All Things Considered

G. K. Chesterton is well known as a novelist, essayist, storyteller, poet, philosopher, theologian, historian, artist, and critic. He's less well-known as a journalist these days, yet all evidence indicates that he viewed his work for the various newspapers as his primary raison-de-etre. Therefore anyone interested in exploring the works of this colossal genius should include a sampling of his newspaper columns along with all of his other brilliant books. "All Things Considered" brings together about thirty columns that Chesterton wrote for the London Daily News in the years before World War I. There's no theme here; as the title suggests, this is a hodgepodge that wanders over everything imaginable. The only unifying thread is high quality. Chesterton writes about politics. In an essay on canvassing, he ponders some unusual double standards. We mere mortals cannot even offer our fellow citizens food for their vote. Politicians, on the other hand, can allow bribes to run into the stratosphere. We also can't threaten each other. The MPs, however, can threaten the downfall of civilization. Lukring behind this apparent hypocrisy is the apparent lunacy of expecting the power-hungry to be the most moral voluntarily, even as the crack down on the rest of us. Chesterton writes about daily annoyances. While on vacation, he learns that his beloved home at Battersea has been flooded. Far from despairing, he sees it as a chance to look at that home in a new light. Could it be that our daily lives have grown so boring and monotonous that we barely see the things around us at all? Maybe a forced change of scenery is the only thing that can make us look at daily life anew. Chesterton writes about literature. He ponders a copy of The Eatansville Gazette, a newspaper that's supposed to exist only within the fictional world of Dickens' "Pickwick Papers." Moreover, the imaginary rag was a vile and repulsive publication; why would anyone want to drag it into reality? It seems that two distinct towns are vying to be recognized as the model for Eatansville. In doing so, Chesterton notes, they are trivializing the meaning of the book. There's lots more considered in "All Things Considered." But while every essay here is amusing and almost everyone is a masterpiece, the selections in this book are by no means higher quality that average for Chesterton's career. Pondering that fact, you may well decide that you have to track down all 4,000 of Chesterton's newspaper columns the minute you finish this little selection.

About the Author :
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox." Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories-first carefully turning them inside out." For example, Chesterton wrote "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." Chesterton is well known for his reasoned apologetics and even some of those who disagree with him have recognized the universal appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton, as a political thinker, cast aspersions on both liberalism and conservatism, saying, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify such a position with Catholicism more and more, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism. George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton's "friendly enemy" according to Time, said of him, "He was a man of colossal genius."