I Finished Reading Orthodoxy
I finally finished Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, and I must say, it has been one of the finer reads of my life... of course, I haven't read much, but my lack of experience does not compromise the book's wealth of it.
I have found this spiritual autobiography to be invigorating, confident, and humble in a way that has always been difficult for me to appreciate, what with my tendencies to be hyper-meek.
Although the book is very focused on presenting one line of arguments, which eventually won over Mr. Chesterton, it takes a multitude of opportunities to digress into smaller concerns. I have always loved this casual style of writing so long as the author admits to its being a tangent, and that's exactly what our writer does. Yet those tangents, as Chesterton demonstrates end up having a special role to play in the main focus of the book.
And so the book is humorous and serious because every point is linked to each other, and so supported, each link is free to be slack here and tight there. In this way, especially, it reminds of Eric, the dear friend who gave the book to me, with a man's responsibility to recommend and a child's excitement to share, a cool, calm voice and warm, passionate eyes.
Here be am intriguing quote from the book...
Most of the machinery of the modern language is labor-saving machinery- and it saves mental labor very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railways trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say...
'the social utility if the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment...'
You can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin,
'I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown and to say when Jones shall come out,'
you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obligated to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration.
-Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, pg. 121-122
The Peace of Christ To You!
Jake
I have found this spiritual autobiography to be invigorating, confident, and humble in a way that has always been difficult for me to appreciate, what with my tendencies to be hyper-meek.
Although the book is very focused on presenting one line of arguments, which eventually won over Mr. Chesterton, it takes a multitude of opportunities to digress into smaller concerns. I have always loved this casual style of writing so long as the author admits to its being a tangent, and that's exactly what our writer does. Yet those tangents, as Chesterton demonstrates end up having a special role to play in the main focus of the book.
And so the book is humorous and serious because every point is linked to each other, and so supported, each link is free to be slack here and tight there. In this way, especially, it reminds of Eric, the dear friend who gave the book to me, with a man's responsibility to recommend and a child's excitement to share, a cool, calm voice and warm, passionate eyes.
Here be am intriguing quote from the book...
Most of the machinery of the modern language is labor-saving machinery- and it saves mental labor very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railways trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say...
'the social utility if the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment...'
You can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin,
'I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown and to say when Jones shall come out,'
you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obligated to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration.
-Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, pg. 121-122
The Peace of Christ To You!
Jake