For the past year or so one of the more enjoyable and enlightening television programs I’ve stumbled across is Dale Alquist’s “G.K. Chesterton, The Apostle of Common Sense” on EWTN (the Catholic television network). I note it now because according to what has been showing up on my dvr over the past few weeks it appears that the fifth season has finished running and they are currently running repeats starting with the first season.
For those who love Chesterton, little more needs to be said. For me, on the other hand, Chesterton is a struggle to read. Many people are charmed by his elliptical round-about essayish style of writing–he’s one of those guys where you are supposed to “enjoy the journey” as he gets to the point. My brain, however, is a bit too lawyer/social sciene and doesn’t really work that way. So I find myself getting impatient at times with Chesterton, although like everyone else I do enjoy his nuggets of style and his overall insights. Moreover, his body of work is so vast that it is impossible to get to all of it and my sense is that (as one might predict) it is of uneven quality.
For those like me, Alquist’s show really hits the mark. Each show is thematic in nature and Alsop does the work of wading through all of this and chasing down the works and excerpts that best capture Chesterton’s insights and most elegant turns of phrase. I’ve found it to be a great introduction to Chesterton that has in fact led me to read (and re-read) Chesterton and to get more out of it. For those who are interested in a good intro to Chesterton, now is a good time to tune in. I find the excerpts from Chesterton’s fiction (often dramatized) to be especially fun because those are the works that I’d probably be least likely to read on my own. I believe that “new” episodes air on Sunday evenings and then repeat on Wednesday mornings, but since I just dvr it I’m not exactly sure of the times (I say “new” because, as I noted, I am prompted to write now because they are actually running very old episodes but they seem to run on the same schedule).
As for Alquist’s somewhat hagiographic approach to Chesterton, I suspect one will find it either charming or off-puting. I find it to be the former, but others may not. Enjoy.
Update: When I originally posted this I referred to Dale Alquist as “Alsop.” I apologize for the error and have corrected it.
DangerMouse says:
Thanks for the tip. I see also from your link that some of the series are on DVD. I have a large library of Chesterton that I have been wading through, but at times it’s hard to return to because, as you say, the quality is sometimes uneven (although I suspect that’s the case for any writer with a large library – especially of columns). I’ll have to check it out.
March 13, 2010, 1:19 pmFub says:
Philosophical entertainer and author Alan Watts was quite fond of Chesterton. Three pithy audio excerpts from Watts’ talks quoting Chesterton are available here:
Two “nonsense” poems.
“The Fish” poem.
What is the point of a goldfish?
March 13, 2010, 5:16 pmMarc Puckett says:
There’s a certain region in the (virtual and real) Catholic world where GKC is, as it were, raised to the altars: I’ve never become too enthused, myself. May try the 2005 Dale Ahlquist (sic?) discs at Netflix (which, alas, don’t stream).
March 13, 2010, 5:36 pmanonymous says:
If anyone is undeserving of hagiography, it’s this vile anti-Semite. The Chesterton supporters who whitewash his anti-Semitism may be even more vile.
March 13, 2010, 6:01 pmLester Hunt says:
Chesterton wrote one of the most enlightening and useful essays ever on the moral function of literature: “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls.” You can find it on line here:
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/penny-dreadfuls.html
As to his anti-Semitism and the precise degree of its awfulness I am unable to comment.
March 13, 2010, 6:31 pmJay says:
I think this is probably a fairer criticism of someone like Hilaire Belloc than Chestertson, who was probably prone to make casual anti-semitic remarks to the same extent as most Englishmen of his time, but also eventually supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
March 13, 2010, 6:55 pmBelloc, a favorite of the sort of politico-culturally (as opposed to just religiously orthodox) right-wing Catholic journals that buy full-page ads in every issue of National Review, certainly went off the deep end at times, though.
Nick says:
The advantage of writing so much that was bad, and so much that was good, is that it gives good critics so much to say. But even then, John Carey forgives him too much, and John Gross as well. What Gerald Bullet says is, “He not only hits the nail on the head: he goes on hammering, in a frenzy of argumentative zeal, long after the nail is driven home.” But again, Chesterton could do a lot of hammering without touching the nail. He was not an economist.
March 13, 2010, 7:06 pmBABH says:
I find much of Chesterton’s prose unreadable, but his poem “The Rolling English Road” is one of the best in the language.
March 13, 2010, 7:15 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Enh. I love Chesterton’s prose, and can hardly get enough of it. (Indeed, I’ve practically run out, which is a frightful thing to say about someone who wrote so much.)
I’ve gotten something out of all the Chesterton I’ve read. Which is a damned lot, from criticism of Dickens novels I don’t know, to frankly propagandistic writing for the Illustrated London News during the Great War and beyond it. (Actually, those wartime columns are fascinating, not just for the Chesterton, but for the bits of German propaganda he quotes.)
BABH, seek out The Flying Inn, which is the original context of “The Rolling English Road.” It’s a very silly book in some ways, but I think Chesterton would count that a compliment. Anyway, if you’re in the mood for a well-written satire of everything from vegetarianism to teetotalism to model communities to Islam, here’s one.
March 13, 2010, 9:36 pmJason says:
Todd,
The fellow’s name who does these shows is Dale Ahlquist. He is the president of the American Chesterton Society. (chesterton.org) His book by the same name (“Apostle of Common Sense”) is an excellent introduction to Chesterton.
If folks like their Chesterton in small servings, there’s no better way to encounter him than with a subscription to Gilbert! magazine, published by the American Chesterton Society. It always includes at least three short Chesterton essays, and dozens of great Chesterton quotes. The magazine is free with membership in ACS.
By the way, the accusation that Chesterton was an anti-semite is a foul calumny. One whole issue of Gilbert! was devoted to debunking this nonsense.
March 13, 2010, 9:51 pmAnderson says:
Crooked Timber had a Chesterton thread the other day, and what struck me was how practically everyone, regardless of religiosity or affection for other Chesterton works, agreed that The Man Who Was Thursday is a total hoot.
I’ve picked it up & started on it (wish I’d brought it to Vermont), and I’m seeing why. Available in a nice Barnes & Noble reprint for like $7, too.
March 14, 2010, 12:28 amHieronymous says:
Is it considered bourgeois and hopelessly unfashionable for one to admit his love for Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse? Still makes the hairs stand on the back of my neck when I read that poem.
March 14, 2010, 1:55 amHow to Win Love Back With Common Sense | Relationship Breakup And Making Up says:
[...] The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » G.K. Chesterton, The … [...]
March 14, 2010, 7:17 amCowardly Creep says:
Was Chesterton a vile anti-Semite? Consider 3 examples from Chesterton’s 1920 book “The New Jerusalem.”
March 14, 2010, 11:48 am(1) But let there be one single-clause bill; one simple and sweeping law about Jews … by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty … that every Jew must be dressed like an Arab. … Let him preach in St. Paul’s Cathedral but let him preach there as an Arab.
Vile?
(2) … Shylock … regards usury as normal. In that word is the whole problem of the popular impression of the Jews. … the worst of all cures is to ignore the disease.
Vile?
(3) … Jews and gipsies … Both races are in different ways landless, and therefore in different ways lawless.
Vile?
OperationCounterstrike says:
The Father Brown stories are nice but I have thought GKC was overrated ever since I read THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY.
Besides, he was way too fat. Very bad example to his generation. PG Wodehouse once described a loud crash as “a sound like Chesterton falling on to a sheet of tin”.
March 14, 2010, 5:01 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Cowardly Creep,
Chesterton’s point about Jews (and, yes, there was one, and he hammered at it over decades in all sorts of small ways, and there’s no earthly point in pretending that it isn’t there) boils down to your (3). He thought that a stateless people that nonetheless feels itself to be “a people” is a dangerous thing. He wanted loyalties tied to places, rather than to similar people wherever they might be. He hated the idea of the cosmopolitan, and proselytized against that maybe more than anything else over decades.
In short, his trouble with the Jews was that they were stateless, and acted (in his opinion) as stateless people perforce act — as tribespeople rather than citizens.
His account of his visit to the Holy Land I haven’t yet read; but so far as I can distill his attitude towards Jews from everything else, I’d say that he thinks they’ve been badly warped by landlessness. IOW, rather a pro-Zionist than an anti-Semite.
March 14, 2010, 5:53 pmGaltish bus driver says:
So are any of these episodes on YouTube? Or is there any other means of watching the videos online?
March 14, 2010, 6:41 pmMonday Highlights | Pseudo-Polymath says:
[...] Chesterton. [...]
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March 15, 2010, 9:56 amwvufan says:
The Napoleon of Notting Hill captures a love for a particular kind of human historical diversity that lies at the heart of conservatism but that is rarely articulated.
March 16, 2010, 1:57 pmRobert Smith says:
Thank you. I don’t know about bourgeois, but I am hopelessly unfashionable. Some time ago I found a copy of the Chesterton’s “Complete Poems” and I believe that is my favorite in it. Reading his description of King Alfred’s vision of the Virgin Mary is almost like having a numinous, religious experience oneself. But I love best the battle of the bards between Alfred and the Danish nobles.
March 16, 2010, 1:59 pmTitus says:
Mirabile dictu — I never thought I’d see evidence of a Chesterton reader on V.C.
March 17, 2010, 10:35 amElaine Arrowood says:
Thanks for posting this, it’s just what I was googling. This is why I like blogs, you get a personal opinion from someone rather than a corporation trying to sell you on something, or an idea. I’ll be reading your blog more often!
March 18, 2010, 1:33 pm