Manalive

Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary
“The glory of God is man fully alive” –St. Irenaeus

This seems to be the thesis Chesterton is playing with as he introduces us to Innocent Smith, a man alive. Innocent takes great lengths to break out from the seduction of routine to forget what it means to be alive. From traveling around the world to greater appreciate his family; to dispensing life from the barrel of a revolver, he finds ways to remind himself and others that they are alive and that life is beautiful. Contrasted with modernity, is Smith a lunatic? a criminal?

Strength
As Palmer suggests in The Active Life, the roll of contemplation-in-action is to disillusion. His principles fit Smith’s modus operandi. Smith’s action of breaking out wipes away the illusions that hide his appreciation for life. Whether he is accessing an ability to covet his own possessions or his own wife, he is learning to be fully alive. Chesterton paints in broad strokes and stark contrasts to show the disparity between full life and the modern man. For a society so fully dulled to living, even questioning whether non-existence might be preferable, the reality of life in the way of Innocent Smith seems unreal. How could everything be available in the sovereign state of Beacon House? How could all that glitters really be gold (59-60). Chesterton offers a glimpse at a deeper reality that Smith has come to recognize. As Irenaeus completes the quote above, “moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God” (Against Heresies 4, 20, 7: PG 7/1, 1037)

Weakness
Does Chesterton go too far? Does he, in pointing to another reality, diminish this present one and our need to live in it? What if there was no other reality after all what if it is all material? After attending what for us was an odd atheist funeral for my wife’s uncle I began to contemplate how I would live this reality if I did not believe in God. I found it very likely I would have lived much like uncle Tom, and perhaps also died at my own hands.

In Dostoevsky’s dark satire, Demons, the nihilist, Kirillov believes that if one could completely disregard the other reality and the fear of death it engenders in people, one could become God and that other God will cease to hold sway over people. A man like Kirillov stands as opposite witness to Professor Eames, he would lay down his life to prove it doesn’t matter. He gladly would have had Smith make his mark, only better yet he would have snatched the gun from his hand and done it himself.

“Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that is how I understand it,” I observed, “and that is what nature tells us.”

Here the Dostoevsky’s narrator agrees with Innocent Smith, but Kirillov disagrees.

“That is base, that is the whole deceit!” his eyes began to flash. “Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That’s how they’ve made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be” (Dostoevsky 115).

Synthesis

In the words of a Switchfoot song, “Souls aren’t built of stone.” We are more than material and I believe Smith has it right; there is a deeper reality that should direct our actions. Actions built out of a reality that goes unobserved by many will seem insane. It takes dramatic events like coming to terms with terminal illness to disillusion us.

On Fresh Air today I heard Dennis Potter say a very Smith-like thing of his impending death in 1994.

“The fact is that if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it!”

Application
In my own pursuit of the spiritual in my everyday life, I do well to heed the example of Innocent Smith. I must live in the present, enjoying the things around me: the plumb blossoms Dennis Potter learned to appreciate, or the stuff I already have. I do well to live aware of life and God blazoned in living color around me.