Monday, July 07, 2008

The New Yorker article

Our esteemed President and #1 Chestertonian, Dale Ahlquist, has responded to the New Yorker, and this will hopefully be published in the next issue of the same magazine. I am priviledged to read his response, and will give you a hint at it:
For those of us who love Chesterton, we are always distressed to see him subjected to any vile charge. But we’ve gotten a little tired of the charge of anti-Semitism...Mr. Gopnik has added a new technique to making the charge stick – declaring that Chesterton’s admirers should not defend Chesterton against the horrible accusation. Hm. That is certainly one way to end the debate. I would meekly suggest that a better way would be for people to stop repeating charges that have already been dropped.
There's more, much more, and as always, well written. Let's hope the New Yorker finds this fit to print, and will carry it in the next issue.

8 comments:

  1. I was disappointed (perhaps naively so) that Mr. Gopnik did not see fit to include the views of someone like Mr. Ahlquist in his article, if only in the interest of balance. I hope they print his letter so that a knowledgeable Chesterton admirer can have his say.

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  2. Yes, the article was certainly long enough to have justified interviewing the President of the American Chesterton Society, I would think. But then, I don't think like the New Yorker magazine, apparently.

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  3. Where can we read the whole of Dale's response? Is there anyplace online where we can read the whole of the New Yorker article online, for that matter?

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  4. Chris,
    The article, thus far as I know, is not available yet on line. I copied it from my local library.

    Dale's response will, hopefully, be in the next issue of New Yorker, at which time I can post it here, as well.

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  5. I stopped by the Commonweal blog (http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2117), and I see that Dale has put up his complete response in the combox there.

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  6. It's a great response and I hope they print it.

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  7. Is this the article...(I am a huge fan of the novel "The Man Who Was Thursday")

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_gopnik

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  8. Candy,
    Yes, this is a synopsis of the article. The whole thing is not on line anywhere, you'd have to go to a library and get it.

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