G. K. Chesterton: "Who is this guy and why haven’t I heard of him?"

Ignatius Insight ^ | May, 2011 | with permission of Dale Ahlquist

[Salvation]

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) Author Page | Ignatius Insight

 

G. K. Chesterton: "Who is this guy and why haven’t I heard of him?"

A pithy bio of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist, President, American Chesterton Society

I’ve heard the question more than once. It is asked by people who have just started to discover G.K. Chesterton. They have begun reading a Chesterton book, or perhaps have seen an issue of Gilbert! Magazine, or maybe they’ve only encountered a series of pithy quotations that marvelously articulate some forgotten bit of common sense. They ask the question with a mixture of wonder, gratitude and . . . resentment. They are amazed by what they have discovered. They are thankful to have discovered it. And they are almost angry that it has taken so long for them to make the discovery.

"Who is this guy. . .?"

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) cannot be summed up in one sentence. Nor in one paragraph. In fact, in spite of the fine biographies that have been written of him, (and his Autobiography) he has never been captured between the covers of one book. But rather than waiting to separate the goats from the sheep, let’s just come right out and say it: G.K. Chesterton was the best writer of the twentieth century. He said something about everything and he said it better than anybody else. But he was no mere wordsmith. He was very good at expressing himself, but more importantly, he had something very good to express. The reason he was the greatest writer of the twentieth century was because he was also the greatest thinker of the twentieth century.

Born in London, Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly. (To put it into perspective, four thousand essays is the equivalent of writing an essay a day, every day, for 11 years. If you’re not impressed, try it some time. But they have to be good essays, all of them, as funny as they are serious, and as readable and rewarding a century after you’ve written them.)

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper.

This man who composed such profound and perfect lines as "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried," stood 6’4" and weighed about 300 pounds, usually had a cigar in his mouth, and walked around wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, tiny glasses pinched to the end of his nose, swordstick in hand, laughter blowing through his moustache. And usually had no idea where or when his next appointment was. He did much of his writing in train stations, since he usually missed the train he was supposed to catch. In one famous anecdote, he wired his wife, saying, "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" His faithful wife, Frances, attended to all the details of his life, since he continually proved he had no way of doing it himself. She was later assisted by a secretary, Dorothy Collins, who became the couple’s surrogate daughter, and went on to become the writer’s literary executrix, continuing to make his work available after his death.

This absent-minded, overgrown elf of a man, who laughed at his own jokes and amused children at birthday parties by catching buns in his mouth, this was the man who wrote a book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. This was the man who wrote a novel called The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish Independence. This was the man who wrote an essay in the Illustrated London News that inspired Mohandas Gandhi to lead a movement to end British colonial rule in India. This was a man who, when commissioned to write a book on St. Thomas Aquinas (aptly titled Saint Thomas Aquinas), had his secretary check out a stack of books on St. Thomas from the library, opened the top book on the stack, thumbed through it, closed it, and proceeded to dictate a book on St. Thomas. Not just any book. The renowned Thomistic scholar, Etienne Gilson, had this to say about it:

"I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short of genius can account for such an achievement. Everybody will no doubt admit that it is a 'clever' book, but the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas. . . cannot fail to perceive that the so-called 'wit' of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame. He has guessed all that which we had tried to demonstrate, and he has said all that which they were more or less clumsily attempting to express in academic formulas. Chesterton was one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed; he was deep because he was right; and he could not help being right; but he could not either help being modest and charitable, so he left it to those who could understand him to know that he was right, and deep; to the others, he apologized for being right, and he made up for being deep by being witty. That is all they can see of him."

Chesterton debated many of the celebrated intellectuals of his time: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow. According to contemporary accounts, Chesterton usually emerged as the winner of these contests, however, the world has immortalized his opponents and forgotten Chesterton, and now we hear only one side of the argument, and we are enduring the legacies of socialism, relativism, materialism, and skepticism. Ironically, all of his opponents regarded Chesterton with the greatest affection. And George Bernard Shaw said: "The world is not thankful enough for Chesterton.

His writing has been praised by Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Karel Capek, Marshall McLuhan, Paul Claudel, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Sigrid Undset, Ronald Knox, Kingsley Amis, W.H. Auden, Anthony Burgess, E.F. Schumacher, Neil Gaiman, and Orson Welles. To name a few.

T.S. Eliot said that Chesterton "deserves a permanent claim on our loyalty."

". . . and why haven’t I heard of him?

There are three answers to this question:

1. I don’t know.
   
2. You’ve been cheated.
   
3. Chesterton is the most unjustly neglected writer of our time. Perhaps it is proof that education is too important to be left to educators and that publishing is too important to be left to publishers, but there is no excuse why Chesterton is no longer taught in our schools and why his writing is not more widely reprinted and especially included in college anthologies. Well, there is an excuse. It seems that Chesterton is tough to pigeonhole, and if a writer cannot be quickly consigned to a category, or to one-word description, he risks falling through the cracks. Even if he weighs three hundred pounds.

But there is another problem. Modern thinkers and commentators and critics have found it much more convenient to ignore Chesterton rather than to engage him in an argument, because to argue with Chesterton is to lose.

Chesterton argued eloquently against all the trends that eventually took over the twentieth century: materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism, and spineless agnosticism. He also argued against both socialism and capitalism and showed why they have both been the enemies of freedom and justice in modern society.

And what did he argue for? What was it he defended? He defended "the common man" and common sense. He defended the poor. He defended the family. He defended beauty. And he defended Christianity and the Catholic Faith. These don’t play well in the classroom, in the media, or in the public arena. And that is probably why he is neglected. The modern world prefers writers who are snobs, who have exotic and bizarre ideas, who glorify decadence, who scoff at Christianity, who deny the dignity of the poor, and who think freedom means no responsibility.

But even though Chesterton is no longer taught in schools, you cannot consider yourself educated until you have thoroughly read Chesterton. And furthermore, thoroughly reading Chesterton is almost a complete education in itself. Chesterton is indeed a teacher, and the best kind. He doesn’t merely astonish you. He doesn’t just perform the wonder of making you think. He goes beyond that. He makes you laugh.

(Reprinted by kind permission of Dale Ahlquist and the American Chesterton Society.)

Dale Ahlquist is the president and co-founder of the American Chesterton Society.

He is the creator and host of the television series, “G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense,” on EWTN. Dale is the publisher of Gilbert Magazine, author of The Chesterton University Student Handbook, editor of The Gift of Wonder: The Many Sides of G.K. Chesterton, associate editor of the Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton (Ignatius). He has been called “one of the most respected Chesterton scholars in the world” and has delighted audiences around the country with his variety of talks on the great English writer. He is a graduate of Carleton College (B.A.) in Northfield, Minnesota, and Hamline University (M.A.) in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lives near Minneapolis with his wife and five children. Like Chesterton, Dale is a Catholic convert and a joyful defender of the Catholic Faith. He can be contacted at info@chesterton.org.

[Joe 6-pack]

Great things come in three's.

Chesterton's Birthday is 5/29.

FReeper Joe 6-pack's Birthday is 5/30.

Clint Eastwood's is 5/31.

:-)

[Fester Chugabrew]

How about sixes?

[Salvation]

I’d rather do sevens.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Twelves anyone?

[PieterCasparzen]

17’s.

[Jo Nuvark]

G. K. CHESTERTON PING LIST

PLEASE CONTACT ME BY FREEPMAIL IF YOU
WISH TO BE ADDED OR REMOVED FORM THIS LIST.

[Jo Nuvark]

Would you like to be on the GKC ping list?

[kabumpo]

Yes, please.

[Jo Nuvark]

... You’re in!

[grey_whiskers]

But rather than waiting to separate the goats from the sheep, let’s just come right out and say it: G.K. Chesterton was the best writer of the twentieth century.

Feh. He's in the top five or ten.

Others include:

Albert Einstein.

Dick Feynman.

Hilaire Belloc.

P. G. Wodehouse.

Dorothy L. Sayers.

C. S. Lewis.

J.R.R. Tolkien.

Up and comers for the new millenium:

Mark Steyn.

Iowahawk.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Better yet: What are the five (or ten) best writings of Chesterton, the ones most likely to lead one to seek out still more?

First, a warning.

Chesterton is NOT to be undertaken lightly.

He is an acquired taste: his writing has much more substance, more meat, to it, than most others, and particularly more so than the "intellectuals" of our day. But he does it (as did Dick Feynman) by writing as CLEARLY as possible, seeking to elucidate, not to impress: and to do so by example, not erudition.

Think of him as a Roman Catholic Rush Limbaugh, only writing in a time when 8th graders in Kansas had to pass tests that today's college graduates would fail.

He wrote in a number of genres and for different audiences, so it is difficult to assign a best.

So I'll go by category. Hypertext links to the works if I could find a free copy online readily:

Christian Apologetics

1) Orthodoxy
2) The Everlasting Man

Novels / Victorian Fantasy

3) The Napoleon of Notting Hill
4) The Ball and The Cross (one word: perdinavititis!)
5) The Man Who Was Thursday
6) The Flying Inn (TOPICAL 100 YEARS LATER. TO SAY MORE WOULD BE TO SPOIL IT.)

Short Stories

7) The Father Brown Mysteries or the Mr. Pond stories -- (Try When Doctors Agree or The Three Horsemen of Apocalypse or The Eye of Apollo

Memorable quote from Three Horseemen:

"Grock said no prayer and uttered no pity; but in some dark way his mind was moved, as even the dark and mighty swamp will sometimes move like a living thing; and as such men will, when feeling for the first time faintly on their defence before they know not what, he tried to formulate his only faith and confront it with the stark universe and the staring moon.
'After and before the deed the German Will is the same. It cannot be broken by changes and by time, like that of those others who repent. It stands outside time like a thing of stone, looking forward and backward with the same face.' "

8) The Club of Queer Trades

Memorable quote:

Basil smiled at me. "You didn't know," he said, "that I had a practical brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a—what are you now, Rupert?"

Collected Essays

9) Tremendous Trifles

Memorable quote:

"A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state of irremediable spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, and I apologise both to the man and to the paper."

10) The Illustrated London News

For these (and others!) click here.

Cheers!

[HartleyMBaldwin]

One of my favorites is “The Flying Inn”, which I need to reread if I can find a copy. I also liked “Four Faultless Felons”. And you can’t go wrong with the Father Brown stories.

Salvation, many thanks for your original post. I hope more people will enjoy Chesterton’s writing as a result.

[Ransomed]

“P. G. Wodehouse.”

Absolutely. My two favourites are Jack Vance (heavily influenced by Wodehouse) and Gene Wolfe (heavily influenced by Chesterton).

Freegards

[Salvation]

I would add Thomas aKempis and his Imitation of Christ to your list.

[grey_whiskers]

Hilaire Belloc wrote an introduction to the collection Weekend Wodehouse which began:

Some two or three years ago I was asked in the United States to broadcast a few words on my own trade of writing -- what I thought of it and why I disliked it.

I understand that this broadcast was heard by a very large number -- some millions it seems. Now in the course of this broadcast I gave as the best writer of English now alive, Mr. P.G. Wodehouse.

...and (more telling) which ended:

I have just said that those of whom Jeeves is the prototype or the god are perhaps doomed, and this leads me to the last question which one always asks of all first-rate writing: will Mr. Wodehouse's work endure?

Pray note that literary work does not necessarily endure through its excellence. What is called "immortality" (whereas nothing mortal is immortal) is conferred upon a man's writing by external circumstances as much as by external worth. I can show you whole societies of men for whom Keats would be meaningless and I know dozens of Englishmen well versed in the French language who find Racine merely dull. Whether the now famous P.G. Wodehouse will remain upon that level for as many generations as he deserves, depends, alas, upon what happens to England. For my part I would like to make it a test of that very thing -- "What happens to England."

If in, say, 50 years Jeeves and any other of that great company -- but in particular Jeeves -- shall have faded, then what we have called England will no longer be.

Further affiant sayeth not.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

On my (ever increasing!) list of books to get to, some millenium when there are 30 hours in a day and I don't need to work for a living... or sleep. :-(

[Salvation]

It’s a really tiny book that can be kept on your bedstand for one section each night.

Or you can read it here http://www.freerepublic.com/~salvation/

[bronxville]

“Chesterton debated many of the celebrated intellectuals of his time: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow. According to contemporary accounts, Chesterton usually emerged as the winner of these contests, however, the world has immortalized his opponents and forgotten Chesterton, and now we hear only one side of the argument, and we are enduring the legacies of socialism, relativism, materialism, and skepticism.”

Chesterton warned us about the Fabians. If he’d become a member he’d be a Nobel Prize Winner today.

Happy Birthday Chesterton and a big thankyou. RIP.

Thanks Salvation for the great thread.

[Salvation]

You’re so welcome. Great writer, that Chesterton guy.

[Ransomed]

Awesome. If you dig Wodehousian manners comedy and dialogue, and also dig classic sci-fi, check out Vance.

Here’s a general write-up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html

Freegards