Saint Francis of Assisi

Rating:
Summary: A Rake on a Rake . . .
Review: G.K. Chesterton is one of the most interesting people who ever lived. His prodigious output and outlandish appearance have made him an unforgettable part of Western culture. But in this book, we have the eccentric Chesterton writing about the even more astounding character of St. Francis of Assisi. Chesterton goes through several interesting sketches of St. Francis' life (which are interesting by themselves) and then draws all sorts of fantastic conclusions from the episodes. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about Chesterton's writing and Francis' life.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant and unconventional biographical work
Review: 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:
Summary: A brilliant and unconventional biographical work
Review: 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:
Summary: Better to read Nikos' St. Francis
Review: I found this book to be over written and uninteresting. I much prefer the Nikos Kazantzakis book "St. Francis of Assisi". It's hard to find, but I heard Wayne Dyer mention it on PBS and I agree with him, it is very moving and life transforming.

Rating:
Summary: This book is a rambling essay embracing questionable ethics.
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. I wanted biographical information about the life of St. Francis of Assisi. What I got was a very biased ANALYSIS of his life and times. This author says of the euthanasia or ethnic cleansing of pagans from Europe by the Church "...she had cured it in the only way in which it could be cured" (page 26). This author speaks well on behalf of good work done by the Spanish Inquisition! I believe St. Francis would be quite horrified to find his name associated with the promulgation of these ideas. There is little history of St. Francis' life and absolutely NOT ONE quote from his work in this book. I would try to get my $ back on this book if I could.

Rating:
Summary: Not enough Francis
Review: If you like Chesterton then you'll probably like this book. However, he can get on my nerves. I was wanted to learn about Francis. When I finished the book I thought, "You know, I didn't learn a thing. Chesterton told me the little I already knew about Francis." Yet for some reason it took Chesterton 158 pages to tell me so little. This isn't a biography. It is GK's commentary on what he thinks about Francis in relation to modernity.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't ramble enough.
Review: The first time I read this book, I felt almost as impatient with Chesterton's "verbosity" and "hot air" as some of the reviewers below. In regard to the bare facts of Francis' life, one comes to feel a bit as Chesterton said of the Troubadours' lovers: "The reader realises that the lady is the most beautiful being that can possibly exist, only he has occasional doubts as to whether she does exist." Moments came when I found myself thirsting for dry facts. But I think the problem is that Chesterton assumes his readers, as educated persons of his period, know the story already, and only need to be enlightened as to its meaning. One can get facts anywhere. Few can take us inside the thinking of a man like Francis. And absolutely no one I know writes with such entertaining flair, of a healing kind so different from modern books and movies that wound our souls with their pleasures.

On second reading, I find I enjoyed this episode about as much as the biography of Dickens -- which was very much. Chesterton looks at Francis, in varying cadences, from the inside, to help us think and feel as he did, then from the outside, as children of the Enlightenment, a two-perspective approach that gives us a rounded figure. Those of us who have no other knowledge of Francis may sometimes wonder how much of that figure is Francis and how much Chesterton, (who was, after all, probably the more rounded of the two). But the insights are always brilliant. And many still cut like daggers. (Or rather scalpels, to heal.) "We read that Admiral Bangs has been shot, which is the first intimation we have that he has ever been born." "The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant." "All goods look better when they look like gifts." "There is only one intelligent reason why a man does not believe in miracles and that is that he does believe in materialism." Anyone who finds such digressions merely "hot air," would be best advised to keep to dry-as-dust historical commentaries, or skeptical comic books, as the case may be.

This book is not so much a biography of a single man, as an episode in Chesterton's ongoing spiritual biography of mankind. It is one in a series of what Solzhenitsyn called "knots" and Thomas Cahill calls "hinges" of history. The series continues with Chesterton's equally subjective but enlightening biographies of Chaucer, Dickens, Joan of Arc, and modern "Heretics." He gives the outline of the project in the Everlasting Man, which is one of the most brilliant and wisest books of the century.

As a non-Catholic Christian ("Protestant" would place the emphasis in the wrong place), I don't agree with Chesterton's take on the Albigensian Wars, and am more ambivalent about the Crusades than he. But he does not exactly justify the Inquisition, as the reader below implies; he admits that in later stages it was a "horrible thing that might be haunted by demons." How many modern leftists admitted that much about, say, the Russian Revolution? But I agree he may try to "understand" the sins committed by his side a little too hard.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man (July 2000)

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Rating:
Summary: Rambles too much!
Review: This is not a biography of St Francis as much it is a tangent by the author. There are only tidbits of St Francis mentioned in this book along with a lot of hot air by the author. We are told that St Francis was a soldier who upon adopting the way of life of a monk takes off all of his clothes (except for a hair skin shirt) and wanders off on his new journey. In addition to a few other facts, the author proceeds to restate in several different ways his analysis of the current period in question along with similar situations in other periods throughout history. This book is 158 pages that could be boiled down to about 10 pages.

Rating:
Summary: "Refreshing and Witty"
Review: This typical Chesterton work, is a short and insightful essay on the life of St Francis of Assisi, one of Christianity's greatest saints. While it is not a biography in the true sense of the word, it is, nevertheless, a refreshing and witty sketch St Francis' life and influence, all set behind the backdrop of his times. This is certainly a unique portrait of St Francis, and it is definitely worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: What a misleading title!!
Review: WARNING! Tis is a trap. This is a book about G.K. Chesterton HIMSELF. St. Francis of Assisi was used to flavor his personal ruminations.