G.K. Chesterton, página 12 de 39

The plot of "The Ball and the Cross" chronicles a hot dispute between two Scotsmen, one a devout but naive Roman Catholic, the other a zealous but naive atheist. Their fanatically held opinionsleading to a duel that is proposed but never foughtinspire a host of comic adventures whose allegorical levels vigorously explore the debate between theism and atheism.

El Club de los Incomprendidos o «cuatro granujas sin tacha», narra las diferentes historias de cuatro hombres que han formado un extraño Club, unidos por el vínculo común de sus maltrechas reputacion

THE suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them

EVERYONE agreed that the bazaar at Mallowood Abbey (by kind permission of Lady Mounteagle) was a great success; there were roundabouts and swings and side-shows, which the people greatly enjoyed; I would also mention the Charity, which was the excellent object of the proceedings, if any of them could tell me what it was. However, it is only with a few of them that we are here concerned; and especially with three of them, a lady and two gentlemen, who passed between two of the principal tents or pavilions, their voices high in argument. On their right was the tent of the Master of the Mountain, that world-famous fortune-teller by crystals and chiromancy; a rich purple tent, all over which were traced, in black and gold, the sprawling outlines of Asiatic gods waving any number of arms like octopods. Perhaps they symbolized the readiness of divine help to be had within; perhaps they merely implied that the ideal being of a pious palmist would have as many hands as possible.

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of lawall these like sheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical. But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, "I suppose I am very heretical," and looks round for applause. The word "heresy" not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word "orthodoxy" not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at least he is orthodox.

It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal. There still are persons, perhaps even of his own community, who would say that there was a sort of blot upon his name. It happened in a picturesque Mexican road-house of rather loose repute, as appeared later; and to some it seemed that for once the priest had allowed a romantic streak in him, and his sympathy for human weakness, to lead him into loose and unorthodox action. The story in itself was a simple one; and perhaps the whole surprise of it consisted in its simplicity.

FATHER BROWN always regarded the case as the queerest example of the theory of an alibi: the theory by which it is maintained, in defiance of the mythological Irish bird, that it is impossible for anybody to be in two places at once. To begin with, James Byrne, being an Irish journalist, was perhaps the nearest approximation to the Irish bird. He came as near as anybody could to being in two places at once: for he was in two places at the opposite extremes of the social and political world within the space of twenty minutes. The first was in the Babylonian halls of the big hotel, which was the meeting place of the three commercial magnates concerned with arranging for a coal lock-out and denouncing it as a coal-strike, the second was in a curious tavern, having the facade of a grocery store, where met the more subterranean triumvirate of those who would have been very glad to turn the lock-out into a strikeand the strike into a revolution. The reporter passed to and fro between the three millionaires and the three Bolshevist leaders with the immunity of the modern herald or the new ambassador.

Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuousnor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.

Inspirado en un amigo del autor, el personaje del padre Brown ­el sacerdote que tras su aspecto anodino, su inseparable paraguas y sus eternos paquetes de papel de estraza, oculta un insólito conocim

Gabriel Syme, a poet and member of the Philosophical Policemen, must combat the Supreme Council of Seven, a group of anarchists each of whom is named for a day of the week.

Érase un hombre prolífico como pocos con la pluma, moralista, cultivador del nonsens, mordaz, paradójico radical, juguetón, polemista infatigable, ferviente defensor de la familia, la iglesia y el pub y enemigo acerrimo de burocratas, hombres de negocios, politicos y filantropos, que fuera denostado por algunos (en terminos poco literarios) y por muchos ensalzado (sobre todo en terminos literarios).Un elogio de la locura formulado desde la irrision, la acritud y el disparate puro y simple, aunque, valga la paradoja, no sin sentido.

Per la prima volta vengono offerti al pubblico italiano alcuni fondamentali contributi di Chesterton - uno dei piu grandi saggisti, critici e romanzieri del nostro secolo - sulla propria conversione al cattolicesimo. Essi trascendono i meri aspetti autobiografici per proporsi a un cattolicesimo attuale - spesso disgregato ed esitante - con motivazioni di fede forti, convinte, di valore e portata universale; in piu la pungente ironia e il pragmatismo tipicamente britannici dellAutore possono insegnare come il coraggio di essere e proclamarsi credenti e ortodossi non va certo a discapito della propria consistenza personale, ma - al contrario - la irrobustisce e larricchisce. Oltre alla raccolta di scritti, il volume contiene un piccolo vademecum chestertoniano con alcuni termini-chiave della visione del mondo dellAutore di Padre Brown. La prefazione e del card. Giacomo Biffi.

If G.K. Chesterton''s Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith is, as he called it, a "slovenly autobiography," then we need more slobs in the world. This quirky, slender book describes how Chesterton came to view orthodox Catholic Christianity as the way to satisfy his personal emotional needs, in a way that would also allow him to live happily in society. Chesterton argues that people in western society need a life of "practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." Drawing on such figures as Fra Angelico, George Bernard Shaw, and St. Paul to make his points, Chesterton argues that submission to ecclesiastical authority is the way to achieve a good and balanced life. The whole book is written in a style that is as majestic and down-to-earth as C.S. Lewis at his best. The final chapter, called "Authority and the Adventurer," is especially persuasive. It''s hard to imagine a reader who will not close the book believing, at least for the moment, that the Church will make you free.

Chesterton declares that it is fashionable to boast that one cannot understand Browning but he reveals in this fascinating literary biography how Browning 'combines the greatest brain with the simplest temperament'. This is a multi-faceted biography and critique of Browning's work. Chesterton takes us from his early life to his early poems and shows us how his life impacted on his work to produce a biography of great depth and sensitivity. G K Chesterton has been described as one of the most unjustly neglected writers of our time. Born in 1874, he became a journalist and later began writing books and pamphlets. His work includes novels, literary and social criticism, political papers and spiritual essays in a style characterised by enormous wit, paradox, humility and wonder. He converted to Catholicism in 1922 and he explores the nature of spirituality in many of his books and essays, including the mighty Orthodoxy. Chesterton is one of the few authors who are genuinely timeless and whose work has as much relevance today as when it was written.

Chesterton, con su acostumbrada agudeza, nos pone de nuevo ante el misterio de la vida y ante el desafío de lo real. ¿Por qué nos habla en esta ocasión de la incredulidad? La «incredulidad» a la que

Though he was on the whole a fun loving and gregarious man, during adolescence Chesterton was troubled by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found answers to many of the dilemmas and paradoxes of life. Throughout Heretics he provides a very personal critique of contemporary religious notions. His consistently engaging but often wayward humour is mixed liberally with daring flights of fancy and some startling turns of thought. A highly original contribution to one of the major debates of the last century - one that continues to exercise leading thinkers in the present one.

¿Cuál es el secreto del padre Brown, ese curita, «esencia misma de aquellos insulsos habitantes de la zona oriental», según apreciaba en La inocencia del padre Brown el todopoderoso detective francés