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saraeliz's review against another edition
3.0
I believe it is good to "time travel" and listen to/read the opinions of other eras in order to realize how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. Chesterton's prose is always enjoyable to me, even if many of his opinions are ridiculously antiquated in the 21st century. I found it interesting that over 100 years later (this book was first published in 1910) men are still getting upset about women's hair styles--Chesterton among them--and that so many are still oblivious about the importance of a living wage, something even he thought an obvious solution to many of society's problems.
coysests's review against another edition
5.0
Честертън казва някои неща, които са били верни преди 110 години и си остават, за съжаление, също толкова верни днес. Едно нещо, което никога няма да разбера, е как консервативни кръгове хулят, че бил социалист (въпреки многократните критики към социалистите), сякаш е зло да имаш сърце за бедните. Хъдж и Гъдж умело работят заедно.
"That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed."
"That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed."
skylarh's review against another edition
4.0
G.K. Chesterton is such an amusing and clever writer that I do believe he could convince me of almost anything. Why, he nearly convinced me that women should never have bothered to obtain the right to vote. I am such an obstinate person, and so inclined to disagree with arguments even before I am certain that I disagree with them, that I am completely in awe of the skill of any writer who can make me half-agree with a position I do not, in fact, agree with. I’d say I tremble before the brilliance of Chesterton, but he’s far too jovial and entertaining for anyone to ever tremble before him.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.
I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about modern education, and I was also entertained by his musings on the domestic sphere and the differences between men and women, as rife with stereotypes as they may have been. (Alas, stereotypes arise for a reason, and, despite what it is politically popular to say, that reason is seldom ignorance, but more often experience.)
Not long ago, I read Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-home Moms, because I wanted to feel good about my current calling in life. I didn’t like the book because I wasn’t so much interested in watching working moms get torn down as I was interested in watching stay-at-home moms get built up. Fortunately, this one short selection from Chesterton did me more good than that entire book:
“When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home…But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheet cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute, I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I don’t even really know what this book is about. It seems to be all over the map. It’s about men, women, family, marriage, the home, politics, the right to vote, Calvinism, Mr. Shaw, specialism, commerce, Catholicism, tradition, the future, the past, modern education, socialism…oh, I remember what it’s about. “What’s Wrong with the World.”
The thing about Chesterton is that his insights seem surprisingly contemporary. Although he wrote in the early 1900’s, he might as well have been writing today. His barbs are as poignant for our generation as they were for his.
cburkenstock's review against another edition
3.0
I'd give it 3.5 if I could. Not my favorite Chesterton work, but worth the read, and worth revisiting.
carriedoodledoo's review against another edition
5.0
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly".
G.K. Chesterton is a clever, SMART writer, and something of a radical Christian. Neither "conservative" in the political sense, nor a socialist, he attacks institutions we take for granted--universal suffrage, for instance. I'm recommending this book to my husband.
Take him or leave him, you'll be glad you read him. I'm taking it!
G.K. Chesterton is a clever, SMART writer, and something of a radical Christian. Neither "conservative" in the political sense, nor a socialist, he attacks institutions we take for granted--universal suffrage, for instance. I'm recommending this book to my husband.
Take him or leave him, you'll be glad you read him. I'm taking it!
ehays84's review against another edition
4.0
It had been too long since I'd read a Chesterton. While I love reading Lewis and Tolkien more because they appeal to a more broad range of who I am as a reader, Chesterton is my intellectual and moral master. He has been rightly called, "the apostle of common sense." In this crazy, mixed-up world of 2018, I needed to read Chesterton more than ever.
This isn't my favorite Chesterton by any means because it is really mostly picking out what he considered to be wrong with England in 1900 and therefore he was often writing about specifics about which I know little, his words are, as usual, so true and so prophetic.
His essential point is that we have to start thinking about how society and politics should work by focusing on the right ideal--we can't just do something for the sake of doing something or even just to do something different than what we see as wrong in the world (his main complaint against socialism)--we have to know what is right what we want to achieve and go for it. The example he gives in the conclusion about the state wanting to cut off poor girls' hair because they have lice rather than actually fix the lice problem is a perfect way to think about what he means in one example.
From there, it all works backwards, and he gets briefly into his idea often called Distributivism, which is essentially the idea of breaking up large land holdings so that English families could actually own a small plot of land with a small house to run. His call is for classical Christian family values, but as always, he transcends any party politics or any attempt that others might make to put him in a box.
Despite his dated language, he is quite rightly against imperialism, and as an educator, his points about education I found illuminating and inspiring. I must always keep in mind what I really want for my students, wholistically speaking, and work backwards from that.
Now, probably the toughest and also in some ways the most interesting part for me was his lengthy discussion of gender issues. I would call myself a feminist, so by and large I disagree with him. Yet, I have to keep in mind, he was a Vatican I Catholic living in England in 1900. Also, his disagreement with women's suffrage or women's' roles outside the home are never, ever, done in any sort of denigrating way. Amazingly, I think he actually amplifies the dignity of women with his writing. Essentially, I think if patriarchy could be watched over and controlled by him, it would work well for all concerned, but that's just not how it could ever work. He may be the best version of patriarchy, but he was an idealist, and patriarchy is more woven into the fabric of society than I think he understood. And he was a gender essentialist anyway, so he's never going to approach any sort of feminism believing in that. I knew all this going in, which made it easier for me to think about.
I will probably do The Ball and the Cross next by him, but What I Saw in America appeals to me a lot. I really want to read his autobiography the most, and I do own a print copy of that, but I can't get it an audiobook, so I'm not sure when I will get to it.
This isn't my favorite Chesterton by any means because it is really mostly picking out what he considered to be wrong with England in 1900 and therefore he was often writing about specifics about which I know little, his words are, as usual, so true and so prophetic.
His essential point is that we have to start thinking about how society and politics should work by focusing on the right ideal--we can't just do something for the sake of doing something or even just to do something different than what we see as wrong in the world (his main complaint against socialism)--we have to know what is right what we want to achieve and go for it. The example he gives in the conclusion about the state wanting to cut off poor girls' hair because they have lice rather than actually fix the lice problem is a perfect way to think about what he means in one example.
From there, it all works backwards, and he gets briefly into his idea often called Distributivism, which is essentially the idea of breaking up large land holdings so that English families could actually own a small plot of land with a small house to run. His call is for classical Christian family values, but as always, he transcends any party politics or any attempt that others might make to put him in a box.
Despite his dated language, he is quite rightly against imperialism, and as an educator, his points about education I found illuminating and inspiring. I must always keep in mind what I really want for my students, wholistically speaking, and work backwards from that.
Now, probably the toughest and also in some ways the most interesting part for me was his lengthy discussion of gender issues. I would call myself a feminist, so by and large I disagree with him. Yet, I have to keep in mind, he was a Vatican I Catholic living in England in 1900. Also, his disagreement with women's suffrage or women's' roles outside the home are never, ever, done in any sort of denigrating way. Amazingly, I think he actually amplifies the dignity of women with his writing. Essentially, I think if patriarchy could be watched over and controlled by him, it would work well for all concerned, but that's just not how it could ever work. He may be the best version of patriarchy, but he was an idealist, and patriarchy is more woven into the fabric of society than I think he understood. And he was a gender essentialist anyway, so he's never going to approach any sort of feminism believing in that. I knew all this going in, which made it easier for me to think about.
I will probably do The Ball and the Cross next by him, but What I Saw in America appeals to me a lot. I really want to read his autobiography the most, and I do own a print copy of that, but I can't get it an audiobook, so I'm not sure when I will get to it.
reaganwaggoner's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
acnacb's review against another edition
4.0
“The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s”