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I was introduced to Chesterton by way of the perhaps unlikely combination of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, who jointly dedicated Good Omens to him, "a man wh

I was introduced to Chesterton by way of the perhaps unlikely combination of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, who jointly dedicated Good Omens to him, "a man who knew what was going on.". He's also Fiddler's Green, from Sandman -- down to the sword-cane, rotundity, paradoxes, and booming laugh. I greatly enjoy The Man Who Was Thursday (I find that the denouement still works, if you've never read it), Orthodoxy, and some others, and he was my first exposure to distributism. Oddly, I've always felt that he shared with Pratchett the pathological wittiness that makes him hard to read at length: he's so damn pithy every sentence that after a while I just overload.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Interesting. I think you nailed the problem I have with reading Pratchett. [Edit: I mean, he's really witty. He's a blast to read. But about half or two-thirds of the way through a book, it becomes... just a bit too much. Like it stops being enjoyable and starts being... kind of work.]
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> he shared with Pratchett the pathological wittiness that makes him hard to read at length: he's so damn pithy every sentence that after a while I just overload. Douglas Adams also belongs on that list, especially the first of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. (Incidentally, I strongly recommend the original BBC radio show. Accept no substitutes.)
rramadass 5y ago
>he's so damn pithy every sentence that after a while I just overload. Right! You have nicely clarified why i always found Chesterton no-so-easy to read.