Not reading a book

I have a confession to make.

I stopped reading a book.

I know many of us have done that - for a variety of reasons. (My best previous excuse was when I was reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and it got in the laundry bag and, well, ended up as pulp in the washer. I took that as a sign from God to stop reading stuff that might damage my soul!)

But in this case, it was a book I wanted to read, about a person I was interested in learning more about: Hilaire Belloc.

Last year, I bought an autographed copy of Joseph Pearce's Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, at the Chesterton Conference in Rochester.

I couldn't finish it.

That's not a criticism of Pearce. I've read others of his books that I have enjoyed.

It was Belloc.

The more I read, the less I liked him, and the less I cared to read more about him. (Sort of like the people who discovered the more contact they had with Rudy Giuliani, the less they liked him. Thus his Florida flop.)

I was reminded of what happened with my planned biography of Bishop Sheen many years ago.

At the time I was a writer for the diocesan paper in Rochester, where he served as bishop from 1966-69. We have his archives, and I had access to many people who knew him.

I decided to write a multi-part series about his years in Rochester for the paper, and then to expand the series into a book.

I interveiwed, read, searched the archives, and wrote the series. I won an award for it.

But the more I dug into his life, the less I wanted to spend time with him. A biographer (can't remember who) once commented that to write a good biography you have to be willing to live with the subject for several years.

I could not imagine living with Bishop Sheen.

Nothing against him per se. And not a judgement of his morality or character: He may well be in heaven praying for my soul right now.

I just didn't like him as a person. There have been a lot of saints who would have been murder to live with. That doesn't mean they are not saints.

Anyway, that's how I began to feel about Belloc.

Guess I'll stick with Chesterton. I never get tired of hanging around with him.

Lesser-Known GKC

Those looking for less familiar essays by Chesterton should note that he contributed to The Venture, a highbrow literary annual edited by W. Somerset Maugham and Lawrence Houseman. The Venture was an expensive production, and only two issues appeared—the 1903 and 1904 editions, respectively. [Ted Morgan, Maugham, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 93-94] Incidentally, Chesterton's 1903 contribution, "The Philosophy of Islands," was reprinted in The Spice of Life (1964).

Weekend thoughts........

This is very cool......OT History

An awesome interview of Fr. Schall, SJ
and is continued here.

I chose these two things with intention. Fr. Schall is very "progressive" in how he seamlessly blends classical philosophy, Aquinas, and a literary life with the problems and questions of today -- which are really the problems and questions of every day. Fr. Schall can almost make tears come to the eyes.......for the beauty of the truth and the sadness of the Jesuit order. If Fr. Schall is what the Jesuit order was meant to be, and indeed was for much of its history, it would have been amazing to see in its finest flowering.

Link this to the discovery of archaeological evidence of the ancient history of the Hebrews.

Amazing at times to think of the shoulders we stand on.

A Presidential Clerihew

President James Polk
would rarely crack a joke.
But friends say he was quick
with a limerick.

CSL

New C.S. Lewis blog, and it's a big hitter, sponsored by HarperOne.

Some weekend thoughts.....

Life is getting very, very political now. There is a temptation at times to fall into the trap of thinking that political thought is actual reasoning. I found this little quiz as a fun thing to keep balanced with.

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

I'm really not sure which of the Fathers would be most Chestertonlike personality wise. Belloc and St. Jerome could easily be pictured together. Chesterton would most likely match best with.....St Justin Martyr? My knowledge of the Fathers isnt quite what it should be. I know controversies, and the names associated with them, but little about personalities beyond the heavies (St. Augustine, St. Basil) There is a certain Eastern-ness to Chesterton which leads me to suspect that he might be most closely mirrored by one of the Greek or Alexandrian writers.

Interesting thought at least.

GKC and BBC

Sorry for my absence. I'm still not back up to full health, time-wise. In the meantime:

On December 7, 1936, the BBC, which had started in public television only five weeks before, broadcast a televised pantomime—directed and performed by Hilary D. C. Pepler, a Ditchling associate of Eric Gill. Originally the performance had been planned by Pepler and G.K. Chesterton as a benefit for the Distributist League and was produced at London's Little Theater on June 28, 1936, shortly after Chesterton's death. [Evans, America, December 26, 1987, pp. 501-02]

Huckabee cites Chesterton!

I know that Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been the subject of debate in Catholic circles and blogs - with supporters and detactors - but something he said should raise a smile among Chestertonians.

In his victory speech, Huckabee loosely quoted Chesterton: "A true soldier fights not because he hates those who are in front of him but because he loves those who are behind him."

(Actual GKC quote: "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.")

Huckabee went on to say, "Running for office is not hating those who are in front of you but loving those who are behind you."

When was the last time a U.S. politician cited Chesterton?

A clerihew

Any foe of Andrew Jackson
who dared to make attacks on
Rachel, his wife,
was risking his life.

Family Legacy?

I made it into my thirties without knowing this........

Was at a family function and one of our geneologist buffs told me that we are related to one of the 2 men executed as warlocks at the Salem witch trials.

Not particularly surprising, really explains alot.

If I remember correctly, upon hearing of the American holiday of Thanksgiving, instituted by the Puritans to commemorate their leaving England, Chesterton wanted to institute a similar holiday in England, celebrating the fact that they left.

Merry Christmas - Book Things

Sorry to have missed my regular Friday.....holiday Chaos.

Local library just had overflow sale.........amazing deals

Hardcover 50cents
Softcover 25cents

They are just trying to offload. Ive picked up some amazing stuff over the years.

This year I picked up a hardcover edition of the complete poetical works of Milton, and some of his more important prose and political tracts. Also picked up a hardcover, gorgeously illustrated edition of Chaucer...in original middle English, but I can battle through it, I have contemporary editions of all the same material.

As far as GKCness.......Im making a resolution to read his small bio of Chaucer for New Years. I dont think it is very long regardless, just to get a feeling for his reactions.

And a QUESTION for the readership!!!

I got a $50 Barnes and Noble Gift Card for Christmas!!!

Im stumped what to do with it. Will take advice. Im leaning towards picking up a copy of Dore's Illustrations for Idylls of the King, but Ill take advice on what to do with the rest of it.

Thanks and God Bless.

A Christmas Carol

By G.K. Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

A surprising introduction

I was trying to teach my high school students about writing descriptively. We had a few examples in our book, but then I remembered one of my favorite descriptive passages: The opening chapter of Bleak House and its description of fog.

I knew I had an old “Everyman’s Library” edition – 1954, but first published in 1907 – that I hadn’t read in years. I found it in my bookcase at home, and brought it in the next day.

I read the passage. Then I happened to look at the introduction.

Yes, it was Chesterton’s. A treasure I didn’t even realize I had.

Somehow I never thought of Dickens as somehow like “mature potato“ or Napoleon, but Chesterton made it all work.

He talks of Dickens’ growing maturity as a novelist. And he praises the very section I read – “Dickens’s openings are almost always good; but the opening of Bleak House is good in a quite new and striking way.”

And in talking about Dickens’s use of the fog (of the air, and of Chancery), he observes, “He means that all the characters and all the events shall be read through the smoky colours of the sinister and unnatural vapor.”

Fancy that. Enjoying a great book not only for the book itself, but also for its introduction.

A little Christmas gift!

Schall at Dappled

Fr. Schall has written a GKCish piece for Dappled Things about Christmas. He opens with this lesser-known quote:

“Christmas . . . is one of numberless old European feasts of which the essence is the combination of religion with merry-making. But among those feasts it is also especially and distinctively English in the style of its merry-making and even in the style of its religion. For the character of Christmas (as distinct, for instance, from the continental Easter) lies chiefly in two things: first on the terrestrial side the note of comfort rather than the note of brightness and on the spiritual side, Christian charity rather than Christian ecstasy.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, 1906

Hobbit

Good news from a Chesterton friend that was a generation behind: Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have reached agreement to make J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” a planned prequel to the blockbuster trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.”

Great Giving

If you still can not think of what to give that special someone who already has a book shelve of Chesterton here is a great idea, Portraits of Grace: Images and Words from the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, by James Stephen Behrens, OCSO.

Father Behrens is a Trappist monk at the monastery and a master photographer.

Photography is the most difficult of the art forms to create transcendent beauty because it is the easiest art to do – point and click. This is what still keeps the debate going on whether or not photography is an art or a craft.

Father Behrens has created art in this collection. He also has written short reflections to accompany the photos.

Good art or poetry takes the common and makes it divine or takes the divine and makes it common. Truly great art does both in the same piece. “The meaning of life is often hidden amidst the ordinary, asking only that we pause, look, ponder,” the author notes. All of Fr. Behrens art is good and some of it is great.

And by giving this gift you give twice because all the proceeds from the book’s sale help the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA.

You can get this book at Amazon

Weekend Thoughts

Ive been thinking lately about the English-ness of Chesterton and its place in his Catholicism. As Americans, inheritors of the English language and other aspects of Anglo culture we could likely benefit from some reflection.

Olde England was Catholic to its soul. There are some in Chestertonia who delve into this deeply with the stories and legends of the old missionary saints and the role played by the monasteries for almost a thousand years. It also stands to note that the English model of governmental development reflected the development of doctrine in Catholicism to a certain degree. I hate using terms vaguely, but England, Britain, and the UK all mean specific things and I might accidentally interchange. To my point, the British government does not derive from a single document, like the US Constitution, but rather emerges from a long series of acts and motions over a period of time, beginning in general with the Magna Carta. At least that's what I was taught in school. This isnt a perfect parallel, but it does mirror the process of Catholic thought in many ways. This makes the sheer violence of the Tudor era unsurprising. An amputation, such as what the break away of Henry/Elizabeth was, is a very bloody thing by definition. I do not think that this is a point of historical minutiae or religious esotericism. There is a lesson to be drawn here that sexuality and power, particularly of the state, wield forces of persuasion stronger than a thousand years of tradition and entwined systems.

Something Ive thought about in the larger sense is that for as catholic and Catholic as England/Britain have been, their experience is still just a small part of the life of the universal Church. Paradoxically, it is the Angloness of Chesterton's Catholicism that has really opened my eyes to the fellowship we share with the ancient Syriac Churches, the Greeks, the Japanese martyrs, and continental Christendom.

New Again

This, by all accounts, has been a bad year for me. Filled with tragedy, disappointments and emotional upheaval, perhaps the worst year I have gone through. I sunk into a deep blue funk. Blah. Blah. Balh.

A couple of things have helped me turn around to start winning the battle of spiritual sloth. The battle turned on a few seemingly unconnected phrases. The first was remembering what my grandma used to tell me whenever I was down, “Ah, It feels so good to feel so bad.” The next was a line from a popular song “Life goes on after the thrill of living has gone.”

These phrases swirled around in my head as I watched the first Advent candle being lit. Both made me laugh. Grandma was right, she was very Franciscan in her thinking and Cougar was wrong, life is always a thrill. As our friend Gilbert would say, " An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."

The Church understands suffering and brings us comfort in many ways. One is with a sense of humor. Saint Steven (feast day Dec. 26) was named Patron Saint of stone masons and headaches. How can you not love a Church that would do that?
“Little did all the people present, casting stones upon him, realize that the blood they shed was the first seed of a harvest that was to cover the world.”

Yes, it is now Advent, the Word will be made flesh. The world receives hope. Yes, yes, it is the event that broke the back of the world and it is still reeling and still erect.

What could possibly be more of a thrilling ride.

Mencken on Wells and Chesterton

By E.J. Scheske

"A man with a head worth a pile of Chesterton heads as high as the Trafalgar monument."

That's H.L. Mencken, writing about H.G. Wells, dissing G.K. Chesterton.

Mencken was a Chesterton fan at first. In January 1910, he reviewed Chesterton's George Bernard Shaw with this type of high praise: "The cleverest man in all the world, with the second cleverest as his subject, is here doing his cleverest writing. . . Not since St. Augustine have the gods sent us a man who could make the incredible so fascinatingly probable."

But HLM tired of GKC. Not too surprising. As GKC become increasingly Catholic, he probably became increasingly distasteful (and boring) to HLM.

Simply delightful

From Gerald Lynch's Leacock on Life:

In his time, [Canadian humourist/economist Stephen Leacock] shared the press’s more plentiful pages with such of his essaying contemporaries as H.G. Wells, Hilaire Belloc, George Bernard Shaw, and G.K. Chesterton. Leacock and Chesterton met over a billiard game, which the two insisted on keeping private for its three-hour duration, and became friends. In a piece poking fun at a fad for getting at the private person behind the public figure [...] Leacock concludes a pretty funny catalogue with the news that the corpulent Chesterton is, in private, actually quite thin.

I'll likely be putting together a brief piece about Leacock for an upcoming issue of Gilbert, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for it in the future.