through the weighty clouds in the old illustrations to the Bible" ^{[13, p. 66]}. Thus, the author points out that we are talking about the miraculous, and not about the plausible. The world that shines through this one comes into action. No wonder Chesterton writes that Dr. Hendry's release from the madhouse "symbolized a different freedom and a better, different world" ^{[13, p. 66]}. The text seems to include elements of medieval literature (mystery, knight's novel and other genres). This is quite correlated with the fact that throughout the novel the theme of the Middle Ages is actualized (a play about troubadours is played, much is said about the scientific literature devoted to this era, costumes are made for the performance, then the "revival" of the era begins in England, as a result of which a king appears, Merrell's journey is compared with a chivalrous feat).

Chesterton seems to expand the space of a modern realistic novel with the help of elements of a medieval narrative. Therefore, an impossible event, in fact a miracle described in the novel, is not perceived as something foreign and unprepared by the author. Miss Hendry, faced with an impossible event (the liberation of her father), rises above her life situation, life experience, as if she is freed from them, instantly ceases to be "pale as a plant", "shadow", she is no longer "shrouded in darkness", is not enclosed in the "cramped and dark house" ^{[13, p. 66]}. The heroine is amazed by a miracle, goes beyond the usual framework, forgetting about herself, and transformed, becomes beautiful. "She has long forgotten about her appearance and would be very surprised if she saw herself from the street now. However, she was surprised and looking at the street. Her beauty blossomed like a magic flower on the balcony not only because a ray of sunlight fell on her. She was decorated with what is most beautiful in the world; perhaps that is the only thing in the world that is beautiful. It was decorated with wonder, lost in Eden and found in heaven, where it is so strong that it does not fade away forever" ^{[13, p. 66]}. In this way, Chesterton combines the motives of surprise and love with another important motive of his work – the motive of paradise.