GK Chesterton

>>9930846
I like him in general. Both his books on Dickens and Vic Lit are swell, and are the last books I read by him maybe a year ago. Read all the Father Browns when a kid, Thursday and Notting Hill, Orthodoxy and Heretics when in school.
>in before the Chesterton Hater.. arrives....

>>9930846
I want him to come back from the dead and bitchslap Sam Harris

>>9930975
Chesterton pretty much dealt with a whole legion of Harris-like types in his own day, to the extent that you can use his writing to refute Harris even now.

The Man Who Was Thursday manages to blend religious themes in a detective in a very unobstrusive way.

I've read the first 4 stories in the innocence of father brown and enjoyed them.
His racism/antisemitism is very off putting though and makes me not like the man himself.
Is he like that in his other books? Or was he just writing those in for his audience?

>>9930846
I've read a great deal of his stuff, and I have got to say, it is just about as cozy as literature has ever gotten, for me anyway. Was turned on to him during a spiritual crisis (full disclosure: he basically converted me to Catholicism -- Orthodoxy, Heretics, and The Everlasting Man are VERY clever) and stuck around for his comfy mysteries. Just finished The Guild of Queer Trades (or something like that) and it was a great ride. Highly recommend.

>>9931059
This is very apt.

>>9930846
He is very witty, hollow but witty and comfy hes the kind of person who will convert/ give Epiphanies to someone who want to be Christian and who has hasnt bothered to study other religions (because other faiths are totally icky) or atheism.

Would still recommend though

I plan to read some GK because of his importance to Gene Wolfe

>>9930846
An entertaining writer with the clarity of thought to make you look at the modern world in an unusual way. I am not Catholic but he helped me become more receptive to Catholicism by explaining things from a fervent lay perspective. His way of approaching both his enemies and himself with humor is very welcome and lightened me up a little bit.

I generally prefer his nonfiction to his fiction--the fiction feels like it all started as nonfiction and then he wrapped a thin plot around it. The Father Brown stories are great Sunday afternoon reading, though.

>>9931270

Hollow how?

>>9931270
I think sometimes he elects to be hollow and poetic, rather than deep and prosaic. His flashes of scholarly brilliance betray what I would characterize as a staid hand. His critique of comparative religion, for example, tells me that he is aware of what he might have done (for instance: to impress people like you), but likes rather to pull intellectual punches and throw witticism haymakers.

>>9931208
What specific instances do you mean? I'm trying to think of overt racism in Chesterton and it escapes my memory