/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1193435]

I was led to believe that this guy is a good writer. However, apparently all he does is write about how much he loves sucking Jesus dick. Very disappointed

[Anonymous No.1193444]

Shut the fuck up, Chesterton was fucking awesome.

And his position as a hard-line Catholic, in some ways, is the worst thing that ever happened to him - it's really not good that all his most ardent defenders and fans are conservative Catholics themselves, because all people remember is his apologetics and the religious dimensions of his work, which is (imo) only one facet of a very complex person. Read, for instance, much of his work in essays, and there's a lot of it that's not really explicitly or even implicitly religious.

[Anonymous No.1193456]

What did you read by him, OP? What was it about, besides Jesus' dick?

[Anonymous No.1193465]

>>1193444

>and there's a lot of it that's not really explicitly or even implicitly religious.
Everything he wrote was implicitly Catholic if not explicitly so. This is not a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.1193472]

I forgot /lit/ is half-atheist who reject anything with the word "God" in it let alone works devoted to him.
Must be fun being in high school

[OP !!ucs1XkdsbzT No.1193476]

>>1193456
I've read two books by him, everyone says they're his best. The Man Who Was Thursday and Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy basically says humans need religion to live in the world, Like you absolutely have to dumb yourself way down to live. Some thinker he was

The Man Who Was Thursday was more of a surprise shitfest. He draws you in and them ambushes you with Jesus

[Anonymous No.1193483]

>>1193465
I have a lot of sympathy for the catholic viewpoint, but i think viewing Chesterton as specifically and solely a Catholic writer is limiting, and does harm to our view of him. I do agree with you to some extent - Catholicism is in all his writing inasmuch as it's a tremendously important component of his worldview - but I would assign it primacy. There's much more to Chesterton than just Catholicism, even if he transferred all his feelings and beliefs into Catholicism, that his version of Catholicism has a huge amount of similarity to his worldview in general.

Chesterton is in many ways a very complicated figure - he's the sort of writer where much of his attraction comes from the complexity of the man himself, where much of his work is really drawing out his own personality - and it's difficult for me to say anything about him briefly. But, yeah, to sum up - Chesterton was a very complex person, his worldview had many elements in it, and a large part of it was Catholicism, but that wasn't all there was there.

[Anonymous No.1193494]

OP just mad because he knows Chsterton could debate his ass under the table in an argument about God

[Anonymous No.1193497]

>>1193476
Orthodoxy is his best work of religious writing, but if you're not religious, why the hell did you read it? And Man Who Was Thursday is a very good book, even if there is a good amount of religious symbolism at the end, sorry if you disagree with the views of the author (remember: if an author thinks something different from you, he is obviously wrong and an idiot and should be thrown out)

[OP !!ucs1XkdsbzT No.1193508]

>>1193497
Sorry, but I don't see the logic in understanding things through a bunch of Bronze Age bullshit myths. But that's just me

[Anonymous No.1193521]

>>1193483

>Chesterton as specifically and solely a Catholic writer is limiting

Catholic means 'universal'.

[Anonymous No.1193540]

>>1193521
there is a difference between small-c catholic and big-C Catholic, and although there is a relation between them obviously, the big-C Catholic church is only small-c catholic in a very specific sense.

[Anonymous No.1193539]

>>1193521

No, "catholic" means universal. "Catholic" means baby-touching sex-hating old men who want you to suffer.

[Anonymous No.1193561]

You should have started with Father Brown OP.

[Anonymous No.1193591]

>>1193508

>bunch of Bronze Age bullshit myths
>Probably reads or has no prejudice against, say, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Ovid, Homer, Gilgamesh etc.

Sure is hypocrites in here

[OP !!ucs1XkdsbzT No.1193629]

>>1193591
As for the epic poems, I don't know anyone who believes in them as a religion nowadays. If anyone does then they must be some pretty crazy people, and I would probably not want to read works written by such a crazy person.
But with the ancient Greek philosophers, only academics would take their work seriously. Any clear headed person can see they were full of shit. They're only important for understanding the history of western thought.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1193635]

>>1193629
>They're only important for understanding the history of western though

non-dionysian man detected

[Anonymous No.1193658]

Chesterton's Catholicism inspired his best writing. If you can't appreciate it, it's your fault.

[Anonymous No.1193673]

I wanted so badly to love this book. I wanted to pore over every page, learn everything it had to offer. I wanted it to be the best book I ever read. But I only made it about halfway before I just lost interest.

Am I just stupid, /lit/?

[Anonymous No.1193697]

G. K. Chesterton was awesome. He was a brilliant man, and if you can't get passed the fact that he was a Christian to appreciate his works, you're a sad human being. He could read the work of an atheist or a pagan and appreciate the good aspects of it, so why can't you accommodate the same respect for him?

[OP !!ucs1XkdsbzT No.1193698]

>>1193673
His books are pop-science. For me they were kind of boring to read, wish I had come to them younger

[Anonymous No.1193704]

>>1193673

No, science is boring. Ever noticed how many science majors are mad keen Red Hot Chilli Peppers fans?

[Anonymous No.1193709]

>mfw people can't appreciate a work regardless of the author's religion.