Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Saint Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton ISBN: 0-385-02900-4 Publisher: Image Books Pub. Date: 17 November, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.41 (17 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: More an essay than a biography
Comment: When I bought this book, I was looking for a really inspirational biography about St. Francis of Assisi and his spirituality. I found SOME in this book, but I would suggest looking in other places. The first chapter or two are a virtually meaningless introduction to St. Francis of Assisi. The story of his life is pretty good, but under the classification of a biography, it lacks the biographical data needed for that title.
Rating: 5
Summary: A brilliant and unconventional biographical work
Comment: G.K. Chesterton's "St. Francis of Assisi" is not your conventional timeline of the events in a man's life. Instead, Chesterton focuses on Francis' relationship with God and his historical context, background and impact. I first read this book a year ago and have just read it again - it's one of those books that are so rich that you discover something new each time you pick it up. If you've ever read "The Little Flowers of St. Francis" (about the events in Francis' life), this is the book to read next. It is a great aid to understanding Francis as a person and not just as "the bird bath saint". I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: A thing of beauty...
Comment: G.K. Chesterton is one of the best Christian writers of the twentieth century. Prolific and artistic, he had the knack for combining a classic British commentary sense to any historical Christian subject, making it both the object of cultural interest and often historic reverence. As St. Francis of Assisi was one of the primary influences on Chesterton's decision to convert to Roman Catholicism (Chesterton once described his conversion as being largely due to wanting to belong to the same institution that had produced St. Francis), it makes sense that Chesterton would devote considerable energies toward this biography.
Chesterton said that there are essentially three ways to approach a biography of a figure such as St. Francis - one can be dispassionately objective (or at least as much as can pass for such a stance), looking at things from a 'purely' historical standpoint; one can go to the opposite extreme and treat the figure as an object of devotion and worship; or one can take a third path (and you've guessed correctly if you assumed this was Chesterton's route) of looking at the character as an interested outsider, someone in the modern world but still one involved in the same kinds of structures and virtues as the one being studied.
Chesterton's prose is snappy and lively, witty and bit sardonic at times. Chesterton is not afraid to digress to make his own points, and like the intellectual critic who cannot contain the myriad of responses to particular points, Chesterton treats us to a generous collection of tangential observations. One discovers, for instance, Chesterton's opinion of modern British history (that it reads more like journalism than like a developed narrative) - he makes the observation that journalists rarely think to publish a 'life' until the death of the subject; this of course cannot be helped in the case of Francis of Assisi, but the method of the media serves to highlight the difference in world-view between then and now.
This is a spiritual biography - it does not simply go from event to event in Francis' life, but rather looks as the development of his spirituality, his calling, his order and his influence in later church (and more general) history. In his discussion, he looks at miracles and poetic production, political realities and logical fallacies, ancient sentiments and present-day practices. Francis is seen in many ways as the Mirror of Christ (not quite the same thing as the WWJD fad of the current day, but approximating the sense in some regards), but this sets up an interesting logical situation - if Francis is like Christ, then Christ is in some ways like Francis. Chesterton points out the importance of the difference, likening it to the difference between creator and creature, but there is still the interesting development in history where some tried to make Francis a second Christ (something Francis himself would have opposed bitterly).
Fun, fascinating, spiritual without succumbing to kitsch, intellectual without being overblown, this book is a classic on Francis, and a classic by Chesterton, a small miracle of Francis (in the many sense of the term).
 |
Title: Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G.K. CHESTERTON ISBN: 0385090021 Publisher: Image Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 1974 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, Ignatius Pr ISBN: 0898705525 Publisher: Ignatius Press Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton ISBN: 0898704448 Publisher: Ignatius Press Pub. Date: April, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: What's Wrong With the World by G. K. Chesterton ISBN: 0898704898 Publisher: Ignatius Press Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: The Man Who Was Thursday (20Th-Century Classics) by G. K. Chesterton, Kingsley Amis ISBN: 0140183884 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1990 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
