Dear Leo,
I've started reading G. K. Chesterton's book The Man Who Was Thursday. Have you read it? It's riveting. Yet, I have to admit: I'm sure I'm not catching all the references, and I'm certainly not understanding all the satire. Even so, what I find fascinating, and I'm sure G. K. meant it to be this way, is how the paradoxes are layered upon layer. It's as though Mr. Chesterton built a nested-Russian-dolls of ideas. It's as though he wants us to question ourselves at every turn. And yet, it's not for the sake of revealing there is nothing to know. The tone of Chesterton's writing is with such solid authority that the reader doesn't even have to assume there is such a thing as Truth; s/he is simply and immediately enlisted in the quest to discern Truth. The shock is in realizing we are not it's author!
I'm only a fourth of the way through the book at the moment, so I'll have to read more before I can comment further, except to say this: Chesterton wrote The Man Who Was Thursday in 1908. It was relevant in his day, and, I believe, even more so today.
More later,
Mack
I've started reading G. K. Chesterton's book The Man Who Was Thursday. Have you read it? It's riveting. Yet, I have to admit: I'm sure I'm not catching all the references, and I'm certainly not understanding all the satire. Even so, what I find fascinating, and I'm sure G. K. meant it to be this way, is how the paradoxes are layered upon layer. It's as though Mr. Chesterton built a nested-Russian-dolls of ideas. It's as though he wants us to question ourselves at every turn. And yet, it's not for the sake of revealing there is nothing to know. The tone of Chesterton's writing is with such solid authority that the reader doesn't even have to assume there is such a thing as Truth; s/he is simply and immediately enlisted in the quest to discern Truth. The shock is in realizing we are not it's author!
I'm only a fourth of the way through the book at the moment, so I'll have to read more before I can comment further, except to say this: Chesterton wrote The Man Who Was Thursday in 1908. It was relevant in his day, and, I believe, even more so today.
More later,
Mack
