BitterSweetLife

Orthodoxy

I mentioned this book earlier, but it was the last book in a fairly long line of reviews, and it probably should have been the first. So once again I shove in front of you G.K. Chesterton's infamous book, Orthodoxy, the masterpiece with a title that has probably deterred readers ever since its publication...

I finally dipped into Chesterton proper after a period of anticipation (or possibly nervousness) spanning several years. I’d read The Man Who Was Thursday, but was still unprepared for Orthodoxy's ingenuity. If the mind is a think-tank, then some authors merely ruffle the surface. Chesterton thrashes up the depths. He’s an original thinker, mixing doses of hilarity with measures of sheer brilliance. He leaps from theme to theme and metaphor to metaphor with such speed and exuberance it’s sometimes hard to keep up.

Having done my best, however, I think this book will be formative. Chesterton’s visions of God’s mirth, of the earth as salvaged from a wreck, of the imaginative soul, of the dead endings of mere systems of thought—and the high-spirited mode in which he expresses them—are unique to him. The closest I come is Lewis, who readily admitted the influence of Chesterton in his own philosophy. This is a book to be read, then read again, mined for insight, pencil in hand. Needless to say, a Book a' da Year bid is already pending.