Orwell on Chesterton

David Lebling · 11 Jan 2005, 13:30 · from 2005-January.txt.gz

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From: dlebling at hyraxes.com (David Lebling)
Date: Tue Jan 11 13:30:07 2005
Subject: (urth) Orwell on Chesterton
References: <20050111184153.99593.qmail at web53510.mail.yahoo.com>
	<006901c4f821$63024980$e0416596@crunchynut>
Message-ID: <006c01c4f824$b602e290$a51b0101 at gensym.com>

From: "Andrew Bollen"
> I've never read Chesterton before, but his "Lepanto" (below) surely is
> horrendously awful.

I wouldn't say it's _that_ bad. Like Kipling, if you encounter it at a
certain age, it's quite thrilling. It also works better if you recite it out
loud; the alliteration and meter are stirring. Or at least I remember these
impressions from when I was a certain age. Check out _The Man Who Was
Thursday_, or a light dose of Father Brown if you want something by
Chesterton that you might enjoy more.

On other current topics...

I'm not sure what aqala's point is, other than trolling, but Orwell could be
impressively vituperative, an English literary tradition which shows no sign
of slackening. We should probably be grateful that he never encountered
Tolkien.

I don't recall the paeans to gun ownership and supply-side economics in
Exodus from the Long Sun; however, Wolfe's comments on contemporary-ish
politics are reliably conservative, but his works, to me at least, seem less
than approving of corporate capitalism. I think he takes a more
"traditionalist" position (akin to Tolkien's) than most of today's
conservatives would find comfortable. He self-identifies as a "conservative
Catholic," doesn't he? That's a far different beast from a "conservative
Protestant," though they share some concerns, and a whole different phylum
than a "libertarian," which is the predominant conservative strain in modern
SF.

-- Dave, aka Vizcacha

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