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Chesterton Spottings

In a highly unusual turn of events, I've seen pictures and read articles about Chesterton in two publications this past week, both of which took me by surprise.

Apparently, I have gotten used to not seeing Chesterton anywhere other than my Gilbert Magazine.

The first sighting was in The Catholic New World, a publication of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The actual paper included a photo of our man.

GK: “The world is not lacking in wonders, but in a sense of wonder.” That’s pure G. K.Chesterton. A witty prolific English writer (1874-1936), also called the “prince of paradox,” received into the Catholic Church in 1922, and now (trumpets, please): his beatification was proposed this month by England’s Chesterton Society. Others say he should be named “father of the church of the 20th century.” His works range from apologetics to mystery novels to poetry — remember “The Hound of Heaven”? “The Chesterton Review” is still being published twice a year, exploring the life and work of this original thinker, and his “romance with orthodoxy.” Google The Chesterton Review, or phone(800) 526-7022 in East Orange, N.J., to subscribe.

As you can see, there was a complete failure to note the presence of the American Chesterton Society here, and its publication Gilbert Magazine. I sent a letter to the editor noting this glaring oversight. I did not mention that the Hound of Heaven was written by Francis Thompson, nor that the exact quote is slightly different than stated (although the meaning is the same). Nor did I mention that it wasn't exactly his beatification that was proposed, but simply the opening of the cause to investigate the situation.

Then, just as I was getting over that shock, I almost choked over my after-Mass coffee on Sunday to note that the current Our Sunday Visitor has an article titled, "Making the Case for Chesterton" (not available to non-subscribers on line, sorry!) in which writer Mark Sullivan reviews William Oddie's new biography and discusses the possibility of Chesterton's cause moving forward. This article happily mentions both the ACS and Gilbert Magazine. Yeah, us! It is a very good and thorough article. Sullivan interviewed Oddie via email.

Our man is getting some press, which is good, and well-deserved.

GKC's Cause

Please read this important post regarding Chesterton's cause.

Our own Dr. Thursday has also written a prayer and a litany for the Chesterton cause, too. Check them out.

Blessed G.K. Chesterton?

Chestertonian Explanation of the Fall of AIG

From Paul Cella, on the Red State Blog:

G. K. Chesterton, demonstrating his genius at the art of paradox, once referred to optimism as “morbid.” Since the moment I read that (it appears in the second chapter of The Everlasting Man, I have felt in my bones that it is true, and have accordingly nurtured a healthy repugnance for the braggarts of optimism. But as with many paradoxes... Read more ...it is difficult to explain without vitiating its power to surprise and thus enlighten. A true paradox is not a mere turn of phrase, a linguistic subtlety. It is attempt to fill a gap in man’s power of understanding. It is a rhetorical reach, a heuristic device to explain what is in the end a mystery to our meager powers of mind. The paradox is a human reflection of the mystery of being.

So in the hands of a master like Chesterton, the paradox becomes an instrument of extraordinary explanatory power. It can show us, as in a flash, a principle or precept which might by other means requires hours of lecture to impart. (There is an obscure masterpiece, long out of print, called Paradox in Chesterton, by a critic named Hugh Kenner, which lays all this out with great elegance. It ends with the astonishing claim for GKC that he be called a Doctor of the Church; and more astonishing still, the reader finds himself convinced.)

In this case of the problem of optimism, Chesterton’s paradox opened my mind’s eye to the surprising truth that optimism, being so engrossed with the potential for good things, courts ruin and despair by minimizing bad things — or, in the parlance of finance, by minimizing the downside risk. Especially when abetted by the modern doctrine of progress, optimism is morbid because of its tendency to induce blindness concerning man’s limitations.

Now I have a concrete, factual illustration of the problem of optimism, right in front of everyone’s eyes.

As I understand it, AIG was basically ruined by the wild bets of a 300-man unit out of London, the Financial Products office. This 300-man operation lost the equivalent of a big state’s budget and more, all by themselves. [Click here to read it all.]

More on the Current Gilbert Magazine

After just reading The Tripods Attack, I read with interest the article in the recent Gilbert magazine which was about GKC's relationship with HG Wells. Wells is a character in the above mentioned novel.

I found it fascinating to read the difference between GKC's and Wells's relationship, and Belloc and Wells's relationship. And this difference is where Chesterton's sainthood cause comes into play. I would be far more likely to react like Belloc, and carry things too far when it comes to differences in opinion. In fact, I've done that. I've gone too far and now there are people who won't talk to me.

I wish I could be more like Chesterton. Still able to be friends with people you totally disagree with. To be able to separate the person from the ideas.

Chesterton's Potential Sainthood and Dorothy Collins' Remark

Seems below Gramps is determined to throw a wet blanket on the idea of Chesterton as a saint. Well, none of us really knows. That's why we have a church to think about such things. All we can do is produce evidence, give it to the right people, and they will decide, not us.

However, as I was reading this past weekend, I came across this curious passage in Aidan Mackey's new book, G.K. Chesterton: A Prophet for the 21st Century, With an Introduction by Dale Ahlquist:

"Again, he [Chesterton] so belittled his own powers that even those who knew him could be deceived. On several occasions, I [Aidan Mackey] asked Dorothy Collins, his secretary, who was as a daughter to Gilbert and Frances Chesterton, with which languages Gilbert had some familiarity. Each time I was assured that he had no knowledge whatsoever of any tongue other than English, other than a very few words of schoolboy French. Yet a reading of his Chaucer and other of his works clearly displays very sensitive knowledge of French and acquaintanceship with Latin. In fact, he translated a sonnet from the French of Joachim du Bellay so marvellously, that Mr. George Steiner....paid it...high tribute [which Mr. Mackey goes on to quote].

...I have since discovered that G.K.C. was awarded the Sixth Form ('A' Group) Prize for French at St. Paul's School in 1891...to have been the recipient of this award most certainly proves that he was brilliant at both written and oral French.

I merely relate Mr. Mackey's remarks as proof that even someone as close to Chesterton as Dorothy Collins may not have known him all that well.