{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1042",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1042,
    "subject": "Chesterton",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-08-05T08:16:07+00:00",
    "last": "1998-08-05T10:40:09+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0087@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-08-05T08:16:07+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Chesterton",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, adam louis stephanides wrote:\nOn a completely different topic, I know that Wolfe admires Chesterton, but\nChesterton has never seemed \"Wolfeian\" to me, to employ a Borgesian\ntemporal inversion.  But in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF G. K. CHESTERTON vol.\n14, which contains hundreds of pages of unpublished short stories,\nnovelettes, and fragments, there is a short story, \"Child Street,\" which\ndid strike me as very Wolfeian. It's an excellent story, and worth seeking\nout in a library or through interlibrary loan.  (The samw volume contains\nanother excellent unpublished short story, \"Le Jongleur de Dieu,\" which is\nnot particularly Wolfeian, but is strikingly un-Chestertonian.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've always thought \"The Man Who Was Thursday\" was a bit Wolfean (albeit\nless subtle than Wolfe) in it's attempts at deliberately misdirecting the\nreader, and perhaps also in the really weird twist everything takes at the\nend.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0088@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-08-05T10:40:09+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Chesterton",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0017-0087@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Aug 5,  8:16am, Michael Straight wrote:\nSubject: Re: (urth) Chesterton\nOn Tue, 4 Aug 1998, adam louis stephanides wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "On a completely different topic, I know that Wolfe admires Chesterton, but\nChesterton has never seemed \"Wolfeian\" to me, to employ a Borgesian\ntemporal inversion.  But in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF G. K. CHESTERTON vol.\n14, which contains hundreds of pages of unpublished short stories,\nnovelettes, and fragments, there is a short story, \"Child Street,\" which\ndid strike me as very Wolfeian. It's an excellent story, and worth seeking\nout in a library or through interlibrary loan.  (The samw volume contains\nanother excellent unpublished short story, \"Le Jongleur de Dieu,\" which is\nnot particularly Wolfeian, but is strikingly un-Chestertonian.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I've always thought \"The Man Who Was Thursday\" was a bit Wolfean (albeit\nless subtle than Wolfe) in it's attempts at deliberately misdirecting the\nreader, and perhaps also in the really weird twist everything takes at the\nend.\n\n-Rostrum"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tI think Chesterton's influence is more philosophical than literary.\n Wolfe has stated many times his vast admiration for Chesterton and Kipling (as\nwell as Mark's Engineering Handbook), and I think that a lot of what he does at\nshorter lengths could be described as writing Kipling stories with a\nChestertonian worldview.  Wolfe's portrayed universe is admittedly far darker\nin tone than Chesterton's.  But then, I think Borges once said that Chesterton\nis really closer to Kafka than anyone thinks, he just hides it well.\n\tAs to obvious influences, I think Wolfe's essays and interviews have a\nvery Chestertonian feel--Wolfe's always saying G. K.-ish things that at first\nseem silly, then on reflection appear to possibly be profound truths.  And his\nfondness for ideas like the return of cavalry or MX missles on wooden boats is\nvery Chestertonian in the \"cheat-the-prophet\" sense.  In fact, such ideas seem\nto me a combination of Kipling's fondness for railroads & other engineering\nfeats and Chesterton's love of the wildly implausible...\n\tAnd if Silk in NIGHTSIDE isn't Father Brown redux, I'll eat my hat."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}