All I Survey: A Book of Essays

by G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, biography, Christian apologetics, 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 the following:
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".

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

280 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.

He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a time in the 1970s when I read everything I could find by G.K. Chesterton. Now, fifty years later, I am rediscovering Chesterton and finding him every bit as good as when I was young. His All I Survey: A Book of Essays is a collection of his later essays, probably mostly from The Illustrated London News.

What pleased me most about these essays was the author's good humor, irrespective of the subject. (Sometimes, but only in his fiction, Chesterton will deviate from the level-headedness of the essays.) Irrespective of how the reader is feeling, there is no better balm for hard times than curling up with a book of GKC's essays.

Here, for instance, is a selection from his essay "On Negative Morality":

If no other veto is laid upon us except 'Do not wake the baby', it follows that any silent and stealthy occupation, such as directing a smooth and soundless flow of treacle into the works of the piano, or cutting off all the hair of all the little girls next door and turning it into artificial beards for private theatricals — it follows, I say, that all these mute but active forms of energy were tacitly permitted.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse collection of his essays. He hits on the Teutonic theories of his day; how rebels often fail to realize that what they are revolting against was the rebellion of its day; war memorials; Mount Rushmore (if you read between the lines); the writing of poetry; what women have done throughout history; and the folly of young men blaming old men for World War I.

There's a certain edge to the last from historical events:

I think this worth mentioning now, for a simple reason. We are already drifting horribly near to a New War, which will probably start on the Polish Border. The Young Men have had nineteen years in which to learn how to avoid it. I wonder whether they do know much more about how to avoid it than the despised and drivelling Old Men of 1914. How many of the Young Men, for instance, have made the smallest attempt to understand Poland? How many would have anything to say to Hitler, to dissuade him from setting all Christendom aflame by a raid on Poland? Or have the Young Men been thinking of nothing since 1914 except the senile depravity of the Old Men of that date?

[Abigail Drumm · Rating 3 out of 5]

All I Survey has the usual good of Chestertonian essays. It's comparable, I think, to All Things Considered (my review of that collection is here), with additional content on military (e.g., "On Old Men Who Make Wars"), political (e.g., "On Fate and a Communist," "On the Staleness of Revolt"), and social history (e.g., "On Romanticism and Youth").

[Rick Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking and hilarious as always.