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Chesterton's best fiction and non-fiction

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Chesterton's best fiction and non-fiction

Postby rusmeister » July 28th, 2007, 9:13 am

Here's another, like MacDonald, seriously under-read author. He was extremely prolific, and famous in his time, so much so that the Pope sent condolences on his death. He wrote novels, short stories, poetry, essays and apologetics. If you are unfamiliar with the works of one of the greatest authors of all time, here are a couple of good places to start:





What works of his have you read in what category? Which do you consider to be outstanding and why?
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Postby moordarjeeling » July 28th, 2007, 3:47 pm

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Postby rusmeister » July 31st, 2007, 10:02 am

I am one who actually thinks that the Father Brown stories, which get the most press, are the least valuable of his writings. I find the general premise fairly ludicrous even though there are good spiritual points and insight.

Of far greater impact are his apologetic works. Orthodoxy, Heretics and The Everlasting Man are all among the best books I have ever read, especially TEM. Consider that it was TEM that launched Lewis on his path to Christianity.

What's Wrong With the World (WWWW), while not his best work, has some really incisive stuff on how our world has developed - since he wrote it! But it's bound to be unpopular with people who believe our world is perfect and getting better every day.

The Flying Inn, while being a fanciful tale of Islamic standards brought into British public life, foreshadows how some of them are being brought into western public life in general today.

As a master of one-liners, he has a ton of quotations that hit home:


If you believe that there's nothing wrong with the world, that alcohol has no place at all in our lives, or that Christianity should mean whatever you want it to mean, then Chesterton is not for you.

Or maybe he is... :read:
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Postby rusmeister » November 3rd, 2007, 1:09 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby contra mundum » November 9th, 2007, 9:04 pm

Last edited by contra mundum on November 12th, 2007, 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby rusmeister » November 10th, 2007, 6:32 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby Mary » November 10th, 2007, 5:52 pm

A few months ago I started reading a collectiuon of Fr. Brown stories because a while back (maybe a year?) I asked (on this forum, I think) where would be a good place to start with Chesterton. Someone suggested Fr. Brown (David Jack maybe? ... sorry, getting old here, mind like a sieve). I read it at night because it fits two of my three criteria for bedtime reading:

1. at least somewhat spiritually edifying

2. linguistically dense enough that I eventually fall asleep

if these two aren't available, then here's the third:

3. a novel in German (also eventually puts me to sleep)


Rusmeister, I can see what you say about the Fr. Brown not being the greatest thing he's done, even though I haven't read anything else from him yet. However, the suggestion to start with these stories was a good one for getting used to Chesterton's style. He's kind of a wordy guy, and I think having read his Fr. Brown I'll be able see his point when I read Orthodoxy (or some other such thing) rather than just struggle with his style and all the extra words.

I am looking forward to reading his other stuff soon. The fact that he was a Catholic (a convert, right?) intrigues me since I am an Anglican who is often driven to jump ship and get catechized. (sound familiar, Stanley?)

A few more words on Fr. Brown: as far as development of a mystery and its solution, I don't think this is Chesterton's big talent. He also is lacking in his setting of a real visual scene, and in this he reminds me of the several Japanese authors I have tried to read whose landscapes seem to be entirely inner. However, Chesterton does a great job with his character. I love how in each story he brings Fr. Brown out from invisibility .... it's kind of like seeing a specific detail emerge from a landscape painting. Chesterton shows Fr. Brown to be the same guy from story to story, a humble non-assuming person who takes his job seriously, knows who he works for, and and isn't marked by any striking physical characteristics like S. Holmes, for example. The believability rating is high.
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Postby ABC » November 11th, 2007, 4:37 pm

Apart from the "Father Brown" books, I love Chesterton's biographical works on Stevenson, Browning, Dickens, St. Thomas Aquinas and especially St. Francis of Assisi. I actually much prefer Chesterton's biography of Dickens to anything by Dickens himself!
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Postby rusmeister » November 11th, 2007, 5:47 pm

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby contra mundum » November 12th, 2007, 6:49 pm

“Doubt no longer, then, when you see death mocked and scorned by those who believe in Christ, that by Christ death was destroyed . . .”

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Postby Stanley Anderson » November 12th, 2007, 9:24 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Postby galion » November 12th, 2007, 10:16 pm

I'm a cradle-catholic who went the other way - though in my day the Catholics used a far more formal and archaic language even than Cranmer.

I haven't checked the exact wording, but one of my favourite Chesterton quotations is:
"Progress is a comparative of which we have not yet defined the superlative."

Nobody has yet (unless I've missed it) mentioned all the hilarious verse.
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Postby rusmeister » November 13th, 2007, 4:32 am

"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
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Postby Dr. U » November 16th, 2007, 3:15 am

Like most of you, I've gotten a lot of benefit out of his non-fiction books about Christian faith. I'm not a Roman Catholic Christian, but his book about Thomas Aquinas particularly stuck with me.

Another genre of stuff he wrote that I recently discovered, are his essays against eugenics and racism. I teach a class that uses the history of race and racism as a case to illustrate how scientists cannot operate in a vacuum: our own worldviews ALWAYS influence the type of questions we ask, the data we collect, and how the data are interpreted. B/c of this class, I'm always reading on the side about the issue of race and racism. I encountered a book of essays GKC wrote in the early 20th Century against eugenics that is still a gem, even if somewhat dated.

Eugenics has today fallen from most of its power and influence (thank God!!), but only 100 years ago, it was held as obvious truth almost uniformly across Western culture, especially in intellectual circles. With limited exceptions, most of its serious opposition was from a relatively small group of dedicated Christians, a mix of radical evangelicals and devout Catholics who were vilified, somewhat the way Pro-Life evangelicals and Catholics are today. And GKC was in the middle of all that, writing essays that were both cutting and beautifully crafted, against eugenic ideas. He used his gifts well....
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Re: Chesterton's best fiction and non-fiction

Postby A#minor » June 19th, 2009, 4:58 pm

I've been reading The Complete Father Brown in bits here and there for the last month. Nearly done now with my first taste of Chesterton, and I'm loving it! He always surprises me, and there are some phenomenal insights that have really had me scratching my head.
Can't wait to get my hands on more Chesterton! I think I'll try The Man Who Was Thursday next since that is another popular one.
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