Understanding Something of the Paradox
Chesterton's life and legacy is nothing if not paradoxical. Parodied as a fool, some of the wisest of his generation knew him to be the Apostle of Common Sense. He was a phyiscially rotund man in his maturity, but his wit was as agile and light-footed as a cat that always falls on its feet. He had the strangest constellation of close friends. This coterie included his fellow traveller, the Francophile Hillare Belloc, as well as those whom pedestrian minds might call his natural enemies. These were the socialist atheists, George Bernard Shaw and Herbert George Wells.
Long after his death, Chesterton managed to attract some strange birds whom one might think were well and truly of another ilk. For instance, Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman dedicated their book, Good Omen, to Chesterton:
The authors would like to join the demon Crowley in dedicating this book to the memory of
G. K. Chesterton. A man who knew what was going on.
There is a mild irony in the fact that they would join a demon in honoring a devout Anglican who became a devout Catholic. However, it is widely recognised that genuine praise from one's natural enemy is of greater veracity than that from one's sychophants. The demon, and the authors by extension, are acknowledging Chesterton's almost preternatural insight into human nature. They are, of course, also acknowledging his influence on both their works. Here is Gaiman in an interview for Critical Blast:
Oddly enough, the Good Omen's Chesterton quote, where Crowley sees "a livid light on London, and he saw the end was nigh," which is a lovely old quote, I think was Terry Pratchett wrote that at that point. Which is why we dedicated the book to Chesterton--less because of that [the apocalyptic imagry], and more because we felt that on a very fundamental level, we were doing The Man Who Was Thursday. The idea that Chesterton's book, The Man Who Was Thursday, in many ways underlines so much of modern fiction: the idea that the spy catchers and the spies are the same people is one that's a sort of chiefly postmodern idea, that underlies an awful lot of fiction. And indeed, you'll find it creeping around the edges of American Gods.
For my part, I might have referred to his stories detailing the exploits of the civil servant, Horne Fisher and the journalist, Harold March, in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Chesterton, the journalist, certainly knew what was going on in the geopolitical world. Several key paradoxes emerge in that book whose stories remain still seared in my textual imagination.
The following justaposition might help to make the point:
American Gods examines the clash between old and new belief systems in America, portraying gods as immigrants whose power depends on human faith, while critiquing modern society’s shift from myth to media and technology.
The Man Who Knew Too Much argues that deep knowledge of the British elite’s secret sins forces the protagonist to suppress true justice to prevent political collapse, creating a tragic conflict between moral idealism and the cynical resignation required to maintain the state’s stability.
The Key Take Away
It would be a colossal mistake to misconstrue Gilbert Keith Chesterton's innocence as naivete and, thus, miss his wisdom. He is, not merely was, truly the Apostle of Common-Sense. The message that he was "sent" to convey is still salient today. We will explore the message and its implications on this site.