Heretics/ Orthodoxy Nelson's Royal Classic [Hardcover]

G. K. Chesterton (Author)

Book Description

Series: Nelson's Royal Classics | Publication Date: February 15, 2000

Classic literature by famous Christian authors. Each book is richly detailed in an upscale package, uniquely designed for gift-giving and for collecting a personal classic library.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (February 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785242619
• ISBN-13: 978-0785242611
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,952,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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112 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Widsom, Variety, and Humour, July 3, 2000

By 

Patrick A Daley (Fredericton, New Brunswick) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heretics/Orthodoxy (Nelson's Royal Classics) (Hardcover)

There are good, and not so good, reviews of Orthodoxy already, none for Heretics. So I will deal with the latter, only. I have the John Lane edition, 1905.

Heretics is somewhat neglected in Chesterton's oeuvre, possibly because it is an early work (1905), and many of the writers discussed are out of fashion now. Yet, I believe Heretics contains not only his best writing, but it already establishes the main themes of his life's work.

Technically, it is a book of literary criticism, but from an unusual point of view, that of his subjects' philosophy.

"I am not concerned with Shaw as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive; I am concerned with him as a heretic--that is to say, a man whose philosophy is solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong." (p. 22)

Brilliant though he was, Shaw expected reality to conform to an inhuman ideal:

"He has all the time been silently comparing humanity with something that was not human, with a monster from Mars, with the Wise Man of the Stoics, with the Economic Man of the Fabians, with Julius Caesar, with Siegfried, with Superman. Now, to have this inner and merciless standard may be a very good thing, or a very bad one, it may be excellent or unfortunate. but it is not seeing things as they are." (pp. 62-63)

This is excellent writing, whether we entirely agree or not. It may be a little unfair to Shaw, but it is fair to life.

Chesterton is often called an optimist. But he knew the other side, as anyone reading Alzina Stone Dale's life, The Outline of Sanity, can find out. Joy in living, good beer, conversation, balance, sanity, these were achievements, not just nature.

I have never read, or even found, the books of Mr. George Moore who wrote an autobiography. Chesterton attacks his egoism, the interest in the world as related to his own temperament:

"We should really be much more interested in Mr. Moore if he were not quite so interested in himself. We feel as if we were being shown through a gallery of really fine pictures, into each of which, by some useless and discordant convention, the artist had represented the same figure in the same attitude. 'The Grand Canal with a distant view of Mr. Moore," "Effect of Mr. Moore through a Scotch Mist,' 'Mr. Moore by Firelight,' 'Ruins of Mr. Moore by Moonlight,' and so on seems to be the endless series." (pp. 131-132)

That has to be one of the funniest sentences ever written, and I could barely type it for laughing. A bit later on the page, Chesterton gives his vision of originality:

"Thinking about himself will lead to trying to be the universe; trying to be the universe will lead to ceasing to be anything. If, on the other hand, a man is sensible enough to think only about the universe; he will think about it in his own way. He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will see the grass as no other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man has ever known."

There is no space to mention all the wonderful writing in Heretics. I will mention his often expressed view of the narrowness of the larger world, where one can choose one's companions, as opposed to the nation, the neighborhood or the family, where one has to take people the way they are, with all their foibles.

"The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day he was born." (p. 190)

As always, Chesterton's ideas are eminently discussable! No commentary of mine could do justice to the variety, wisdom, and good humour in this book. The best thing would be to find a copy and read it.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another perspective, November 12, 2001

By 

Mister Twister (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heretics/ Orthodoxy Nelson's Royal Classic (Hardcover)

Chesterton, as the last representitive of a certain type of Englishman, is constantly at odds with the mores and assumptions of this modern world. For this reason he is probably more worth reading than any of his contemporaries, even Shaw and Wells, because whereas we have largely inherited their ideas, in Chesterton you find that which would never have occurred to you. His writings on the subject of Democracy should be required reading: our society is almost completely ignorant on that subject, to its tremendous detriment. Nearly every essay in _Heretics_ is a revelation, and _Orthodoxy_ is practically a study in how subtle and surprising good sense can be.