I'm Reading...

Common Sense 101 by Dale Alquhist. (I have an autographed copy. Tuea Huea!)

And I was wondering...

He says that we need both politics and religion. Well, for those of us who find politics boring and religion fascinating, ought we try to like politics, or at least be good at talking about it?

In other words, Should I be worried about this:

There once was a blogger named Evan
Who thought politics wasn't heaven
And when he died,
His soul was fried.

Or this:

There once was a liberal, old fashioned
Who engaged in politics-bashin'
Such an ingnoring
Set his brain snoring.

Questions on “The Napoleon of Notting Hill”

I just finished it, and there’s some things I find a little unclear.

1 What is the meaning of the dialogue at the end?
A. Is it an actual part of the story, or an allegorical interpretation of the
story that is not part of it?
B. Did the King really and truly do all he did as a joke, or is that just
something added to make the ending chapter’s message clearer?
C. Considering A+B, why did the king have a re-conversion when he saw Wayne in
the midst of the first battle?
D. What’s the theme of the ending dialogue? Is it true?
E. Is the King on the wrong side of the issue? Is Wayne on the wrong side?
Are they both wrong? Are they both right?

2. Did Notting Hill wage a just war the first time? (It didn’t the second
time.)

3. Who is to blame for Notting Hill becoming an empire?

4. Does the King represent Chesterton himself? What about Wayne?

5. Are we to admire or detest the non-Notting Hiller who brought the giant grey
army at the end of the first battle?

A Decision at Last

We've had to do a little thinking here in order to better define this blog and make it more usable and enjoyable for all.

What we've decided to do is a fairly friendly variation on an older idea. We will be splitting the blog into two - "Chesterteens" and "The Flying-Ins", but all current members will be invited to join both blogs.

The Chesterteens blog (which will remain at this present URL) will be focused on posts very closely relating to the writings of Chesterton and fun things slightly tangential to his writings, like the Gype game. I believe this will be very close to what the Chesterteens blog always was. It will be more heavily moderated content-wise and I think particularly appealing to the high schoolers around which the blog was built.

The Flying-Ins blog will move to a new URL and will be much more open and less moderated as far as content goes (I will still, as moderator, have high expectations regarding tones toward others - particularly guests of the blog). I'd still like to see some strong connectedness to Chesterton's writings so that the blog still retains some authentic Chestertonian focus. I think this will be especially appealing to the newer members of the blog - particularly those in college who are branching out and applying Chesterton's ideas elsewhere.

I think both blogs will be pleasant and beneficial to all of our members and I would encourage everyone to join both blogs as they desire. Further details will be pending and invitations to the new blog should be forthcoming to all members.

Thank you for your patience and God Bless!

Mrs. Van Hecke and Ria

The Ball and the Cross Discussion Part One

Since I just finished this, and my mom is in the process of reading it, and we both love it, we though it would be a good time for a discussion. So to begin with:

Why did MacIan and Turnbull attack Mr. Wimpey?

Mozart as a second Innocent Smith? Part I

In one of my college-level textbooks on Mozart, the author states that although "Amadeus" took significant liberties with Mozart's character, Mozart seems to have been a child prodigy who never really grew up. Of course, for us Chestertonians, there are two kinds of not-growing-up. One is the person with an adult body and a child's mind: the eternal pop teenager (horrors!). And the other, of course, is the intellectually mature, unusually sensible, completely misunderstood eternal Chestertonain Child. Which was Mozart?

I don't know yet. I need to read the book, not just look at it. Until then, however, I would welcome your comments.

Chestertonian Puzzler II

Well, I said I'd wait for five answers...they aren't forthcoming. Here's the repeat of the question, the one answer I recieved, and the next puzzler.

Assuming that it is technologically feasible to develop a computer powerful enough to sustain a realistic illusory world (The Matrix, for example). andAssuming that a society with such technology would test it, andAssuming they would test it more than once, andAssuming that the socety, like all societies, would become so decadent that things as stupid, immoral, pleasant, and morbid as that would become popular,It seems that there would be far more imaginary universes than real ones, hence we are thousands of times more likely to be living in an imaginary universe than a real one. The Puzzler:1. Why is this not true, even if you believe all the assumptions? (Hint: If there was a chapter in Orthodoxy you really didn't like, you might have a more difficult time answering this question.)2. Why does it not matter for the sake of most arts and sciences and the salvation of our souls?

Hans Lundahl said...
1) If you believe assumption one, meaning thereby the technical possibility (including economic feasability) of an illusion encompassing your whole consciousness, the conclusion is not so much untrue as misstated: we would be far more likely to be experiencing an imaginary world than the real one; if so we would perhaps be living in the real universe, but not experiencing it otherwise than indirectly, through the imaginary one.However, there is no such thing as a conclusive evidence for such a possibility; theoretically that could be part of the illusion, but there is no prima facie case for it.Pope Urban VIII, when condemning Galileo might have been foreseeing this scepticism as a consequence of believing each day that what your eyes and sense of balance tell you are sensory illusions. He tried to indicate the idiocy of unwarranted ultrascepticism, just as Luther and the Patriarchs who condemned Copernicus and Papal astronomers.2a Morals and logic are the same in any possible universe. (Blue Cross, first Father Brown story, author supposedly known on this site)2b Any imaginary world needs an imaginer in the real one, who can only distort reality so much, but cannot create a world from nothing. (Tree and Leaf, Tolkien)2c Even if you assume that you are living in a dream, act and decide as if living in real life. (La vida es sueño, Lope de Vega)

I might add that the belief that one is within a computer illusion is exactly the type that is condemned in the chapter called "The Maniac" in Orthodoxy. Another somewhat convincing proof of the reality of what we experience (as opposed to the idea that it is a computer illusion) is the problem of evil. Why would a person put in evil in their imaginary world? I can think of three types of human persons who would do such a thing: a sadist, a poet, and a consummate deceiver who beleived it would make the illusion more realistic. It cannot be the sadist, for if it were, the imaginary world would be far more evil than it is. It cannot be a poet, for the person who designed the world, if he is a poet, is obviously a superlative poet. If he is a superlative poet, however, he would know that an imaginary world would be less poetical than a real one, and would never have made the illusion in the first place. If he is a realistic person, why has the absolute power that he has over the lives of his patients not made him into the sadist?

Anyway, here is the next puzzler. It's much funnier.

A man in Ireland planted an apple tree in his backyard. That night, an Irish fairy came. Using a chapter from a book by Chesterton, she cast a spell on the tree. That fall, in the time when the apples were ripe, the man was found to have been eaten by a well-known animal from India. What chapter of what book by Chesterton did the fairy use?

Hint: The book by Chesterton is one of his more famous ones. There are also two completely irrelevant details in the puzzle.

Father Brown Friday - The Wrong Shape

St. Mungo, also known as Kentigern, was a bishop in the sixth century. He founded the see of Glasgow and was the grandson of a British prince. He also is the patron of Father Brown's parish in The Wrong Shape.

In a number of the FB stories, such as "The Wrong Shape", "The Sign of the Broken Sword" and "The Honor of Israel Gow", it seems small details; things that are incomplete, the wrong shape or just slightly off, aid Father Brown in the solving of the mystery.

Obviously, this is especially key in the story currently under discussion. One of the first objects of the wrong shape to catch Father Brown's eye was an oriental dagger. Some of his remarks on the subject struck GilbertGirl, Algernon and I as quite interesting, such as:

"Don't you see it is the wrong shape? Don't you see that it has no hearty and plain purpose?"

and

"It's very beautiful," said the priest in a low, dreaming voice; "the colours are very beautiful. But it's the wrong shape."

"What for?" asked Flambeau, staring.

"For anything. It's the wrong shape in the abstract. Don't you ever feel that about Eastern art? The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the shapes are mean and bad-- deliberately mean and bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey carpet."

Which begs the question: What shapes are mean?

Eastern culture plays a VERY significant role in this story and brings about several other interesting quotes:

"When first he said `I want nothing,' it meant only that he was impenetrable, that Asia does not give itself away. Then he said again, `I want nothing,' and I knew that he meant that he was sufficient to himself, like a cosmos, that he needed no God, neither admitted any sins. And when he said the third time, `I want nothing,' he said it with blazing eyes. And I knew that he meant literally what he said; that nothing was his desire and his home; that he was weary for nothing as for wine; that annihilation, the mere destruction of everything or anything--"

"...he dealt much in eastern heavens, rather worse than most
western hells..."

"The Christian is more modest," muttered Father Brown; "he wants something."

While we're on the topic, GilbertGirl, Algernon and I were wondering earlier, was Chesterton in any way prejudiced against the east?

Mrs. Quinton is an interesting character, although you don't see much of her, "that's the kind of woman that does her duty for twenty years, and then does something dreadful." What do you think of her? Why did she marry Mr. Quinton?

Also don't miss GilbertGirl's dramatic ChesterTrance involving this story.

P.S. GilbertGirl, Algernon, I'm quite sure I forgot things, do fill in.

From Dr. Thursday

Concerning The Queer Feet, Thank you sooooo much!:

---------------------

Dear ChesterTeens:Alas I have no time to spend, but shall just make some quick comments between chores:

1. How to appear at once a gentleman and a servant: That's easy. If one stands at attention then leans back against a wall - from the side one may appear as a gentleman relaxing, but from the front, an alert servant. (I have not tried it, but it seems possible. This is one of those acting things we need to consult the experts on. I shall ask.)

2. What is the thread: That's a delightful homeage to George MacDonald'sThe Princess and the Goblin - but of course is nothing more than an extended metaphor deriving from our Lord: "And he saith to them:
Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men." [Mt 4:19] This is bolstered by the quote much later in the story where Father Brown says, "You are The Twelve True Fishers, and there are all your silver fish. But He has made me a fisher of men."

I assume you meant those other two paragraphs as questions; at least I have something to say about them:

3. Odd that a thief should repent: Of course, that ought to be obvious having just gone through Holy Week. Someone else, bothered by this idea,elicits this reaction: "Yes," said Father Brown, "and only a convicted thief has ever in this world heard that assurance: 'This night shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.' " ["The Man With Two Beards" in The Secret of FatherBrown, cf. Lk 23:43]

4. work of art: Yes, though of course only God creates (and Man subcreates); the devil can do no more than damage. There is an allusion to this in Tolkien which I cannot look up just now; something about how the Dark Power cannot create, but only deface, or deform. (This relates to the forming of orcs.) But for now I think it important to contemplate another line from another Father Brown story:"I am never surprised," said Father Brown, "at any work of hell." ["The God of the Gongs" in The Wisdom of Father Brown] Real Art DOES surprise - and God gives us such things, and Man (to the extent that He remains true to Art) can cooperate in such surprises. The Dark Powers might shock but can by no means surprise. But Art MUST be"simple" - that is what makes it Art. It is a principle of Scholastic Philosophy that "Any work is more perfect as it is more perfectly one.".... but here I find I am out of time... and I leave you to continue the discussion.

-Dr. Thursday

Father Brown Friday

We would have given you a discussion on the Queer Feet, but feeling you are wise, witty, and responsible to concoct your own, we defer to your creativity. Here are a few scatterbrained thoughts to mangle, and if you manage to spark a whatsit, we'd be frightfully bucked.

1. To begin on a light note: has anyone ever been able to fathom, conjure or imagine the pose in which Flambeau

"contrived to lean against the wall just round the corner in such a way that for that important instant the waiters thought him a gentleman, while the gentlemen thought him a waiter"?

2. More erudite: What is the "invisible thread" by which FB can pull F back from the ends of the earth. Any ideas of what GK was thinking of? Does it perhaps make more sense from an allegorical standing? Is it anything?:)

"Odd, isn't it," he said, "that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man? "

If you're feeling patient:

"A crime," he said slowly, "is like any other work of art. Don't look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark--I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black. Well, this also," he said, getting slowly down from his seat with a smile, "this also is the plain tragedy of a man in black. Yes," he went on, seeing the colonel look up in some wonder, "the whole of this tale turns on a black coat. In this, as in Hamlet, there are the rococo excrescences--yourselves, let us say. There is the dead waiter, who was there when he could not be there. There is the invisible hand that swept your table clear of silver and melted into air. But every clever crime is founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact--some fact that is not itself mysterious. The mystification comes in covering it up, in leading men's thoughts away from it. This large and subtle and (in the ordinary course) most profitable crime, was built on the plain fact that a gentleman's evening dress is the same as a waiter's. All the rest was acting, and thundering good acting, too."

Cordially,

Ria, Algernon and Gilbertgirl

Father Brown Friday- The Flying Stars

Alright, I really have neglected to give this much thought, so 'tis a bit sloppy. Now, as you may have guessed from the title (:, today's reading is The Flying Stars. (Fourth story in The Innocence of Father Brown). And, in case you were wondering about the jump from the first to fourth... we (GilbertGirl, Algernon and I) were thinking that since we were already discussing Flambeau, more in the same line would probably be appropriate. And that the third story, The Queer Feet, (which is about Flambeau) might be interesting to discuss in the light of this, wherein he converts.

That said, discussion. Now do pardon my laziness, but rather then coming up with specific discussion questions, I picked two quotes from the story (and one from another place thanks to Algernon and his dad) to be considered. Please don't hesitate to post your thoughts.

Some contemporary British comic playwright wrote that humorous plays involving mistaken identity or (as is common in Wodehouse) becoming engaged to some one you don't like through delicacy, are only possible when they are about Brits because an American would say before things had gotten very far " Who the heck are you?". (:

What do you call a man who wants to embrace the chimney-sweep?"
"A saint," said Father Brown.
"I think," said Sir Leopold, with a supercilious smile, "that Ruby means a Socialist."
"A radical does not mean a man who lives on radishes," remarked Crook, with some impatience; and a Conservative does not mean a man who preserves jam. Neither, I assure you, does a Socialist mean a man who desires a social evening with the chimney-sweep. A Socialist means a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney-sweeps paid for it."
"But who won't allow you," put in the priest in a low voice, "to own your own soot."

"I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life. There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started out as an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he ended a greasy spy and tale-bearer that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his free money movement sincerely enough; now he's sponging on a half-starved sister for endless brandies and sodas. Lord Amber went into wild society in a sort of chivalry; now he's paying blackmail to the lowest vultures in London. Captain Barillon was the great gentleman-apache before your time; he died in a madhouse, screaming with fear of the "narks" and receivers that had betrayed him and hunted him down. I know the woods look very free behind you, Flambeau; I know that in a flash you could melt into them like a monkey. But some day you will be an old grey monkey, Flambeau. You will sit up in your free forest cold at heart and close to death, and the tree-tops will be very bare."

P.S. I hope that all made sense, I seem to have a talent for run-on sentances at the moment (:

Father Brown Friday

Yes, yes I know it isn't Friday. But you see, I've been meaning to start a weekly Father Brown discussion, and yesterday (friday) Algernon and I did our best to come up with one. (Sorry if I butchered your questions Algernon :) But I didn't get home until rather late. So please forgive me for posting it on Saturday rather then Friday.

Alright for anyone interested: First go and read The Blue Cross. It's the first story in The Innocence of Father Brown, for those who prefer book form.

Now, discussion questions. Any thoughts?

Flambeau prides himself on being a rather "noble thief" if you will. And later becomes a great detective. How far would he really have gone with his threats to Father Brown on the hilltop at the end?

Father Brown knew that he had left many clues for the detectives to follow, but how did he know with such surety that Valentin was waiting nearby?

If Flambeau had thought (as he certainly seems to have) that he had succesfully switched the crosses, why did he tell Father Brown to hand them over?

Father Brown, near the end says Reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason. And even closer to the end, Father Brown gives as one of his reasons for knowing that Flambeau was not a priest as You attacked reason, it's bad theology.
What are your thoughts? What is reason? Or (if it's simpler) what is unreason?

Flambeau assumes that as a priest, Father Brown is very naive, he doesn't know much about the world of sin. Yet Father Brown knows more even then Flambeau does.

Again, what are your thoughts? Is this a common misconception of priests?

For Algernon

Here you are :)

I found this discussion of The Man Who Was Thursday. It is already over, but I enjoy reading Chestertonian discussions almost more than I enjoy taking part in them.

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=38

TMWWT-Discussion Question

In chapter 12, "The Earth in Anarchy" the five detectives are faced with what seems like the entire 'earth in anarchy'. Despite this, Dr. Bull refuses to think that a thing like this could happen. He insists that it is not possible that all the ordinary people could be anarchists despite the overwhelming evidence against that supposition... and he turns out to be right.

What do you think of this situation???? Do you think Chesterton is trying to teach us something... if so, what???? What do you think of Dr. Bull?????

TMWWT-Discussion at ACS

There is (in case you haven't noticed) an interesting discussion going on concerning TMWWT on the ACS blog. Right now they are in the same chapter as our puzzle concerning the notes is in. Please go check both of them out, if you haven't already, and take some time to read and comment. These topics are so interesting!

P.S. While you're there don't forget to check out Dr. Thursdays incredible and insightful thursday posts.

TMWWT- Discussion Question

While the six detectives are chasing Sunday through the streets of London, he keeps throwing notes back to his pursuers, notes such as "Fly at once; the truth about you trouser stretchers is known" or "What about Martin Tupper now?".

So, why did he throw these notes? Did any of them have the slightest bit of rhyme or reason in them? If so what did they mean?

Any thoughts, additions, theories, answers ... next discussion questions? If so please do comment with them.

TMWWT- Discussion question

Another one of our questions from our wonderful discussion last week:

Syme says that order is poetical rather than disorder. His companion, Gregory, says that it would be poetical to come to the wrong station on a train, Syme argues that the really poetical thing is to hit the mark and come to the right place. Do you agree with Syme?? Gregory??

BTW There is also a TMWWT discussion going on at the ACS, which is more active then this and very interesting.