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Clare Cannon's Reviews > The Everlasting Man
The Everlasting Man
by G.K. Chesterton
A brilliant study of comparative religion from earliest known human history to recent times. Chesterton looks at the essence of each religion and what makes them different to Christianity, so that you gradually realise that there is very little in which they can be compared, much less considered similar. There is no political correctness is what he says, if there were, the differences would have been neutralised until everything tasted more or less the same.
However, Chesterton may be best read in print and not listened to on audio - Audible's only version was appalling: it was read too fast and with a monotonous intonation that did little for the meaning of the words. The audio seemed to exaggerate (and make inaccessible) Chesterton's repetitive-in-reverse style, for example "Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy." This type of explanation needs to be pondered rather than raced over, which made the audio impenetrable and hard to follow.
Even though I probably didn't catch it all, what I caught planted something profound in my soul. Reviewed for www.GoodReadingGuide.com
by G.K. Chesterton
Clare Cannon's review
bookshelves: adults, non-fiction
Aug 23, 2011
bookshelves: adults, non-fiction
Read from November 19 to December 11, 2011
A brilliant study of comparative religion from earliest known human history to recent times. Chesterton looks at the essence of each religion and what makes them different to Christianity, so that you gradually realise that there is very little in which they can be compared, much less considered similar. There is no political correctness is what he says, if there were, the differences would have been neutralised until everything tasted more or less the same.
However, Chesterton may be best read in print and not listened to on audio - Audible's only version was appalling: it was read too fast and with a monotonous intonation that did little for the meaning of the words. The audio seemed to exaggerate (and make inaccessible) Chesterton's repetitive-in-reverse style, for example "Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy." This type of explanation needs to be pondered rather than raced over, which made the audio impenetrable and hard to follow.
Even though I probably didn't catch it all, what I caught planted something profound in my soul. Reviewed for www.GoodReadingGuide.com
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Quotes Clare Liked
“Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgements; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of
which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and
already weary of hearing what he has never heard.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and
already weary of hearing what he has never heard.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“But when fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to recover
the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we
must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural.
Things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so great as are here considered, whatever our view of them,
contempt must be a mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of
imagination; the imagination that can see what is there.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we
must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural.
Things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so great as are here considered, whatever our view of them,
contempt must be a mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of
imagination; the imagination that can see what is there.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“Man does not necessarily begin with despotism because he is barbarous, but very often finds his way to despotism because he is civilised. He finds it because he is experienced; or, what is often much the same thing, because he is exhausted”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“Classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Reading Progress
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booklady
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Dec 12, 2011 01:54PM
Concur! G.K. does need to be read in print. I think it must be the density of his writing. Every sentence is so packed with powerful thoughts and ideas, you need to take your time with him. And yet, I also find myself enjoying Blackstone's audio versions of his books, especially the ones read by Frederick Davidson.
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I'll look out for one by Frederick Davidson - I have enjoyed some of his other readings. I'm about to try Orthodoxy read by Simon Vance, he is a wonderful reader so hopefully it's a different experience altogether. Meanwhile I think Chesterton is now dominating my quote collection.
