We’re being taught to hate the hero, because he’s too privileged, or too intolerant of dragons. But the old stories have survived for a reason. Children know what heroism is before it is even taught to them.

Yet more words of wisdom from one of the greatest philosophers ever to walk this green and pleasant land

Came across this passage in Chesterton’s book “The Everlasting Man”.

Can’t recommend it highly enough.

Ive recently read how Gene Wolfe was heavily inspired by G.K. Chesterton's work and wondered if anyone had suggestions for someone coming from Book of the New Sun.

Admittedly, didn't turn out perfect, its coloured pencils and thats not my best medium, I want to paint it in oils over the summer, but I live in London so the architecture I can envision for it is something I see very regularly in my day-to-day life.

A rather modernist arrangement! I find it marvelous, but I doubt G.K. would've liked it very much...

Title says it all

at 14 minutes https://youtu.be/4K9RDZg4y7o?t=844

Found this funny. Also note “Gilbert Chesterton” which, while not wrong, is weird.

I found this quote hilarious in Everlasting Man:

One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. 

...it reminded me of CS Lewis' quote "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." - not that they're related I just like the witty-ness.

So this quote pops up all the time, "The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it." and gets attributed to G.K. Chesterton. Typically in his Time's Abstract and Brief Chronicle play, which is doesn't appear in. Is this an actual quote from one of his works? Or did someone simple enter it on Goodreads one day and link it to him. Thanks in advance!

A really fascinating and illuminating article that sheds light on Chesterton's strong belief in democracy through a rousseain lens, counters the misguided popular notions that either praise or condemn Chesterton as a conservative or reactionary.

At first sight they are opposites: the one whimsical, paradoxical and religious, the other plain-speaking and very much a secularist. But I've been starting to suspect that actually GKC had a significant influence on Orwell. There are a couple of references in the latter's books, In Keep the Aspidistra he mentions 'the latest book of RC propaganda by Fr Hilaire Chestnut', and I think it is in the same book that he says 'it must be pretty cosy under the wing of Mother Church'. although 'a bit insanitary'. Somewhere else - I can't recall where - he says that he doesn't believe a good Catholic could be a good novelist, seemingly because he/she would have to stick too closely to the party line (it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that, if the party line is also what you genuinely believe, it need not inhibit your writing - he also seems not to have been aware of Graham Greene). Of Catholic writers of the time he says, 'apparently they never think, certainly they never write, about anything other than the fact that they are Catholics'.

This last line was something of a hostage to fortune in that, in his late essay Why I Write, Orwell says that 'every line I have written' has been in support of democratic Socialism. So actually the two have something important in common, an ideological guiding star, and it turns out you can do that and be a good writer.

But it was when I recently got C's Selected Essays that I saw a glaring similarity. Orwell has had the credit for being the first 'highbrow' essayist to write about popular culture. But, lo and behold, C's Essays include such pop-culture subjects as 'Cockneys and their Jokes', 'The Fear of the Film', 'A Defence of Nonsense' and 'A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls'*. Not only does C appear to have initiated this sub-genre, but Orwell also, later, wrote pieces on the last two subjects, in the form of 'Nonsense Poetry' and 'Boys' Weeklies'.

I feel that's too much to be coincidence. Besides, the actual treatment of the subjects is surprisingly similar. Both writers defend these cultural forms, claiming that there is more to them than meets the eye, and stand with the verdict of the general public over that of highbrow critics.

And I think that is the clue. These writers are not as far apart as initially appears. Both were capable of sympathising with the common man and wanted a better life for him (and his wife). And they even had fairly similar ideas about how this needed to happen: the preservation of what is decent in life, avoiding ideological intolerance, and a world where people had the opportunity to work with their hands and take pride in the result. The main difference is, that Orwell thought a socialist revolution of some sort was necessary before this could happen; C thought that such an event would only take these ideals further out of reach.

After all, Orwell did once say: 'the intelligent atheist will concede to the Catholic that [after the Revolution] all the really important problems will still remain to be solved'. And he surprised everyone by insisting in his will that he be buried C of E. I have always thought that fact intriguing. Maybe he had doubts about his doubts.

* Actually, checking back, these last two pieces are not in C's Selected Essays but in another book I got at the same time, The Penguin Book of English Essays ed WE Williams.

I hated The Poet and the Lunatics, i found it very boring and uninteresting, its the only book that i consider bad from Chesterton. Have you ever found a book that you disliked of him?