Why Father Brown’s creator was no saint: G. K. Chesterton's work was marred by anti-Semitism, he thought giving 投票（する）s to women was the worst thing for Britain and he wasn’t alarmed by the rise of Hitler, says author
- G. K. Chesterton was a big man, 重さを計るing 20 石／投石する and standing 6ft 2in
- He was rather in love with his cleverness and laughed out loud at his jokes?
- Richard Ingrams argues Chesterton’s work was marred by anti-Semitism?
Biography?
The Sins Of G.K. Chesterton?
by Richard Ingrams?
(Harbour 調書をとる／予約するs £20, 292pp)?
G. K. Chesterton was a big man, 重さを計るing 20 st and standing 6ft 2in in his cotton socks. P. G. Wodehouse said the loudest noise imaginable would be ‘G. K. Chesterton 落ちるing on a sheet of tin’.
In his heyday as famous as George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton was a 新聞記者／雑誌記者 who 定期的に churned out circumlocutionary and breezy articles about, say, kippers, 前線 gardens, cricket, cooked breakfasts, 軍の virtues and the joys of beer.
He was rather in love with his clever-cleverness, laughed out loud at his own jokes, dressed in a cloak and a 幅の広い-brimmed hat, and carried a swordstick ― seldom needed in his home town of Beaconsfield.
He あられ／賞賛するd taxis to フェリー（で運ぶ） him a few yards and was always getting lost. ‘Am in Market Harborough. Where should I be?’ he 緊急に telegraphed his wife, フランs Blogg, upon whom he 全く depended.
Richard Ingrams tells us Chesterton would いつかs 配達する his copy to the printer inscribed on a roll of wallpaper ― and that he was phobic about jelly: ‘I don’t like a food that’s afraid of me.’
G. K. Chesterton (pictured) was a big man, 重さを計るing 20 st and standing 6ft 2in in his cotton socks. P. G. Wodehouse said the loudest noise imaginable would be ‘G. K. Chesterton 落ちるing on a sheet of tin’
For all these 推論する／理由s, previous 伝記作家s have dubbed Chesterton ‘a serene, unworldly and benevolent 人物／姿／数字, 主要な a blameless life’ ― indeed, moves have been made by admirers to have him canonised by the ローマ法王, such was his 使節団 to 促進する Roman Catholicism.
Ingrams begs to 異なる, arguing that after 1902, when he met Hilaire Belloc, Chesterton’s work was marred by anti-Semitism.
Belloc does sound a 汚い creature. It was his belief that the 圧力（をかける） in England and America was controlled by ユダヤ人の millionaires who also had a monopoly of the fruit 貿易（する） and the タバコ 産業. ‘The whole of English life is interwoven with Jewry,’ fulminated Belloc. ‘Our 主要な families are intermarried into it . . .’
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Chesterton, says Ingrams, went along with ‘this nonsense’, egged on by his horrible-sounding brother, Cecil, five years his junior, who was known for a ‘fanatical intolerance’ 含むing ‘violent anti-Semitism’.
Ingrams tells us Chesterton’s ‘devotion to Cecil was an obsession’.
He deferred to Cecil’s opinions, and soon abandoned his popular journalism to pontificate about politics.
‘Chesterton’, says Ingrams, ‘moved into the realm of lunacy.’ He 特記する／引用するs an essay where Chesterton, alluding to Jews, 雷鳴s that ‘Men in England are 支配するd, at this minute, by brutes who 辞退する them bread, by liars who 辞退する them news, and by fools who cannot 治める／統治する, and therefore wish to enslave’.
In an open letter, Chesterton について言及するd how Cecil ‘設立する death in the ざん壕s’. Ingrams has 診察するd this （人命などを）奪う，主張する and discovered Cecil was never in the ざん壕s of World War I.
He was not even in the Army, having been 拒絶するd for varicose veins. He died of natural 原因（となる）s, chronic nephritis, after the Armistice had been 宣言するd.
Such was Chesterton’s need to consider his brother a ‘mythical hero’, however, this truth was never 直面するd. Indeed, Chesterton was 割れ目ing up.
Because of his ingenious philosophical Father Brown 探偵，刑事 stories, often adapted for television (pictured), Chesterton is not a forgotten author
He took to his bed, which broke under his 広大な／多数の／重要な 負わせる. He went to Italy and met Mussolini. ‘Chesterton did not speak Italian and Mussolini didn’t speak English,’ so that didn’t get very far.
He supported the notion that giving 投票（する）s to women was the worst thing for Britain. He wasn’t alarmed by the rise of Hitler, seeing him as one of those ‘very earnest little men who go to vegetarian restaurants’.
Though Chesterton died in 1936, ignorant of the 大破壊／大虐殺 to come, the 結果 of anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s, says Ingrams, is that it ‘helped to 促進する a conception of Jews as foreigners and 外国人s, thus fostering in Britain a more tolerant 態度 to Nazi barbarities than might さもなければ have 勝つ／広く一帯に広がるd’.
Because of his ingenious philosophical Father Brown 探偵，刑事 stories, often adapted for television, Chesterton is not a forgotten author.
Brown, erroneously believed to be an irrelevant, faintly comic character, ‘but who 証明するs to be, in reality, a 深遠な and serious 人物／姿／数字 with an intuitive insight,’ 特に into human frailty and wickedness, was once seen as Chesterton’s idealised self-image.
In fact, the description perfectly fits Richard Ingrams, the greatest 新聞記者／雑誌記者 of my lifetime, co-創立者 and second editor of 私的な 注目する，もくろむ and 創立者 of The Oldie.
