The resurgence of the subversive G. K. Chesterton

David Paul Deavel, an associate editor of LOGOS: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture and a contributing editor to Gilbert Magazine, traces the 25-30 year history of the rediscovery and renewed appreciation of Chesterton:

A prophet is never welcome in his own hometown. For a long time after the tumult of the Sixties, G. K. Chesterton's writings seemed to have lost a welcome anywhere, except, perhaps, among the detective fiction enthusiasts who have kept the Father Brown tales in circulation continuously on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Denis J. Conlon, an English literary scholar who has specialized in Chesterton for many years, much of Chesterton's work is still out of print and hard-to-get in his own merry England. A friend of mine studying in Rome a few years ago told me that the English and Irish Catholic seminarians he met almost universally regarded Chesterton a pre-modern, pre-Vatican II embarrassment. The situation was about the same in America for a long time. As of 1985 there were probably fewer than ten of Chesterton's books in print, and those were, aside from his detective fiction, mostly published by small and often obscure Catholic presses.

The situation was bound to change, however, as this particular prophet still had his faithful remnant, about thirty-five of whom (at most) met throughout the Eighties and early Nineties in Milwaukee every year and exchanged news and views in a little rag called the Midwest Chesterton News. On the more scholarly side, Ian Boyd, a priest and literary scholar, had since 1974 been running the Chesterton Review, a literary quarterly that printed forgotten pieces by Chesterton as well as scholarly essays on his life, thought, and interlocutors. Ignatius Press, a small but growing outfit run by Joseph Fessio, sj (one of Joseph Ratzinger's doctoral students), decided to publish a collected works with scholarly introductions and footnotes that will eventually number roughly 50 volumes. And newly emerging publications like Crisis, New Oxford Review, and First Things quoted Chesterton incessantly and sometimes ran articles about him. He even began popping up in Christianity Today, where he had fans in Philip Yancey and Charles Colson.

Here one might briefly note the role of Christian rock in the revival of Chesterton in America. One of the younger people traveling to Milwaukee in those lean years was a young Baptist named Dale Ahlquist. While in college in the late Seventies, Ahlquist spent some time at the home of his sister and then brother-in-law working for the summer. His sister's husband, the so-called godfather of Christian rock, was the late Larry Norman. Norman found Ahlquist reading a book by C. S. Lewis and asked if he was familiar with Chesterton. Upon discovering that he wasn't, Norman cryptically remarked that after reading Chesterton one doesn't even "need" Lewis anymore.

Read the entire piece on the Books & Culture site. Ahlquist's interview with Larry Norman is available online.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Excerpts and Articles

• Chesterton and Orthodoxy | Carl E. Olson and Dale Ahlquist
• Seeing With the Eyes of G.K. Chesterton | Dale Ahlquist
• Recovering The Lost Art of Common Sense | Dale Ahlquist
• Common Sense Apostle & Cigar Smoking Mystic | Dale Ahlquist
• Chesterton and the "Paradoxy" of Orthodoxy | Carl E. Olson
• The Attraction of Orthodoxy | Joseph Pearce
• The Emancipation of Domesticity | G.K. Chesterton
• The God in the Cave | G.K. Chesterton
• What Is America? | G.K. Chesterton
• Mary and the Convert | G.K. Chesterton
• Chesterton and Saint Francis | Joseph Pearce
• Chesterton and the Delight of Truth | James V. Schall, S.J.
• The Life and Theme of G.K. Chesterton | Randall Paine | An Introduction to The Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton
• Hot Water and Fresh Air: On Chesterton and His Foes | Janet E. Smith
• ChesterBelloc | Ralph McInerny

Comments

[Mark Brumley]

I'm amused about the recent coincidence of references to G.K. Chesterton, Dale Ahlquist, and Christian rocker Larry Norman in my life.

The other night (as you know, Carl, because I emailed you about it) I was looking online for something on Chesterton, which led me to a reference to an interview by Dale Ahlquist of his former brother-in-law Larry Norman about Chesterton.

I vaguely remembered talking to Dale about the interview a couple of years ago. Somehow the Gilbert! publication of the interview escaped me. So I searched for the interview online and found it. Then David Paul Deavel wrote his article on Chesterton's return at Books & Culture and to what did he refer? Dale's interview with Larry Norman about Chesterton, of course.

How funny.

The Norman interview is ... well, Normanesque. I think he gets Muggeridge wrong. Early in Muggeridge's conversion process he may have been as LN describes. But I think as his conversion deepened, his attachment to Catholic doctrine deepened.

C.S. Lewis also gets short-changed in the LN interview. Not everything of value in Lewis is present in Chesterton. What's more, Norman is somewhat dismissive of Lewis' writings--which leaves me wondering how well he understood them.

Still, as usual, LN's comments are well worth the read.

[Nick Milne]

Norman cryptically remarked that after reading Chesterton one doesn't even "need" Lewis anymore.

I agree with Mark. This is a gross exaggeration, and does ill service to both men. Indeed, to be frank, as much as I value Chesterton's Catholicity and luminous prose, as time has gone by I've found myself returning more and more often to CSL than to GKC. There's a furious seriousness to Jack's work that stands up somewhat better than the more playful elements in Chesterton's, I think, and while I own many books by and about both, it's Lewis (60 volumes) that takes precedent over Chesterton (about 25).

Perhaps I identify more with Lewis because he was an academic. As great as Chesterton was - and as instrumental as he was in bringing me into the Church in the first place - he could never have written An Experiment in Criticism or Studies in Words, much less the essential The Discarded Image or the unjustly ignored English Literature in the Sixteenth Century. There's too much in them that is precise, and sober, and quiet, rather than ranging, and intoxicating, and boisterous. Still, Chesterton easily has him beat in poetry, both in terms of quality and scope of output. Jack's Dymer is good, but it's no Ballad of the White Horse.

I guess it's the case that Chesterton brought me inside the walls, while Lewis helps shore them up.

[Mark Brumley]

Each writer has things he brings to the table that the other doesn't. It isn't helpful to pit them against each other.

Sometimes LN would say things that seemed intended to be provocative--to get people thinking or talking. This seems to be such a case. He can't really have read Lewis carefully and come away with the outlook he did.

[Mark Brumley]

Also, so as not entirely to sidestep Deavel's article, he has this very ironical line: "Here one might briefly note the role of Christian rock in the revival of Chesterton in America."

It is hilarious to think of that bastion of Christian Tradition, Chesterton, being helped to revival in America by Christian rock. No doubt, that business had GKC in beatific stitches.

[Dan Deeny]

Does anyone know where to find Bertrand Russell's and Jean Paul Sartre's writings on Muggeridge? Why do they hate him?

[M. L. Hearing]

Yes, what Nick Milne said. I started out with Lewis and then moved to Chesterton. And for a long time, I thought Chesterton the profounder of the two. But now I'm returning more and more to Lewis.

The advantage that Chesterton had (I think) is that somewhere in his early adulthood he just forgot about himself, but it seems to have taken Lewis quite a few years to learn to ignore himself.

But, in any case, I owe them both a great debt.

M. L. Hearing