More on "Stranger Than Fiction"

Here, for your amusement and edification, are the three appearances of this great insight of GKC:

1. ..."you seem to be going in for journalese proverbs. Do you believe that truth is stranger than fiction?"
"Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction," said Basil placidly. "For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it."
[GKC, "The Singular Speculation of the House Agent" in The Club of Queer Trades (1904)]

2. [Shaw] has based all his brilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed, but yet forgotten, fact that truth is stranger than fiction. Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
[GKC, Heretics CW1:66 (1905)]

3. ...we must not mix up the ghost story, which is a story about a ghost, with some other technical type of tale, such as a story about a corpse. The ideas are on two different planes, and one willalways suffer from the presence of the other. Either the spiritual story will be much too thin, or the blood and bones story will be a bit too thick. Ghosts, in short, may wander about in real life, if they like, because truth is stranger than fiction; but in the refined world of fiction we must be a little more exclusive and fastidious in our selection of ghosts. They must be family ghosts in the sense of ghosts of good family; or only living (like the dear old butler) with the best. A mere mob of phantoms, for all I know, may march like an army up the high road of history; but we must know more about the particular ghost before we allow him to appear in so serious a thing as a novel.
[GKC ILN May 30, 1936; special thanks to Frank Petta and my mother for this essay]

So there you have them. I do not say GKC wrote no others, though it is very unlikely; there are a few other appearances of "stranger than", of which this, though possibly tendentious, is worth consideration:

All that dark and yet exuberant imagery belongs to a tradition that can be seen in the art and ornament of Spain. It can be seen in the special Spanish love of black; the black which is not the negation of colour, but rather the accumulation of colour. It can be seen in the rich darkness of Spanish churches, fretted with the golden fire of countless candles. But it can be seen fully and completely only in the world-wide spreading of the Spanish culture in the sixteenth century, when it met on its borders monsters stranger than whales; red men and golden mountains and a new world. It had many crimes, which are not hidden in Claudel's poem, but it had this very enviable greatness that strange stars and new sciences were then opened to a Christian world that was still full of chivalry; of which wicked men colonised for greed, but good men did not colonise only for commerce; when the white man was as romantic a figure as the red man, and trade had not destroyed the Red Indian to replace him by the Regular Guy.
[GKC ILN Mar 19 1932; reprinted in All I Survey; thanks again to Frank Petta and my mother]

So what I would like to know is: when will ChesterTeens (by that or any other name) be publishing their first book of fiction? I for one would like to read some of your fiction, be they about ghosts, corpses, Spain, or whales....

P.S. I would like to address Old Fashioned Liberal's comment about creativity being a kind of discovery, but I have other chores, and (due to the expected length of my reply) I would prefer to handle it elsewhere, since it will require a short presentation of a very interesting result of automata theory, which few of our audience may have at their disposal. But it ought to be quite interesting, if I ever get to it.

Distributism

I'll be writing an essay on Distributism next week, and even though I just read the Outline of Sanity, I do not feel as if I have mastered the theory. However, my needs are more immediate. If anyone has some very insightful arguments against complete laissez faire capitalism, I would be greatful. Most of the audience of this essay is very economically conservative, so probably the most important thing is a good truism explaining to them how distributism and socialism are opposites, and not similar at all. Thanks! (I'll post the essay here too, after I write it =)

Stranger than Fiction

TRUTH must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

(Todays quote of the day)

I think the following story from the marvelous Wisdom and Innocence by Joseph Pearce, is very much in the spirit of the quote above

Many years later this splendid stir and thrum was to have a marked effect on
Douglas Hyde during a train journey through south London:

Through my mind, in rhythm with the wheels, ran a verse from Chesterton's Ballad of the White Horse I had re-read not long before:

Therfore I bring these rhymes to you,

Who brought the cross to me,

Since on you flaming without flaw,

I saw the sign that Guthrum saw

When he let break the ships of awe,

And laid peace upon the sea

Could there be so many Catholic Churches? I asked myself, as cross followed cross. Why had I not seen them before? Through Herne Hill, Tulse Hill, smug, suburban Streatham, the crosses came and went. And still the wheels hammered out Chesterton's lines:

Out of the mouth of the Mother of God

Like a little word come I;

For I go gathering Christian men

From sunken paving and ford and fen,

To die in a battle, God knows when,

By God, but I know why.

Hyde was, at this time, a leading member of the Communist Pary and news
editor of its paper, the Daily Worker. Soon after, he resigned from its ranks
and became a Catholic.

From the Moderator: A Few Brief Thoughts on Discussing Matters of Disagreement

I would like to remind all of our members that graciousness to guests and fellow bloggers is expected at all times - whether you agree with them or not. Graciousness and good humor were essential characteristics of our beloved GKC and well-worth emulating.

Keep in mind that the tone a comment or post is intended to portray is sometimes difficult to ascertain (especially in times of disagreement) unless great care is given to one's choice of words. So please read through your posts and comments before publishing them.

Also, in general, I'd like to request that we don't stray too far from our Chestertonian theme here and that responses to comments be posted to the appropriate comments box rather than as a new post.

Thanks much!

Your friendly neighborhood moderator.

By the way the moderator and the president are considering a division of blogs to further accomodate our recent growth. We are thinking that it might be beneficial to have separate blogs for high school and college age Chestertonians. We would be very much interested in your input on the subject. Please e-mail me at love2learnmom at gmail dot com with your thoughts.

A Gift For the ChesterTeens

As I hinted to Ria in my first posting, I am all too apt to write stories when I am not writing software. And so you will be glad to learn that I have completed a special gift for the members and readers of this blogg.

It is a short story called Special Guests. Here is the cover of the book (which is not yet in print):



I hope you will enjoy it.

Schopenhauer...

Yesterday was the Lincoln City Libraries booksale, and I bought an illustrated history of philosophy for fifty cents. Unfortunately, there is no chapter on Chesterton. In its mixed-blessing pages, however, there is a chapter on Shopenhauer, Chesterton's archtypical enemy, and it paints the philosopher in metaphorical glowing colors. I must find out where this history is in error. You will find out too, do not worry. There is one painting of the philosopher in the book, however, and in its literally glowing colors, I see not only a picture of the evil fatalist, but also a resemblance to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Coincidence? Of course not. Either St. Pio or Fr. Grochel said "There are no coincidences," an observation I subscribe to wholeheartedly

A Chesterton Desktop

News News News!

You MUST read the annotated poem to Mr. Bentley that is linked to by the American Chesterton Society's blog. Chesterton's times were just like our own! And we need to discuss the literary consequences that ensue if Sunday is nature or God.

P.S. There's a reason for me always saying "News News News" and not just "News."

In Honor of our New Member

In honor of Dr. Thursday, I have translated a quote from Thursday himself.

Every location in the fourth dimension containing the event of the Levithian according to the Jehovah's Wittnesses reducing its speed until it comes to a complete stop I emote that it has fractured past aluminum cases containing controlled ion reactions of besiegers, and that the object of anthropology has won an international pugilism against the fruits of evil that take the form of randomness. You dictate vilifiedly and condescendingly that at the time when one has left Sloane equilateral rectangle one is in the position of having the necessity of arriving at Victoria. I declare! Strength of doing could be employed in myriad objects rather, and that in that situation in history when I sail into victoria I possess the perception of shoestring lifestyle in an uneconomic sense liberation from death. And when my life-chemichals are at a certain point between birth and death, and the locomotive major-domo grates on our aural organs by declaring the part of speech that bears the name (not the function) "Victoria!" it is not a word such as communist american journalists use when they say 'ethics.' This verbal sonic situation has the form and the actuality of a person who could speak more loudly than others in the middle ages announcing the formal defense of one's land with force of arms, regardless of whether such action was necessary. It is to me in the act of doing "Victoria" and the fact that the hearer of the protoevangelion's descendants have done something to something undesirable to make it not exist any longer.

Here's the original.

Every time a traincomes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, andthat man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuouslythat when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. Isay that one might do a thousand things instead, and that wheneverI really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. Andwhen I hear the guard shout out the word 'Victoria,' it is not anunmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcingconquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the victory ofAdam."

A Visitor From Another Blogg

Yes, it's Tuesday - so it's time for a picture. (You'll understand if you have the very wonderful CW14. If not, too bad.) Maybe you know who this is?


It's somebody who has a lot of books, and he seems to be holding the famous Greek Lexicon of Liddell and Scott. Is he laughing? I wonder why. It almost sounds like a story.

Today is September 30, the last day of the longest month - you knew that, didn't you? Computer scientists have to know such odd things. If you are not quite sure how "September" is the longest, you "May" have spend a short time in thought. Hee hee.

There's lots of things I might talk about, but (speaking of pictures) I think the best is to try to draw into a more Chestertonian vein something you've been doing here on your blogg - your very interesting "game" of translating a famous GKC quote into English. It's the kind of thing he would find most amusing, as well as paradoxical, since he often had to do that himself.... of course I am overwhelmed with examples as usual, so I cannot give you one just now... I will find one for next time.

OK, Games. You must already know about GKC's very own game, the game of Gype. He invented it with H. G. Wells:

I also remember that it was we who invented the well-known and widespread national game of Gype. All sorts of variations and complications were invented in connection with Gype. There was Land Gype and Water Gype. I myself cut out and coloured pieces of cardboard of mysterious and significant shapes, the instruments of Table Gype; a game for the little ones. It was even duly settled what disease threatened the over-assiduous player; he tended to suffer from Gype's Ear. My friends and I introduced allusions to the fashionable sport in our articles; Bentley successfully passed one through the Daily News and I through some other paper. Everything was in order and going forward; except the game itself, which has not yet been invented.
[GKC Autobiography CW16:211-2]

As you already know, it is the only sport for which Chesterton University has a varsity team - they have been undefeated ever since its founding, since no other school on Earth has a varsity Gype team. Another day I will tell you more, and perhaps discuss its relation to "Calvinball" - but for today I wish to merely give you my entry in your GKC translation game, and see if you wish to guess what famous quote I have munged:

All of the individual simple supernatural beings: that is, those which have no material extension, which dwell in the presence of God, and which are often assigned the office of messenger, possess individually the ability to perform translation of position within three-space it occupies at present, without regard for the gravitational forces acting at that position. This possession by these beings is a logical result of their simultaneous possession of the potential of judging their individual intrinsic worth in the scheme of being as comparatively less than it actually is.

See what you can do with it.

OK, that's all for now. Maybe next time maybe I will have a story and not just a picture.

Chesterton's Mind Readers....Ha!

I suppose that during his life, Chesterton prayed the Hail Holy Queen many times. Here's something that may very well have passed thru his head:

"To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears....hmm...I wonder what the prayer would mean if they were tears of joy....does that make sense? Well, if we were mourning and weeping there, what motherly patience she must have with us, we mourners-when-we should be laughers. What a horrible sin that would be! That's why she needs to be our "most gracious advocate" and the exile we are in is a self-imposed one from joy. And in our world of joy, she is our sweetness because not only is she sweet, but our modern, drab spiritual tongues are too dull to feel the flavor in anything but the Sweetest one of All. Yes, that will do quite nicely. I must write an essay about that."

Why he didn't, I will never know...

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.
-- From Autobiography (1936)

And Today's Winner Is...

Just in case you hadn't thought of it already, the most important conventions to break are the intellectual ones. Examples of mental conventions: "Democracy is the best form of government," "The Civil War was fought to free the slaves," "It is a sin to not allow woman sufferage."

Not that all these mentioned mental conventions are necessarily wrong, but we have to be able to at least question them. If you so much as questioned any of these out loud (regardless of the answer you gave yourself), you'd probably get told you were an ignoramus or an elitist or a racist or a chauvinist or an extremist or a fanatic or an absolutist or a Chestertonian or a....

Anyway, isn't that sort of response exactly what we expect to get eventually?

Aristotle vs. Innocent Smith

Here is a quote from Aristotle's "Poetics"

As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed) an imitation of men worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort offault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, whichis a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistakeor deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, forinstance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distortedwithout causing pain.

Would you not call Innocent Smith ridiculous in one way or another? It cannot be denied that his Aristotelian "fault" is a virtue. Innocent Smith is ridiculous on purpose because he enjoys it. The characters in "The Birds" (an ancient Greek Comedy) are ridiculous because they are extremely lazy and decadent (although they do tell a few very clean, very funny, not specifically lazy jokes). I don't think we have to be ridiculous to love life as much as Smith does, but if we enjoy it (as I do) why not?

Cavemen in Victorian England

Some of you may have heard rumors (whether nasty or not) from literary critics that Dracula by Bram Stoker contains touches of feminism. Well, compare the passage where they kill the lady vampire with this passage from The Everlasting Man:

"But others have conjectured that what is called matriarchy was simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remained fixed because all the fathers were fugitive and irresponsible. Then came the moment when the man decided to guard and guide what he had created. So he became the head of the family, not as a bully with a big club to beat women with, but rather as a respectable person trying to be a responsible person. Now all that might be perfectly true, and might even have been the first family act, and it would still be true that man is for the first time acted like a man, and therefore for the first time became fully a man."

You see, I have seen a criticism that compared the actions of the men in this particular scene from Dracula with things that the actions are obviously not supposed to represent. I saw this action as something immensely good. Upon reflection, this Chestertonian thing is what it seemed to resemble. This interpretation has none of the evil aspects of feminism.