A Curious Reflection
I've been reading Chesterton's Heretics this week and enjoying it in an offhand fashion. I will continue to say that I do not care for the man's style, I find him homey to the point of hokey and sometimes just overmuch. In the "Kipling" chapter of Heretics, Chesterton tries my patience with a long digression on the poetics of the name of Smith, and how it is the most poetic of names, hearkening back to the days of yore etc. etc. etc. Some may be charmed by these proses excurses--I bear with them in hopes that the point being made is worthy of the trip. Most of the time I think it would be better made in a simpler phrase. So that just says I don't like Chesterton's style and I doubt that I will ever grow to like it. This is not to discourage others with sensibilities different from my own, but simply to make clear that Chesterton is a hard row for me to hoe--I prefer R.H. Benson, Ronald Knox, and other contemporaries writing in a similar vein. I far prefer C.S. Lewis, for example. But, taking Chesterton with what I perceive as limitations and all, he is still more readable than the most readable of the slick writers today and a lot more entertaining than the vast majority of the "literary" writers today. Five minutes spent with Chesterton is worth all the Sebold and Franzen you can pack in around the clock.
