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Introduction to The Chesterton Review’s
New Issue:
Vol. XXXIII, Nos. 3 & 4 Fall / Winter 2007,
The
Christian literary revival of the last
century provides the context in which
Chesterton and the circle of writers
associated with him are best understood.
This issue examines the work of a number
of such authors. The late W.W. Robson, a
distinguished literary critic, for
instance, comments on the failure of the
literary establishment to do justice to
Chesterton. Sheridan Gilley is
represented by a paper which was
delivered in Buenos Aires; its topic is
Chesterton's achievement as a
journalist. Other articles discuss the
writing of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien
and-somewhat more extensively-Maurice
Baring. We have reprinted an important
piece about him that Lady Lovat wrote
shortly after his death in December
1945. There is as well an extended
review of a recent volume of Baring's
letters that gives us a contemporary
view of this sadly neglected author, one
of Chesterton's closest friends. A
revival parallel to the one in England
occurred in France, and pieces by
Charles Péguy and Paul Claudel in
juxtaposition to Chesterton, Belloc and
Baring nicely capture the difference
between the two national traditions. I
should also mention a poem by Muriel
Spark about a lost shoe. It is a poem
which celebrates in Chestertonian
fashion the sacramental significance of
a trivial event in everyday life.
The work
of the Chesterton Institute is also well
attested to. Joseph Mitchell, a
journalist for the old New Yorker
was the subject of a conference
sponsored by the Institute in May 2006.
Although Mitchell had no direct
connection with Chesterton his vivid and
affectionate portraits of ordinary
people and of ordinary life in the rural
North Carolina of the twenties and the
New York of the thirties and forties are
unmistakably Chestertonian. At our
Mitchell symposium, four writers from
the New Yorker discussed what his
work meant to his colleagues at the
magazine. The complete text of that
conversation is reprinted for the
benefit of those unable to be present at
the event. We also include Professor
Daniel Strait's article on Mitchell
which was read as a paper at the
conference.
"News and
Comments" and "Letters" also touch upon
themes of interest. Many of them
concern authors whose writings
contributed to the literary revival
mentioned above. Flannery O'Connor, for
example, wrote about the Communion of
Saints. Her entry into that subject was
a severely handicapped child who was
cared for by sisters of a community
founded by Rose Hawthorne, the daughter
of Nathaniel Hawthorne, drew a
connection between a single act of
charity performed by Nathaniel Hawthorne
in the nineteenth century and the
continuing acts of charity performed by
his daughter's community. A similar note
is sounded in the obituary of Sister
Mary Loyola, for many years the
Associate Editor of our journal. Sister
Loyola was my colleague at St. Thomas
More College in Saskatoon; her constant
labour and meticulous care were largely
responsible for whatever good qualities
were found in the Review during
its first twenty-five years. Every word
was weighed and considered by this
remarkable woman. It would be impossible
to discharge the debt which we
Chestertonians owe to her. A few months
ago, at the age of ninety, she died in a
Regina hospital. May she rest in peace.
In closing, let me adapt slightly the
words of Muriel Spark: "What ceases when
such a person dies?" And the answer is
clear, "A species, infinitely precious
to God, being all there is of her kind.
She's irreplaceable."
Fr. Ian Boyd, C. S. B. |
