Friday, November 17, 2006

A Chesterton Tree

I was thinking about the post above, and I thought, what if Chestertonians got involved at their libraries, offered to make a Chesterton Tree, filled the tree with Chesterton book "ornaments" and really filled their libraries with Chestertonian selections?

I think this would make a great gift to any library. I don't know if you have time to do it this year, but if you do, please let me know. And if you don't, I'll try to remember to post this idea a bit earlier for next year.

And if you want me to pull together a list of suggested essential Chesterton titles that any library should have, I'd be happy to do that, too. :-)

3 comments:

  1. Wow! This is about as awesome an idea as I've heard yet!

    I may have to do this in my own house, or at work... what a cunning idea. So, let's start collecting a list of ornaments: after all, "The greatest of poems is an inventory." [GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:267]

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  2. Just a few items to start with:

    Cheese (poets have been mysteriously silent on it)
    Chalk (what GKC draws with)
    Brown paper (what GKC draws on)
    Train ticket (what GKC could not find in his pocket)
    Matches, pocket knife, money (what GKC did find)
    Gun (what GKC bought to guard his wife)
    Milk (what GKC drank on the morning before his wedding)

    Umbrella (for Father Brown)
    Blue id card (for "Thursday"; see book for details on what it must say!)
    "The Old Ship" sign (for the "Flying Inn")
    Swords (for the duellers in "The Ball and the Cross" and elsewhere)
    House (for "Club of Queer Trades")
    Six different-coloured Wine Bottles (for "Manalive")

    and finally,

    Pen (which Fr. NcNabb kissed after GKC's death)

    Obviously, one could get quite carried away with this idea, like hanging oranges and brazil nuts, but labelled backwards, and so forth... (hee hee!) so perhaps I ought to stop here for today.

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  3. You musn't forget a revolver and sandwhich case (Thursday), a white post (Orthodoxy), a Penny Catechism & a Penny Dreadful (commemorating the day Chesterton entered the Catholic Church) and a small hand unable to reach a cow's head (The Everlasting Man).

    Going through Dr. Thursday's list and my own, it suddenly occurs to me what a visual writer Chesterton was.

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