Un invito per il Falò del 2 Settembre 2023 dai Gruppi Chestertoniani Veronesi!

Il nostro caro amico chestertoniano Roberto Prisco detto Rob ci ha fatto pervenire questo invito, che è ormai una consolidata tradizione, da parte degli amici dei Gruppi Chestertoniani Veronesi, e questo carteggio che volentieri vi giro perché chi vuole possa aderirvi.

Marco Sermarini

___________

Dal finale di Eretici

Fuochi verranno attizzati per testimoniare che due più due fa quattro. Spade saranno sguainate per dimostrare che le foglie sono verdi d’estate. Noi ci ritroveremo a difendere, non solo le incredibili virtù e l’incredibile sensatezza della vita umana, ma qualcosa di ancora più incredibile, questo immenso, impossibile universo che ci fissa in volto. Combatteremo per i prodigi visibili come se fossero invisibili. Guarderemo l’erba e i cieli impossibili con uno strano coraggio. Noi saremo tra quanti hanno visto eppure hanno creduto.

Finale of Heretics

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.

Falò di sabato 2 settembre 2023 - Via Nuova, 22 a Quinzano – Verona

Ore 18,30 Arrivo e cena al sacco.

Ore 19,30 Accensione del falò

- lettura dei brani di Chesterton:

quella dell’ordinario da Eretici

quella del proprio commentato dai presenti - snudamento delle spade
- taglio e degustazione del formaggio;

- distribuzione del rum;
- spegnimento del fuoco;

- fumata finale del sigaro ed eventuale ripresa della discussione.

Lettura del proprio del Falò del XX settembre 2023

da “L’Uomo che fu Giovedì” - Primo Capitolo

Io vi dico che, ogni volta arriva un treno in stazione, io sento che esso ha spezzato delle batterie d’assedianti e che l’uomo ha vinto una battaglia contro il caos. Voi dite con tono sprezzante che quando si è lasciata la stazione di Sloane Square si deve arrivare a Victoria: ebbene, io dico che si potrebbero fare mill’altre cose, invece, e che ogni qualvolta pervengo realmente a Victoria ho il senso d’esservi riuscito appena per un pelo. E quando odo l’inserviente gridare la parola “Victoria”, non è questa per me una parola senza significato: per me è il grido d’un araldo che annuncia una conquista. Per me è proprio “Victoria”, è la vittoria di Adamo!

“The Man Who Was Thursday” - Chapter I

“I tell you,” went on Syme with passion, “that every time a train comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word ‘Victoria,’ it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed ‘Victoria’; it is the victory of Adam.”

Poetas, policiais e anarquistas: a aventura humana segundo Chesterton | Raúl Cesar Gouveia Fernandes su O São Paulo.

A diversificada obra do escritor inglês Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) abrange os campos da Filosofia, da Teologia e da Literatura. Sua criação mais famosa talvez sejam os contos protagonizados por Padre Brown, um sacerdote católico capaz de resolver intrincados crimes graças à sua compreensão da natureza humana, cujas aventuras foram objeto de recente adaptação televisiva. A inusitada fusão entre padre e detetive ilustra um aspecto fundamental da obra de Chesterton: o convite ao uso pleno da razão, necessário tanto para decifrar a autoria de um delito quanto para encontrar uma resposta à pergunta sobre o sentido da vida. Assim, de forma inteligente e lúdica, o autor chama a atenção para o tradicional debate entre fé e razão.

Il resto nel collegamento qui sotto:

https://osaopaulo.org.br/cultura/poetas-policiais-e-anarquistas-a-aventura-humana-segundo-chesterton/

Riproponiamo The Man Who Was Thursday messo in scena da Orson Welles.

Orson Welles fu un grande ammiratore di Chesterton, lo stimava ed amava (sue sono queste parole). Non si limitò a ciò, ma decise di produrre una riduzione dell'Uomo che fu Giovedì in radio il 5 settembre 1938.

Anni fa la proponemmo traendola dal sito del Mercury Theatre, ora abbiamo trovato anche quest'altra fonte, dal sito dell'Indiana University che presenta tra l'altro la raccolta di tutte le riduzioni radiofoniche di opere letterarie fatte da Welles, qui. Chesterton è in ottima e degnissima compagnia, potete vedere, come sempre.

Qui di seguito, oltre che la performance su L'Uomo che fu Giovedì, trovate gli altri post in cui in passato ci siamo già occupati di Welles:

https://uomovivo.blogspot.com/2008/12/orson-wells-e-chesterton.html

https://uomovivo.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-cento-anni-dalla-nascita-di-orson.html

https://uomovivo.blogspot.com/2016/06/orson-welles-presenta-il-suo-luomo-che.html

Orson Welles on the Air, 1938-1946

THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY

https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2200

Aforismi in lingua originale - Una delle pagine memorabile di The Man Who Was Thursday.

“It is you who are unpoetical,” replied the poet Syme. “If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!”.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday.

L'edizione Paravia del 1945
de L'Uomo che fu Giovedì.

Un'antica edizione del Giovedì...

 ... anche questa con una rielaborazione del titolo.

E' del 1933, edito dalla scomparsa editrice Bietti.

Un aforisma al giorno

La cosa davvero strana è colpire il bersaglio; quella più ovvia e grossolana è mancarlo. Il caos è noioso, perché nel caos un treno potrebbe andare ovunque: a Baker Street o a Bagdad. Ma l'uomo è un mago e tutta la sua magia è in questo, che dice "Victoria," ed ecco, è Victoria.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, L'Uomo che fu Giovedì

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/josephpearce/defenders-of-the-faith-g.-k.-chesterton-vs.-prince-charles#.WxLYJ4BNO95.twitter

Defenders of the Faith: G. K. Chesterton vs. Prince Charles

The great G. K. Chesterton would have had great fun with the lunacy of Prince Charles.

Joseph Pearce

On Nov. 24, 1521, Pope Leo X bestowed the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) on King Henry VIII. The honour was granted to the English king in recognition of his book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defense of the Seven Sacraments), in which the King defended all the sacraments of the Catholic Faith, including the sacramental nature of marriage, and in which he asserted the supremacy of the Pope. The King's stance, known as the Henrician Affirmation, was considered an important weapon in the struggle against the Protestant Reformation in Europe, and especially against the ideas of Martin Luther. It was, therefore, hardly surprising that the Pope should seek to honor the English monarch for his services to the True Faith.

Within a few years, however, in one of the great ironies and treacheries of history, Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church, declaring himself the head of the church in England. As if to add insult to infamy, he also profaned the sacrament of marriage, deserting his wife and daughter in favor of a scandalous adulterous relationship with Anne Boleyn, whom he would later have beheaded. Faced with such outrageous behavior, it was scarcely surprising that Pope Paul III revoked the title of Defender of the Faith from such a Machiavellian tyrant and Henry was duly excommunicated.

This was not, however, to be the end of the irony and treachery. In an act of faithless defiance the English Monarchs continued to style themselves as "Defenders of the Faith" in spite of the title being revoked by the Church. Up to this day, the reigning monarch has continued to make claim to the title, Fidei Defensor, and the phrase is still to be found on all current British coins. More recently, in 1994, Prince Charles, as heir to the throne, has declared his desire to be known "as Defender of Faith, not the Faith." One wonders what sort of faith he is talking about. If he does not want to defend the Faith, does he not want to defend the God of Christianity? Whose God does he want to defend? Does he want to defend everyone's god? Does he want to defend gods in general? Or is even this too dogmatic? Why should faith be restricted to a belief in God or gods? Why shouldn't we defend faith in dogs instead of gods? Perhaps even faith in dogs is a little too dogmatic. Why not cats? It would certainly seem that Prince Charles' vague and indefinable faith is more comfortable with dogs than dogma and more at home with cats than catechesis. His aversion to the definite article is an article of indefinable faith in God knows what. Such faith in anything is, in fact, faith in nothing in particular; and a faith in nothing in particular is, in particular, a faith in Nothing. Is Nothing worth defending? 

Anything is nothing; nothing is anything …

The great G. K. Chesterton would have had great fun with the lunacy of Prince Charles. In The Man Who was Thursday he had mused mirthfully over the impenetrable circularity of the phrase that "nothing is worth doing," putting the nonsensical paradox into the mind and mouth of the corrupt and incorrigible Professor de Worms. (The words are uttered, of course, by someone impersonating the real professor de Worms, adding to the fun and confusion.) One can only surmise what fun Chesterton would have had with the folly of faith in nothing in particular, and the even greater folly of wishing to defend faith in nothing in particular. Surely Prince Charles is one "defender" that even Chesterton the great Defendant would have had difficulty defending. 

All this is of course nonsense, a nonsense that leads to madness. The reductionism of ever decreasing circles leading to a downward spiral into the realm of the reductio ad absurdum. 

In the light of all this nonsense one is reminded insistently of the phrase often attributed to Chesterton that people who don't believe in God do not believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Ultimately we can't believe in Nothing because "nothing" doesn't exist, and if we refuse theFaith in something we will be left with faith in anything. It is one of God's paradoxical jokes that credulity can be defined as the absence of a Creed. 

Chesterton's friend Hilaire Belloc insisted with pugnacious certainty that "Outside [the Church] is the Night, and strange things in the Night." If we will not be creatures of the Light we will be creatures of the Night and followers of the strange things in the Night. "The issue is now quite clear," said Chesterton on his deathbed. "It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side." There is no third way. 

Shortly after Chesterton's death in 1936, Pope Pius XI sent a telegram, which was read to the vast crowd gathered for Chesterton's requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral. In the telegram, the Pope described Chesterton as a "gifted Defender of the Catholic Faith." Ironically the secular press in England refused to publish the Pope's telegram on the grounds that "the Pope had bestowed on a British subject a title held by the King." That the title of Fidei Defensor was originally bestowed upon the King by the Pope was either overlooked or forgotten. It was, in any event, singularly apt that Chesterton should be the first Englishman honored by the Pope with the title of Defender of the Faith since Henry VIII had dishonored the title four hundred years earlier. Choosing to be Outside, the King had condemned his nation and his descendents to a nocturnal existence in which many strange things emerged from the darkness, not least of which was the ironically named "Enlightenment"! One of the strangest things to emerge was the bizarre faithless faith in "faith" espoused by Prince Charles. In the midst of this right royal nonsense, Chesterton, a commoner, became the apostle of common sense. A light in the darkness of modern England, Chesterton deserved the title that the King had deserted. He was, and is, an indomitable Defender of the Faith.

Orson Welles presenta il suo L'Uomo che fu Giovedì radiofonico del 1938 e presenta l'opera e il nostro grande Gilbert

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

G.K.C., Gilbert Keith Chesterton, great, greatly articulate Roman convert and liberal, has been dead now for two years. For a unique brand of common sense enthusiasm, for a singular gift of paradox, for a deep reverence and a high wit, and most of all for a free and shamelessly beautiful English prose, he will never be forgotten.

"It must be wonderful to be famous."

According to the story, that is what the young lady said to the fat man, the fabulously fat, the fantastic, the famous fat man when he took her to lunch at a fashionable restaurant, and everybody turned and stared.

"Tell me," she said, "Do people always recognize you? Does everybody always know who you are?"

"Well, my dear," said Mr. Chesterton, "If they don't, they ask."

Mr. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is a little like that. Roughly speaking, it's about anarchists. It was written, remember, in the boom of bomb-throwing in those radical irresponsible days of the Nihilists. And roughly speaking, it's a mystery story. It can be guaranteed that you will never, never guess the solution until you get to the end. It is even feared that you may not guess it then. You may never guess what The Man Who Was Thursday is about, but definitely, if you don't, you'll ask.

Presto in arrivo L'Uomo che fu Giovedì. a cura di Annalisa Teggi

L'interno de L'Uomo che fu Giovedì autografato da G. K. Chesterton

Alcuni personaggi de L'Uomo che fu Giovedì disegnati da Chesterton