"Lord of the World" Wars.

Further from the comments to a review of Robert Hugh Benson's "Lord of the World."

Owen Hatteras says:

Perhaps stung at being caught out lavishing inapt praise upon a novel trafficking in some of the worst of anti-Semitic tropes; Peter S. Bradley appears incapable of taking note of what I actually wrote.

The central figure of the novel is a palpably Jewish anti-Christ named "Julius Felsenburgh". What sort of name might that be? (Other reviewers have consistently misspelled the last name as 'Felsenburg'; apparently one of the novel's subtexts is coming through loud and clear to them.) I thought I had made it plain in my review (and subsequent comments here) that the novel is indeed not defaced by anti-Jewish tirades. Rather, it implicitly partakes of age-old Christian demonizing and scapegoating of Jews. This was not firmly and finally repudiated by the Roman Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council. Evidently some Roman Catholics have been slow to get the word.

Christian anti-Semitism and Nazi anti-Semitism are not the same thing, and I do not conflate them--but the second could not have existed without the first. Honest Christians must face up to this fact; not lose themselves in daydreams that decorously elide it.

Unfortunately, in our time as much as Msgr. Benson's; some conservative Catholics view Jews as the carrier of the virus of modernity, also as frustrating the realization of their beau ideal of the 'sacral state'. Msgr. Benson can scarcely be blamed for something as vile as "Der Stürmer"; although his Edwardian sensibilities might have been more shocked at its obscenity and violence, then at its anti-Jewish animus per se. The innocence of Msgr. Benson's day might by countenanced, but after World War II and the Holocaust, not the pretended innocence of some readers of "Lord of the World".

That, I think, is the guilty secret of this book's renewed appeal to Catholics of a certain cast of mind; it allows them to relive the genteel prejudices of a bygone day--while ignoring the less-pleasant consequences of them.

Peter S. Bradley says:

To the reader,

Mr. Hatteras has demonstrated how tenously he has tied reality to his attempt to smear Benson's book through "guilt by association."

Mr. Hatteras doesn't dispute that Jews are mentioned only three times in contexts which display none of the classic tropes of anti-semitism.

Now, it seems that the book and author are to be condemned for something that is never found in the book and which the author didn't write.

The character's name is "Felsenburgh," not "Felsenberg," no matter how much Mr. Hatteras wishes it were so, in order to fit his potted, distorted, anti-catholic worldview. The fact that some reviewers get the name wrong is not evidence of Benson's subtle attempt to project anti-semitism; it's evidence that a lot of reviewers do not associate "berg" or "burgh" with any particular ethnic or religious group, and so attach no significance sufficient to remember to the final syllable of Felsenburgh's name.

But if one was to make an authentic inquiry into Benson's alleged project of projecting a coded anti-semitism into his book one would look at classic anti-semitic tropes.

For example, how about physical appearance? Prior to World War II, anti-semites classically traded in describing Jews in coarse physical language.

Well, that won't work because Felsenburgh is described as the twin of the priest who gets elected as the final pope.

So, maybe the pope is Jewish?

How about the classic anti-semitic trope of describing Jews as coming from diseased, decaying large cities?

Oops, Felsenburgh comes from Vermont.

How about the classic anti-semitic trope about Jews having control over banking or newspapers and doing their dirty work through underlings?

Well, here's what Benson writes:

He tried to remember what Mr. Varhaus, the American senator, had told him of Felsenburgh; yet it did not seem sufficient to account for the facts. Felsenburgh, it seemed, had employed none of those methods common in modern politics. He controlled no newspapers, vituperated nobody, championed nobody: he had no picked underlings; he used no bribes; there were no monstrous crimes alleged against him. It seemed rather as if his originality lay in his clean hands and his stainless past--that, and his magnetic character. He was the kind of figure that belonged rather to the age of chivalry: a pure, clean, compelling personality, like a radiant child. He had taken people by surprise, then, rising out of the heaving dun-coloured waters of American socialism like a vision--from those waters so fiercely restrained from breaking into storm over since the extraordinary social revolution under Mr. Hearst's disciples, a century ago.

Benson, Robert Hugh (2007-09-21). Lord of the World (Kindle Locations 930-936). Evergreen Review, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

"Chivalrous?" "Stainless?" "Radiant?" "No bribes?" "No underlings?"

How very un-anti-semitic.

If Mr. Hatteras' thesis is true, Benson has managed to achieve a new level of obscurity in terms of subtle anti-semitic coding since he seems to be describing someone who appears to have the Christian virtues, and who looks like the final leader of Christianity.

Also, what's with all the subtlety? Was anti-semitism something that was viewed as being "politically incorrect" in 1907?

Certainly, if someone with an obsessive-compulsive need to sniff out anti-semitism from any work written by a Catholic, then they could concoct feverish arguments based on things the author never wrote to support that conspiratorial view.

Or one could actually, you know, think about the text, and ask what what the author was getting at?

Could it be that Benson was picturing his anti-christ as a mirror image of a true Christian? A person, perhaps, with the apparent Christian virtues, but lacking the love of God?

Ah, if one thinks about that, then one says, "Hmmm....maybe that's why Julius Felsenburgh has a Christian name and is identical in appearance to the priest who becomes the last pope."

But never mind all that. Mr. Hatteras wants to vent about anti-semitism in this book. Let him spin his fantasies.

Just realize, please, that his comments do not reflect what is actually in the book.