/lit/ - Literature

It's interesting that Chesterton seems to be something of a writer's writer. A lot of the great writers of the 20th Century held him in high esteem, especially his short stories, his novels, and his poetry. All the Inklings loved him, especially Lewis and Tolkien. Gene Wolfe loved him, too. Even Borges loved him.

Have you found Chesterton to be a great writer, /lit/?

Distributism is also an attempt by the Church to find an alternative both to capitalism and to communism. There's been some recent work done on it again, apparently. Chesterton and Belloc were really into it.

In general Chesterton feels like he's swung back around to being underrated. About a decade ago he was all the rage with the "trad" set and the new converts to Catholicism while Benedict was still Pope. Then he started to get overplayed and overwrought, and people started to put him down.

Nowadays I don't see him nearly as much in literary circles, on /lit/ or on social media, which may be just as well. I feel like his quality speaks for itself and maybe it's better if he's not some hip, of-the-moment writer.

I will say that, paradoxically, I think I like his writing on religion the least of his stuff. His social commentary in his essays is great, and his short stories and poems are sublime. I think trying to pigeonhole Chesterton as some kind of Catholic apologist doesn't do him justice, and actually serves to deemphasize the most interesting things in his catalog.

Congratulations, OP, I don't have many good recommendations because I'm still looking to find my future wife myself. But Chesterton wrote a great essay once on the family as an institution:

http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/heretics/ch14.html

Ironically, Chesterton was fatter than both of those dudes yet he was one of the most prolific writers in the history of the English language.

AND he wrote fantasy, too. Among numerous other things.