Customer Reviews

Chesterton

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Chesterton is one of the most towering intellectual writers of the 20th century. Garry Wills does an amazing feat in exploring the literary development of Chesterton (instead of a normal biography as the events of one's life.) Reading Wills' book really illuminates the genius of Chesterton through his works and is a must read for all Chesterton fans.

G.K. Chesterton has to be one of the most towering figures of the 20th Century. He has a paradoxical quote for almost every subject. This, however, is not a typical biography of events tempered with anecdotes to keep the reader's interest. Rather, Garry Wills ventures to chart Chesterton's intellectual development through his works. After reading Wills' [literary] biography, you have to wonder how society has forgotten perhaps the greatest writer of prose, not to mention greatest mind, the past century has seen. Read this book and marvel...

This work is written by a radical who opposes Church teachings. Wills allows his own opinions to influence his scholarship. See much better accounts by Chesterton himself, Ahlquist, or many other reliable biographers.

There's no new ground covered here, which is a major flaw for a work by an "historian; moreover, the author's writing style is hackneyed, and that's in its most readable passages. Also, Chesterton was an Orthodox Catholic, where the author of this work is not - their perspectives are at polar ends. Chesterton probably would have been appalled to have such an adversary of the Church to be so bold as to write about his life.

If you want to know Chesterton read his "Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton".