Recommending G.K. Chesterton
Posted on 21 January 2012
From time to time readers like to know who the authors they read read. In my case, it is utterly transparent, since I make no influence to hide from whom I am stealing.
But in one case it is not, for some authors are inimitable. One such is G.K. Chesterton.
Allow me here to list my favorite of his works. What are you in the mood for?
Poetry?
- BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse
Religion?
- ORTHODOXY http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Orthodoxy
- THE EVERLASTING MAN http://wikilivres.info/wiki/The_Everlasting_Man
Intrigue?
- THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday
Mystery?
- THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Innocence_of_Father_Brown
Politics?
- EUGENICS AND OTHER EVILS http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eugenics_and_other_Evils
History?
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND? http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_England
Essays?
- WHATS WRONG WITH THE WORLD? http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/What%27s_Wrong_with_the_World
Biography?
- ST THOMAS AQUINAS THE DUMB OX http://wikilivres.info/wiki/St._Thomas_Aquinas:_The_Dumb_Ox
Science Fiction?
- THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Napoleon_of_Notting_Hill
This last book yes indeed is science fiction, for it takes place in the far future year of 1984, but unlike every other science fiction book, it specifically derides the entire enterprise. The opening is priceless:
“THE human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.”
It gets better from there. Because men of the future believe in evolution, they believe everything should be done by random natural selection and slow gradual change, so they still have the gaslamps and horse-drawn carriages of 1904, but they select their kings by random lottery. Unfortunately, the lot falls on a king whose wild sense of humor demands all the pomp and circumstances and local loyalties and loves of the Middle Ages — and all goes well until a mad genius takes the idea of loving his local neighborhood, in this case the unlovely New Jersey of the Old World, Notting Hill, entirely seriously.
If I had to pick just, I would say read the first story in INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN first, then read THE EVERLASTING MAN. By that point you will be aware whether his love of paradox and his vast and jovial wit are too your taste. But do not put him down until you have at least read the first two chapters of MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY.
Tremendous Trifles stands tall in my estimation, most of all that essay where he declares England to be a wonderful thing beyond his imagination, which was to say, “a piece of chalk.”
And Glory to the Lord Most High for Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=80
Hmmm, I wonder if Bruce Wayne is a descendant of Adam Wayne….sorry, I don’t have anything more intellectual to add to the conversation right now. Wait, here’s something a bit more thought provoking: does the existence of an airship in The Ball & the Cross qualify Mr. Chesterton as a steampunk author?
Hmm. . . .
Then, since I cheerfully cite anachronistic steam tech in A Midsummer’s Tempest, perhaps I am not well qualified to speak.
Oh, yes! The Ball and the Cross and Manalive are two of my other favorites, and an honorable mention to The Club of Queer Trades. Judging by your history you’ll love the Ball and the Cross, your by all impressions wonderful marriage Manalive, and by your whimsy The Club of Queer Trades.
This, of course, addressed to our kind host.
I have read THE BALL AND THE CROSS (even though it is quite hard to find) and MANALIVE. BALL has many elements in common with MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, and I admire it for that reason, but I would not recommend it as the first book to read to introduce someone to Chesterton.
Ignatius Press publishes the Collected Works of GK Chesterton.
Volume 7 has The Ball and the Cross in it.
His old newspaper articles are a good deal of fun too.
Hey, if we’re going to indulge in Chesterton, can I supply my favourite quotation?
“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” (‘Cheese’ from Alarms and Discursions)
A solid list. I still can’t believe I never heard of Chesterton unto in to 4 decades of life. He is also infinitely rer-readible and I try to re-read Orthodoxy yearly as I learn from it anew.
As you listed the Dumb Ox, it contains one of my favorite quotes of his.
“It is an old story that, while we may need somebody like Dominic to convert the heathen to Christianity, we are in even greater need of somebody like Francis, to convert the Christians to Christianity.”
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/index.html
As much as I like that link, I worry about it being not strictly kosher. Some of his stuff is still under copyright, isn’t it?
I’ve been meaning to ask you about books, Mr. Wright. I notice you’ve made a couple lists of recommended fantasy books–one full of books reminiscent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and one populated by books with a different feel. Would you mind making a list of recommended science-fiction books in the same vein as your fantasy lists? It’s been a while since I’ve read any sci-fi novels (the last I’ve read was A Canticle for Liebowitz, I think, and that was a year ago) and I wouldn’t mind getting back into them.
I assume your own books will be on that list, of course.
I’d be happy to compile such a list if you tell me what you mean. “In the same vein”? You mean books I like? Books I steal from? Books I’d recommend to the non-SF reader? Books I think are must-read books whether I like them or not? The “Great Books” of SF? The essential books of “Space Princess” fiction?
I would put slightly different books on each list depending on what you are asking.
Books you’d recommend to a non-SF reader would probably be best, though I’m tempted to ask for the “Great Books” of SF.
My own introduction to Chesterton came after a High Mass in honour of OUr Lady of the Rosary, after which a reception was held in the basement, comeplete with a toast to Don John and a reading of Chesterton’s Lepanto.
It is rather odd, and even surprising, that I studied ‘English’ for over a decade (I did work on a PhD, but dropped out for family reasons) and I had never once heard of Chesterton.
OUTRAGEOUS! This is like someone who has studied Latin lit and never read Juvenile. Chesterton is not one of the Big Boys who made the Great Books list, but is a solid second tier writer.
Go out and read BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE this instant! http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse
Will do.
Chesterton is marvelous. I recently saw the Father Brown film with Alec Guinness and it’s great too.
Bear545, you could study “English” for another decade, and you would be very unlikely to find any professor mentioning Chesterton! I am the only professor that I know personally who has ever recommended Chesterton to a student. The student was an atheist art major who loved paradox, so I mischievously told him to read Chesterton. The student told me that he liked Chesterton. Joy! I attended a Catholic college in the 1970s; the library was full of classic Catholic authors whom (as far as I could tell) only I ever read.
I, too, read books in the library that no one else in the program seemed to read. I fell in love with the Renaissance, and began reading works by obscure Renaissance authors, rather than reading popular current works about Renaissance authors, or books expounding a ‘theory’ of language, or something, that would allow one to begin to approach a discussion about formulating an idea of creating a hypothetical framework (based on no real observation but rather on philosophical reasoning analagous to the ancient eleatic denial of motion) from which one may begin to think about beginning to think about opening a book and reading the opening paragraph. Needless to say, most of the program regarded me as a hopeless basket case.
Bear 545, your answer was delightful! I love the part about “neo-post-euro-carnivoro-phallo-logocentrism”! Why do so many graduate programs now focus on concentrated essence of ignorance?
Hans Christian Anderson had it pegged: The Emperor has no clothes, but no one wants to admit it, because they all believe that smart people believe he does, and only idiots think he doesn’t. The like the superiority they get from seeing as genius what others see as nonsense. I believe the term is “gnosticism”.
Like you, I, too, read a lot of of books in the lbrary that no one else seemed to read. In my case, as I studied the Renaissance, I read the works of obscure Renaissance authors, rather than my colleagues, (many of whom have progressed on and are now noted shcolars in the field) who preferred to read works about ‘language’ (which to my eye were based upon no practical observation and were analagous in their alogical conclusions to the ancient Eleatic denial of motion) or works of ‘theory’ which expounded in great obscurity on the subject of approaching a possible hypothetical discussion about the formulating an idea of how to begin to approach a concept of how to create a intellectual framework from which one may think about thinking about opening a book a reading the opening sentence, without falling into the neo-post-euro-carnivoro-phallo-logocentrism which so besets every generation of Western thinking, except ours. It goes without saying, most of the others in the program thought I was a hopeless basket case.
And of course there’s the great irony that Notting Hill became a very pretty neighborhood, at least for a while, and now is super-gentrified.