This very cool article on G.K. Chesterton's best book, The Everlasting Man, by John Zmirak, was in Inside Catholic last September. How does he suggest you read that book? Glad you asked.
Settle into a comfy chair with a decent supply of monastic beer, because you're in for a wild ride. In this easy book of medium length, Chesterton tries the impossible -- and nails it. A roistering tale of earthly life, and its fitful pilgrimage from the primordial ooze up through the conversion of Evelyn Waugh, The Everlasting Man is the ale-drinker's answer to Hegel.
"The ale-drinker's answer to Hegel." To quote Sam Gamgee, I like that! I wish I'd had this advice when I read The Everlasting Man. It is the first Chesterton book I ever read and it was rough going until I got to the chapter, "The Witness of the Heretics," when suddenly, with thunder clapping and lightening flashing, I suddenly got it. But if I'd had more beer to help me along, I'd have gotten it a lot sooner.
Zmirak says that, in teaching The Everlasting Man, he's found that men tend to appreciate Chesterton's style more than women. "I think those women who find Chesterton infuriating don't so much wish to disagree with him as to interrupt him," he says (emphasis in the original). Ha! The remedy, of course, is to read Chesterton alone in a quiet room -- and talk back to the book. Careful though. You might hear the book chuckling back at you.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
How did I miss this?
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7 comments:
I think the best approach is really to laugh with the book. And burgundy should also be rather acceptable. You might find it rather raucous if you invoke Belloc as well as Chesterton, but rest assured, it's a good time.
Its been far too long since I reread The Everlasting Man. Maybe I'll treat myself to it over the holidays.
I just finished The Everlasting Man and there's only one thing I can think to do next... start reading it again!
Only, this time with more beer.
I do get odd looks from my family once in a while when I let out with a belly-laugh in the middle of reading.
Next: The Outline of Sanity.
I happen to be reading this book now and while I find it challenging, it is so full of Truth. It is certainly not outdated.G.K Chesterton's writing is so rich! And yes, I am a woman. I support muscular Christianity whole-heartedly and this is what I find in Chesterton, Lewis, and yes, the rich tales of Tolkien. I long for this to return to our Church. I am afraid the heresy of 'feminism' has taken hold.
The Everlasting Man is my favorite book.
Among other things, it contains what is, in my opinion, the most cogent paragraph ever written on Marian devotion:
If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon my parish church representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by taking away the Child. One would think that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a parable. You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows as it is followed in history. We must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of Christ, or we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.
Thanks John. I re-read that whole chapter out loud every Christmas ("The God in the Cave," for those of you keeping score at home). It contains what is probably my all-time favorite Chesterton quote, this description of the Christ child in the manger: "The hands that made the sun and the stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle."
That whole chapter reads like it was written by a man composing a love letter, a man in the throes of deep, soul-shattering love.
Anonymous: welcome to the Blue Boar. If you want to write up your impressions of TEM, I'd be glad to post them.
Tim, Kevin, and Byron: ok, you've persuaded me to start reading it again. Beer in hand, of course.
Consider the surprise of the cows and the donkeys when they realized they were looking down on their Creator.
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