Finished Reading “Heretics”

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  "G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on  "heretics" - those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views - Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds... those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them." (Goodreads)

Finished reading: The Idea of A University

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Finished reading “The Idea of a University” by John Henry Newman (1801-1890). This verbose collection of lectures and essays squeezes every ounce of the idea into a mere 584 pages. Newman’s trademark is being thorough with a wide expenditure of words. Part One consists of nine discourses on the kinds and roles of Knowledge in University Teaching. Part 2 consists of ten lectures on “University Subjects,” namely Christian and Catholic literature as they relate to Science, Medicine, Classical literature, Grammar, and Writing. This collection is not light reading, requiring full attention to systematic and logical arrangement of his lessons. The present-day academic might consider perusing certain sections as a kind of measuring tool to determine how academics may have changed since the Victorian time. Stay Hydrated! It’s dry!


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