[PREV - DA_VINCI_FLU]    [TOP]

CALUMNY

                                            June 6-17, 2008

                                            Gilbert K. Chesterton
                                            born: 1874
                                            died: 1936
Re-reading G.K. Chesterton's "Father
Brown" stories, for the first time in       The Father Brown stories
a long time, I'm impressed by the           were written 1910 to 1936
constant rain of Christian propaganda;
there is many a smear of the rational           The Holmes stories
atheistic mind...                               ran 1887 to 1930.

   It's all so delicate it's                           FOOTNOTES_TO_HOLMES
   (usually) as inoffensive
   as Father Brown himself.      (At first. Even humility can be a little
                                 grating after awhile.  The arrogance of a
  SPOILERS                       Holmes is easier to believe.)

One of the early ones
leads off with a lot of
"good-natured" jibes at     Chesterton apparently had mixed
those-darn-socialists       feelings about socialism though,
                            with no great love of
                            capitalism, either.                 FLYING_STARS

In another the murderer turns out
to be a man-of-science type, who
has rationally decided to commit                      "The Wrong Shape"
murder because he believes his
victim is unhealthy and it will
make everyone involved happier       He is then surprised
including himself.                   by his sudden attack
                                     of remorse.


In still another, the villain is The French
Mind -- Chesterton still hasn't let them off          "The Secret Garden"
the hook for the French Revolution.



   In one of the odder cases, Chesterton
   keeps harping on the general uselessness            "The Invisible Man",
   of the British upper class, some of whom            the second in the
   were about to be robbed when Brown happened         series.
   on the scene. Now, anyone who ripped off
   the over-fed, under-exercised losers
   depicted in this story has a ready-made
   rationalization -- if not justification --
   and yet we're to believe that the thief           This is no doubt
   has an attack of conscience when                  intended as an
   confronted by Brown.  Why would anyone,           edifying paradox
   Brown included, care if someone stole the         which is supposed to
   silly pearl encrusted silver from these           say something about
   fools?                                            absolute morality...

                                                       A subject also
                                                       touched on in the
                                                       first of them:

                                                        THE_BLUE_CROSS

                                                            (Reading these
                                                            straight
       "People readily swallow the untested claims          through, one
       of this, that, or the other.  It's drowning          can see
       all your old rationalism and scepticism,             Chesterton
       it's coming in like the sea; and the name            re-using a
       of it is superstition. ...                           theme several
                                                            times in a row,
       "It's the first effect of not believing in           and then giving
       God that you lose your common sense ... "            it a rest.)

                The "Father Brown" character,
                in "The Oracle of the Dog",
                by G.K. Chesterton.
                Nash's Magazine December 1923

                                             FUNDAMENT


--------
[NEXT - CLATTER]