Mr. Clutterbuck's Election — Story, Setting & Ideas

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In Category - Science Fiction Utopias

Authors: Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2021 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Political fiction; Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 74,828

Reading time 326 min

Text sections 8

Before opening Mr. Clutterbuck's Election — Story, Setting & Ideas, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 74,828 words, 5 hr 26 min estimated reading time, and 8 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 21.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Political fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #66671

Belloc's satirical novel follows Mr. Clutterbuck's improbable rise from Croydon businessman to Member of Parliament during the Boer War, using a mock-heroic narrator and shifting pace to expose political absurdity.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

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Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

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File: pg66671

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Gardens had somewhat estranged the two households. It was therefore with a certain solemnity that Mr. Boyle was received into the neat sitting-room where the Clutterbucks were accustomed to pass the time between tea and the hour of their retirement.

They were shocked to see how aged Mr. Boyle appeared: he formed, as he sat there opposite them, the most complete contrast with the man whose counsel and support he had come to seek. For Mr. Clutterbuck was somewhat stout in figure, of a roundish face with a thick and short moustache making a crescent upon it. He was bald as to the top of his head, and brushed across it a large thin fan of his still dark hair. His forehead was high, since he was bald; his complexion healthy. But Mr. Boyle, clean-shaven, with deep-set, restless grey eyes, and a forehead ornamented with corners, seemed almost foreign; so hard were the lines of his face and so abundant his curly and crisp grey hair. His gestures also were nervous. He clasped and unclasped his hands, and as he delivered--at long intervals--his first common-place remarks, his eyes darted from one object to another, but never met his host's: he was very ill.

His evident hesitation instructed Mrs. Clutterbuck that he had come upon some important matter; she therefore gathered up the yellow satin centre, upon the embroidery of which she had been engaged, and delicately left the room.

When she had noiselessly shut the door behind her, Mr. Boyle, looking earnestly at the fire, said abruptly:

"What I have come about to-night, Mr. Clutterbuck, is a business proposition." Having said this, he extended the fore and middle fingers of his right hand in the gesture of an episcopal benediction, and tapped them twice upon the palm of his left; which done, he repeated his phrase: "A business proposition"; cleared his throat and said no more.

Mr. Clutterbuck's reply to this was to approach a chiffonier, to squat down suddenly before it in the attitude of a frog, to unlock it, and to bring out a cut glass decanter containing whiskey. The whiskey was Scotch; and as Mr. Clutterbuck straightened himself and set it upon the table, he looked down upon Mr. Boyle with a look of property and knowledge, winked solemnly and said:

"Now, Mr. Boyle! This is something you won't get everywhere. Pitt put me up to it." He made a slight gesture with his left hand. "Simply couldn't be bought; that's what Pitt said. Not in the market! Say when"--and with a firm smile he poured the whiskey into a glass which he set by Mr. Boyle's side, and next poured a far smaller amount into his own. Indeed it was a feature of this epoch-making interview that the sound business instinct of Mr. Clutterbuck restrained him to a great moderation as he listened to his guest's advances.

When Mr. Boyle had drunk the first glass of that whiskey which Mr. Pitt had so kindly recommended to Mr. Clutterbuck, he was moved to continue:

"It's like this: if you'll meet me man to man, we can do business." He then murmured: "I've thought a good deal about this"--and while Mr. Boyle was indulging in these lucid preliminaries, Mr. Clutterbuck, who thoroughly approved of them, nodded solemnly several times.

"What I've got to put before you," said Mr. Boyle, shifting in his seat, gazing earnestly at Mr. Clutterbuck and speaking with concentrated emphasis, "is eggs!"

"Eggs?" said Mr. Clutterbuck with just that tone of contempt which the other party to a bargain should assume, and with just as much curiosity as would permit the conversation to continue.

"Yes, eggs," said Mr. Boyle firmly; then in a grand tone he added, "a million of 'em.... There!" And Mr. Boyle turned his head round as triumphantly as a sick man can, and filled up his glass again with whiskey and water.

"Well," said Mr. Clutterbuck, "what about your million eggs? What you want? Are you buying 'em or selling 'em, or what?"

The somewhat unconventional rapidity of Mr. Clutterbuck did not disturb Mr. Boyle. He leaned forward again and said: "I've only come to you because it's you. I knew you'd see it if any man would, and I thought I'd give you the first chance."

"Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck slowly, "but how do you mean? Is it buying or selling, or what?"

"Neither," said Mr. Boyle, and then like a horse taking a hedge, he out with the whole business and said:

"It's cover. I want to carry on."

Continue Reading →

Belloc opens Mr. Clutterbuck's Election with a mock-heroic account of the Boer War, framing it as a righteous struggle against “incredible insolence” and annexing territories “in a series of thirty-seven proclamations.” This grandiloquent tone immediately establishes the narrator as a parodic voice, one that treats imperial politics with the gravity of epic poetry while undercutting it with absurd precision. The novel’s language oscillates between this inflated register and a dry, almost bureaucratic detailing of Clutterbuck’s finances—his income “now some seven hundred, now more nearly a thousand, pounds in the year.” This contrast sets up the central tension: the mundane reality of a small-time agent thrust into the machinery of national politics.

The Narrator’s Shifting Register

The narrative voice in Mr. Clutterbuck’s Election is not stable; it modulates between high-flown rhetoric and deflating bathos. In the opening chapter, the Boer War is described with the solemnity of a state chronicle—generals are named, victories enumerated—yet the very next sentence reduces this to a mere backdrop for Clutterbuck’s “surprising revolutions of fortune.” The narrator later adopts a tone of weary reportage during the election-night scene: Clutterbuck’s speech is an “inaudible croak,” and his thanks are a list of clichés (“unfailing courage, tact, loyalty”). Belloc uses this shift to mock both the self-importance of political life and the reader’s expectation of heroic narrative. The voice is never neutral; it is a performance of authority that constantly reveals its own artifice.

Pace as a Satirical Tool

The novel’s pace changes dramatically between the opening and the election-night climax. The early chapters move slowly, weighed down by historical digression and financial detail—Clutterbuck’s business “had declined” because his father “failed to follow the rapid concentration of commercial effort.” This deliberate, almost pedantic tempo contrasts with the frenetic energy of the later excerpt, where events tumble forward: a pistol shot, a mayor reading figures, a crowd “wild with joy,” and Clutterbuck “almost falling into his chair.” The acceleration mirrors the chaos of the election itself, but Belloc undercuts it with anticlimax: the champagne bottle is opened for Mrs. Clutterbuck, not the hero, and the workers are “a trifle disappointed.” The pacing thus becomes a structural joke, building tension only to release it in triviality.

Recurring Details and Verbal Patterns

Belloc plants specific, recurring details that accumulate satirical meaning. The “bag of sovereigns” that briefly crosses Clutterbuck’s mind is a reminder of the financial underpinnings of politics—a theme introduced in the first chapter’s careful accounting of his income. The phrase “gentlemanly feeling” appears in Clutterbuck’s hoarse thanks, echoing the novel’s title and the mock-deference of the narrator. Mr. Maple’s speech, with its “manly enthusiasm” and “indomitable courage,” parodies the empty rhetoric of political oratory, especially when the final three words are “lost in a frenzy of applause.” These verbal tics—the repetition of “manly,” the list of virtues, the interruption of speech—create a pattern of hollow grandeur that defines the novel’s critique of public life.

Readers should attend to the way Belloc’s narrator intrudes with arch asides and exaggerated historical framing; these are not mere decoration but the engine of the satire. The novel rewards attention to its verbal texture—the precise wording of speeches, the deflation of heroic moments, and the careful manipulation of tempo. Treat the narrator as an unreliable performer, and the election not as a plot but as a stage for linguistic comedy.

I’ve often thought Mr. Clutterbuck’s farcical election masks a tiredness—that public life is a noisy game played over quieter losses. Strange how that melancholy surfaces again in Diana of Kara-Kara — Text and Context, whose heroine’s grand adventure rings hollow somehow. Two books, different worlds, yet both whisper the same old truth: we wear our roles like borrowed coats, and rarely feel warm.