The Path to Rome

 

In his book Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, Joseph Pearce provides a quick overview of what he considers great work of literature. He includes at the end a list of 100 works "every Catholic should aspire to read."

For the most part, I agree with him. And I've used his list to help guide my effort to fill the gaps in my own reading history. Mind you, as a Literature major, and as a Chestertonian, I had read many of the works he cites.

Chesterton. Dickens. Dostoyevsky. Tolkien. Lewis. Shakespeare. Sophocles. 

Ah. 

But there have been some works he mentions that I did not like. I tried Don Quixote, and got a hundred pages in before I gave up. I did read a few of Jane Austen's books that I had not previously read, but did not really enjoy them. Manners and romance are not my cup of tea. And I did read both of Flannery O'Connor's novels; too grotesque for my taste.

I decided to tackle Hilaire Belloc. I had only previously read Cautionary Tales for Children (which I had enjoyed) and Pearce's Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. I enjoyed the biography, but came away not really liking Belloc as a person!

Nevertheless, I thought it was time to tackle one of the Belloc books on Pearce's list: The Path to Rome. I started it, but it did not hold my interest, so I drifted away to other works. Still, given his ties to Chesterton, and Pearce's championing of the book, I felt obligated to finish it. So I returned to it.

I did finish it yesterday. But I have to admit I did so just to say I did. 

It could be that I'm not a fan of travel books or of long rambling works. But even more, his personality got in the way. I did not care about his struggles, and got tired of his commentary and judging. Oh, there were some descriptive passages that were quite fine, and I could appreciate them. But that's about all I did enjoy.

I have his The Four Men on my bookshelf, but I hesitate to  even attempt it. I also have a collection of his essays; those I might read as I do enjoy essays. Not yet, however.

Instead, I'll just end this with a clerihew I wrote about Belloc a number of years ago:

Hilaire Belloc
walked off the end of a dock,
but being in the midst of a debate
he was unaware of his fate.