29 June 2021
Well, it is not my first reading. Long ago, and once or twice since, I’ve read a short story of his in an anthology of fantasy and science fiction. But I had set out to read stories, not Chesterton, and while the story was curious enough to make me remember the author’s name, it did not cause me to seek him out.
My only subsequent encounters with Chesterton have been indirect. The odd mention here and there in various books or reviews or essays.
But last night, at a dinner party at C & J’s, Chesterton came up. C is quite fond of GKC, and thus his appearance was not surprising. Chesterton did not stay long, as he is only he and C have an acquaintance and so others can neither applaud or contest him, but we left the party with a volume of Chesterton in our hands. The book was called “In Defense of Sanity: The Best of GK Chesteron.” In the preface – the prefaces, the editors being such eminent GKC scholars that they were reluctant to blend their preferences – they hedged and hummed and hawed about the subjectivity of selecting ‘the best.’ However, they were not so embarrassed by their proclamation that they removed it from the title.
I approached the book with considerable interest. GKC is a famous author, and apparently particularly known for his essays. According to preface, Chesterton was notable not only for the quality of his prose, but for its quantity. Apparently Chesterton wrote over five thousand essays! This does make the task of selecting ‘the best’ more impressive – perhaps a suitable labor for a modern-day, bookishly-inclined Herculean figure. I wonder if, there being so many, produced with such fecundity, some have escaped? Do GKC scholars dream of discovering a new piece, as art dealers dream of an unknow Matisse or Picasso?
I turned to the first essay, but for reasons I don’t recall did not stay there. I went slightly farther into the book and found myself reading “On Certain Modern Writers,” or something like that. Of course ‘modern,’ in this context, means 1905, so I’m not sure who he is referring too, although he takes a poke or two a Nietzche. More generally, I do not know much about turn of the century literary culture, nor do I know much about England and London, GKC’s habitat. A smattering of references to Battersea and Ramsgate and East Side and other places suggest to me that I am missing things, perhaps important things. There is a pointed remark about someone going to, or at least coming back from, Ramsgate. I wondered if there should be an annotated version of his writings…
Nevertheless I read on, and more or less enjoyed his writing. It seemed a bit heavy too me, a bit tangled. He likes to make a point in many different ways, with varying examples. That’s what makes it feel heavy to me.
But I was struck by how he used words to give structure to the text. One thing he did was he repeated the construction ‘do <verb>’, as in “he does go here, and he does do this, and he does go thence at such and such a time.” While seemingly superfluous, he preceding ‘do’ serves to emphasize the verb. But more important is the repetition – initially twice within succeeding phrases in a sentence, and then recurring at sporadic intervals throughout the (long) paragraph, or even in later paragraphs. The distinctiveness of the phrase causes it to link back to its prior uses, linking them together. I think he did his in other places with other constructions, though I cannot bring examples to mind. But he does do a good job of putting a rhythmic or syntactic scaffolding within a paragraph.
I will have to look more closely to understand the examples and the work they are doing.