Alarms and Discursions

by G.K. Chesterton

This volume contains a collection of essays written by G. K. Chesterton. These essays were originally published in the 'Daily News', and cover a range of topics ranging from Gargoyles to strolls around Marble Arch. The essays contained herein “The Surrender of a Cockney”, “The Nightmare”, “The Telegraph Poles”, “A Drama of Dolls”, “The Men and His Newspaper”, “The Appetite of Earth”, “Simmons and the Social Tie”, “Cheese”, “The Red Town”, “The Furrows”, and many more. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, theologian, and biographer. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion, Classics, Politics, British Literature

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

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

[Sarah Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite quote:

"It is a mark of false religion that it is always trying to express concrete facts as abstract; it calls sex affinity; it calls wine alcohol; it calls brute starvation the economic problem. The test of true religion is that its energy drives exactly the other way; it is always trying to make men feel truths as facts; always trying to make abstract things as plain and solid as concrete things; always trying to make men, not merely admit the truth, but see, smell, handle, hear, and devour the truth. All great spiritual scriptures are full of the invitation not to test, but to taste; not to examine, but to eat. Their phrases are full of living water and heavenly bread, mysterious manna and dreadful wine. Worldliness, and the polite society of the world, has despised this instinct of eating; but religion has never despised it. When we look at a firm, fat, white cliff of chalk at Dover, I do not suggest that we should desire to eat it; that would be highly abnormal. But I really mean that we should think it good to eat; good for some one else to eat. For, indeed, some one else is eating it; the grass that grows upon its top is devouring it silently, but, doubtless, with an uproarious appetite."

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is every bit as brilliant as you'd expect from Chesterton; however, it sometimes feels as though he's scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of subject material. On the other hand, I appreciate the fact that Chesterton was such a prolific essayist who only repeated himself on the very rarest of occasions. ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS is well worth a read, but it lacks the impact of much of Chesterton's other work.

[Bryce Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some of the book inevitably feels out of date, due only to the fact that the particular squabbles of today aren't the squabbles of yesterday, what's more incredible is just how on point the majority of it is.

"The Man And His Newspaper" could have been penned about Fox News, and The Flat Freak captures the absurd emptiness of today's brand of conspicuous consumption favored by the one percent, better than any polemic I could name.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any collection of essays, the quality, insight, and applicability to modern life varies from snippet to snippet. The thing with Chesterton is that you must wade through the duller parts, as well as the now too out of date to be relatable portions, lest you possibly miss a brilliant gem of a page, or a paragraph, or merely a line. And there are a few such bright lights in Alarms and Discursions that make it worth the reading. His metaphorical depiction of heaven as a place where little boys can fight constantly and roughly for fun and never get hurt was an interesting take. As always, he has some insightful pokes to make at modern art and literature.

[Mark Nenadov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Some of my favorite Chesterton lines are found in here.

[Alyssa Bohon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful. I've read several collections if his essays and this is definitely a favorite. Many laughable and quotable moments, always poignant and engaging.

Librivox recording by Ray Clare

[Joshua Milburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to it in snippets on drives as an audiobook, which I think its well suited for, being that it is primarily a collection of observations and considerations of what Chesterton sees in his life around him. This approach doesn't reduce his writing quality, and you'll get some interesting thoughts on topics ranging from the comparison of walking to driving (cars being fairly novel at the time) to the question of why people in the city romanticize the country (think of visitors to Levin's country home in Anna Karenina).

Memorable quote: "Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe; it is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where the walls of this world of ours wear thinnest and something beyond burns through. It glows in the blood which sustains and in the fire which destroys us, in the roses of our romance and in the awful cup of our religion. It stands for all passionate happiness, as in faith or in first love." (Ch 10, The Red Town -- check this chapter out http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alarms_... - if you like it you'll probably enjoy the book).

[Anie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in a series of fits and spurts, and so don't have the best recollection of the early parts of this collection. Still, I do have the recollection of enjoying it quite a bit. As usual, I disagree with Chesterton half the time, and am nodding emphatically the other half. Still, even when I disagree, his humor and his deep, abiding concern for humanity are quite appealing.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times Chesterton's prose was a bit too archaic for me, but this was a book worth reading anyway. If you're interested in the essay as a form (like I am), this should be part of your canon. And I just loved Chesterton's snarky comments about professors and academia in general!

[David Ayala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating!

[Jarrod Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the majority of things in Chesterton, there are absolute diamonds everywhere. Some essays feel rambling or don't connect because of when and where they were written, but his wit and wordplay and mind are still front and center. For example, his essay "The New House" talks about how its good to have a healthy distance from your neighbors with this gem: "How can I love my neighbor as myself if he gets out of range for snowballs? There should be no institution out of the reach of an indignant or admiring humanity."

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of random essays and observations Chesterton has about the world around him. Several essays indicate a dislike of automobiles; while the subject of the dislike may be anachronistic, the sentiment is not. These essays use the automobile as an example of ostentatious displays of wealth. Another theme that occurs is the sensibility of the "common person" as opposed to that of the intellectual set.

[Jan Kubiznak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tím, že jde o eseje z roku 1910, mohou některé působit neaktuálně. Vzhledem k tomu že se často týkají témat věčných - lidské povahy, náboženství a politiky, jsou párkrát i překvapivě aktuální. Např. neplatí jenom o národech - "To jest pravý ideál: veliký národ neměl by býti kladivem, nýbrž magnetem."

[Abigail Drumm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chesterton is as entertaining and determined as always in Alarms and Discursions, but I had trouble following several of the essays. The style was more rambling than previous work that I've read from this author.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hit or miss, more "miss" though. Lots of ramblings, which the occasional "ah ha!" thrown in.

Loved the description of the sea as cauliflower; really hard to describe that one further.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly hits, but some misses. Chesterton proves himself a witty and capable essayist, although sometimes he does devolve into contrarianism

[Mayor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mishmash of ideas interwoven with Catholic bias.

[Arturo Real · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huir de la monotonía, y disfrutar de cada momento de la huida. Eso es lo que este libro ha sido para mí.

[Audiobook Heaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, I listened to the audiobook version on YouTube. I will leave the link below so that everyone can enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMyPB...

[María Villalta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narraciones ingeniosas y simpáticas.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cheerful collection of essays by Chesterton with a definite thread of the whimsical, all the way up to a discussion of what kinds of cheese the moon can look like, and undertaking to carry out the duties of the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: Discursing aplenty

When Chesterton starts off this collection of newspaper essays with the claim and reason why he wanted to start the title to this book with the even-then archaic "alarums" you have a pretty good idea that what will follow is vintage Chesterton. And if you know and love Chesterton (I do and do) then you won't be disappointed (I wasn't).

Now like any collection of periodical newspaper pieces such as this one, some will be better than others. After all even the best baseball hitters fail to hit 60% of the time, and Chesterton's batting average is way better than that.

I will attempt to curb my desire to quote huge passages of Chesterton's writing because it so funny, profound, and spiritual, and limit myself to only one section from the essay "The Wheel":

For those interested in revolt (as I am) I only say meekly that one cannot have a Revolution without revolving. The wheel, being a logical thing, has reference to what is behind as well as what is before. It has (as every society should have) a part that perpetually leaps helplessly at the sky and a part that perpetually bows down its head into the dust. Why should people be so scornful of us who stand on our heads? Bowing down one's head in the dust is a very good thing, the humble beginning of all happiness. When we have bowed our heads in the dust for a little time the happiness comes; and then (leaving our heads' in the humble and reverent position) we kick up our heels behind in the air.

Starting from a whimsical observation of what appears to be the stain glass image of an angel riding a bicycle in a church near his home, Chesterton winds up with these profound observations about politics, history, humility, happiness reverence, and . . . . back to revolt (for what could be a better definition of revolt than the kicking up of one's heels behind in the air?) All in a simple, compact, powerful paragraph.

His essay on and entitled simply "Cheese" is both a frantically funny assessment of the worth of cheese and the beauty of the word itself, while serving as a taste travelogue of the cheeses and locales in England where they may be found. "The Sentimentalist" seems a dated discourse on a long forgotten political type, until you realize that Chesterton has quietly but expertly led us, his modern American readers a century and an ocean removed from the original context, to a powerful and extremely timely (utterly timeless?) realization:

That is my political theory: that we should make England worth copying instead of telling everybody to copy her.

Ok I promised only one section so I must leave off with that one section and one sentence lifted from the alarums here published so that you may experience them yourself. And you can, for free, in the Google Play app, as I did, courtesy of the Google scanning project.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've come to the conclusion that the Kindle is a necessary evil. If I'd read a paper copy, my review of Alarms and Discursions might feature intelligent reflections drawn from underlinings and margin notes. Instead, I can only offer a vague Umm...I mostly liked it, I suppose. There was, like, some superfunny stuff and some supersmart bits. And there were, like, some places where I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. And (though it may be a false accusation born of my own arrogance and ignorance) a couple of places where, like, I don't think he had a clue what he was he was talking about. But without any specific examples to back up such assertions, I and my review come off sounding very stupid, indeed.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant and/or witty anecdotes about art and the representation of life, collected into randomly strewn about sections. Some are more pleasurable to read than others, though all offer at least some reason to justify your time. But, as with all essays, that justification varies greatly on whether or not you agree with the essayist, though in this case, even if you do find yourself in the futile situation of arguing with a written word, at least you will be able to take solace in the fact that Chesterton can write. Boy oh boy, can he write. If there was a race for finding the correct words to explain one's thoughts, Chesterton would share space on the podium with Vidal and DFW.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take your wittiest blog poster, then take her latest 20 posts and make it a book. And that is this book. This is essentially Chesterton’s blog of his day.

Some good, some bad. And when I say bad I mean I don’t really get the point of them. But even those had some dang good lines.

Lines i will probably never forget:

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

“But great heaven’s man! I said, it’s the man with the bomb that i understand!”

There are others, but I can’t find the page right now. But i’ll come back periodically to this review and add more.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don't know what to say about this. The topics of the essays jumped about all over the place, making it a very interesting, but rather disjointed collection. I really enjoy Chesterton's writing (at least, I think I do, every now and then he says something that makes me rethink that assessment a little), but if you don't I wouldn't recommend this.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siempre es un placer leer los artículos de Chesterton, aunque en este caso se trate de relatos primerizos, siento decir que no habrá reseña de él pero siempre es recomendable disfrutar de la contagiosa elocuencia del orondo británico.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great insights - a true pleasure to read and explore GKC.

[Rick Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays seem, more or less, to come from a time when Chesterton had moved outside the city of London. There are some good ones here I had never read before.

[Susan Skylark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wit, whimsy, and common sense.