By Dale Ahlquist
If you want humor, read the comics. If you want history, grab a biography. If you want critique, read the critics. If you want theology, open your Bible. If you want philosophy, consult the sages. If you want them all, read Chesterton.
Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, shows us Chesterton and his brilliance in Common Sense 101: Lessons From G.K. Chesterton. In many ways this is a primer on Chesterton -- not so much on his life (although we do get a sense of the man) -- rather, Chesterton the thinker, the literary critic, the man who cast a spell of joy, who believed in "promiscuous charity," whose trade was words, and whose greatest weapon was the the pen attached to his brilliant mind.
The brilliance of this book is the thoroughness with which Dale Ahlquist is acquainted with G.K. Chesterton; Chesterton the Catholic, the thinker, the novelist, the art and literary critic, the man of the world, that is the world governed by God.
Quotes I reference below surface in the chapters which are a collection of the eclectic topics Chesterton addressed: Riddles of God, words, education, history, courage, puritans and pagans, feminism, science, the Catholic faith, and his marriage (to name a few). The latter subject -- and what Ahlquist reveals about Chesterton's views -- is worth the price of the book (see "Moments Filled With Eternity).
This book made me want to read more Chesterton than I have, especially to dig into the Father Brown series and open the pages of my copy of Chesterton's biography of Dickens. This is not a book to be hurried and the time devoted to it will reap benefits far in excess of the price you pay in time and money. The book draws its title in part from the chapter, "Recovering the Lost Art of Common Sense." Chesterton said,
"The first effect of not believing in God, is that you lose your common sense. p. 265
Ahlquist writes, "That means that in order for us to recover our common sense, we have to recover our faith" (p. 265). His chapter, "Recovering The Lost Art Of Common Sense" points us in that direction as it summarizes ten fundamental truths Chesterton believed. Reading this book and being exposed to those truths may not restore your faith, but it will certainly put you on the right path, and in traveling that path it will provide a healthy dose of common sense in large part because it will point you to Christ and to the Church.
The quotable Chesterton:
I will limit myself to a few quotes, but one should pick up this book for all the others I didn’t share. Perhaps, more importantly, for the context surrounding them which makes Chesterton's words the more prescient.
1. All evil began with some attempt at superiority. p. 16
2. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. . . . p. 20
3. When asked, "If you were stranded on a desert island with only one book, what book would you want it to be?" Chesterton quipped: "Thomas' guide to practical shipbuilding." p. 23
4. The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise on earth, is to fight a losing battle -- and not lose it. p. 25
5. The world will never lack want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. p. 27
6. Astonishment at the universe is not mysticism but it transcendental common sense. p. 38
7. Monogamy is romantic; it just happens to be merely practical, but “if ever monogamy is abandoned in practice, it will linger in legend and in literature. p. 41
8. In reference to Job, “The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." p. 43
9. The self is more distant than any star. p.45
10. The mere pursuit of health always leads to something unhealthy. p. 45
11. On Jack the Giant-Killer, and paradox of courage and danger, "He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he has to cut his way out, needs to combined a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. p. 46
12. Also about paradox and the riddles of life: There is no way out of danger except the dangerous way. p. 47
13. Thinking means connecting things. p. 48
14. The worshiper never feels taller than when he bows. p. 52
15. A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything. p. 61
16. Philosophy is always present in a work of art. p. 61
17. On love, "You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust." p. 63
18. We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. p. 69
19. The higher critics are wholly deficient in the highest form of criticism, which is self-criticism. p. 79
20. The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools is this: that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy. p. 104
21. It is the great paradox of the modern world that at the very time when the world decided that people should not be coerced about their form of religion, it also decided that they should be coerced about their form of education. p. 104
22. To say that the moderns are half-educated may be too complementary by half. p. 107
23. On history, “To compare the present and the past is like comparing a drop of water and the sea. p. 131
24. Theology is a product far more practical than chemistry. p. 182
25. Sin is in a man’s soul, not in his tools or his toys. p. 178
16. On marriage: I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and woman, as such, are incompatible. p. 255-6
Summary and Recommendation:
Ahlquist notes that "Chesterton said that we do not need a church that moves with the world; we need a church that will move the world. He added, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.“ As Ahquist writes, "G.K. Chesterton was a living thing who went against the stream."
Reading this book will help us to go with him. I highly recommend it.
About the Chesterton Bibliography . . .
Common Sense 101 also includes "AN ALMOST BRIEF, SLIGHTLY ANNOTATED, MOSTLY CHRONOLOGICAL CHESTERTON BIBLIOGRAPHY." These thirty-two pages are a gift to the reader. For those, like me, who may only be familiar with Chesterton's Orthodoxy, or The Everlasting Man,or perhaps mildly familiar with his Father Brown detective stories, this provides the reader with a more complete range of Chesterton‘s work. It is an exceptional resource.