Come To Think of It

by G.K. Chesterton

Very good condition

272 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1977

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

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

For 31 years, from 1905 to 1936, G. K. Chesterton wrote a weekly essay for the Illustrated London News. He wrote about anything; a current political issue, a new book, what he found in his pocket, the problem with modern man , French cooking, psycho-analysis, Dickens, Auden, hell, heaven or anything else.

The topic didn't really matter much because he tended to wander off to whatever thought came to mind. For example, this 1931 collection of those essays includes "On the Mythology of Scientists" which ends up as a discussion of metaphors and ends with, "Let us all agree that every Friday we will do without metaphors as without meat. I am sure it would be good for intellectual digestion." (Which is, of course, rich since Chesterton glories in clever metaphors. He thinks in metaphors.)

Every couple of years Chesterton released books of his ILN essays. As he got older the essays tended to get less whimsical and wrestled more with issues of religion and politics.

He is just so damn clever. He starts his discussion of what people would do if they won the lottery with, "Philanthropist would give it to the deserving poor. Christians would give it to the undeserving poor." It also illustrates his type of Christianity.

Or, how about this? "The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do it without destroying the health of the mind." ( This is a risk Chesterton never took.)

Or, he makes a funny argument that one of George Bernard Shaw's theories would support cannibalism, which he summarizes by explaining, "He complains that we are still half-baked savages. He may well look forward to the happy day when we shall be completely baked savages."

Like all of us, he is not perfect. He begins his discussion of the American Civil War by referring to "an effective film called The Birth of a Nation" and recommending Claude Bower's book on the reconstruction, "The Tragic Era.". They were the leading racist movie and book on reconstruction.
It leads to an ignorant and dishonest discussion of the post-war South.

[Evan Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

So my father in law, several years before I ever knew him or his daughter, enjoyed searching for Chesterton first editions while he was on vacation in England. He found a first edition of this book while he was there, and when he found out that I was a big Chesterton fan, he gifted me this book, which was quite nice of him.

Like a lot of Chesterton, this one I think is best taken in small bites. So what ended up working best for me to finally finish this one was to read one or two each evening as kind of an evening devotional before bed.

His topics are quite wide-ranging in this book, and I think a lot of it would have made little sense to me if I did not have a BA and MA in History to at least have some clue of what he was referring to.

But as always, Chesterton's classic wit, charm, and heart are on full display. He's not spot on about everything (in particular his bad take after watching The Birth of a Nation), but as I have maintained for years having read many of his books, I just feel like my mind gets cleansed when I read his works. I think if the world tried to live as he suggests, we would all be in a much better place. Of course I don't agree with him about everything (I consider myself a feminist for example), but even the positions that he takes about which I disagree to some degree he takes with good reason and in a spirit exuding true care for actual people.

It's funny to me to sometimes read reviews about him that accuse him of sophistry or just being full of fancy turns of phrase. If you actually read anything about who he really was or how he lived his life, I think you would see that he was incredibly genuine person concerned chiefly with what might be called Christian common sense.

I would still recommend lots of other Chestertons before this one, but it was a delight for me to read it, and I will keep reading Chesterton until I die.

[Abigail Drumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed this collection of Chesterton essays. There was more of a focus on literature (see especially "On Dickens and After"), in addition to the historical rabbit trails that I've come to expect from his work.

The religious pieces weren't among Chesterton's best, in my opinion, but the ones on science and America were fascinating. See, for example, "On Abraham Lincoln," in which this analysis appears:

Lincoln was most certainly not a man Bound To Succeed. For the greater part of his life he looked much more like a man Bound To Fail. Indeed, for that matter, a great many of his cold and uncomprehending colleagues, right up to the very end of the Civil War, thought he really was a man bound to fail.

If you were to read just one essay from this collection, I'd recommend "On Loneliness."