Reviews for Near Death At The Er Window

The average rating for Near Death At The Er Window based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-08 00:00:00 Ankush Mondal This is my second complete read of G.K.Chesterton's classic treatment of the "Angelic Doctor" - as St. Thomas is sometimes referred to - and I do not plan on it being the last. In fact, I suspect subsequent reads to be even more fruitful than this one which was a significant improvement on my introduction to the work back in the 1990's. As St. Thomas is considered one of the greatest minds to have ever lived and his biographer, Chesterton, not a slacker himself when he puts pen to paper, the reader can expect to work for everything gleaned from this excellent biography'however much the author downplays the difficulty in all Thomistic writings and emphasizes the inadequacy of his own treatment. Even so, the book is a pleasure to read from start to finish, chock full of interesting tidbits on the saint, philosophy, religion, science, and a myriad of other subjects which Chesterton brings to bear on the reality of reason and fidelity of faithfulness. Étienne Gilson, the leading Thomistic scholar of the twentieth century (and someone I am struggling to even to begin to understand!) called it 'as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas'. To that I can only add, it is also the most enjoyable to read and/or listen to. My husband and I were listening to the Blackstone Audio version of it and chuckling at the subtle (and sometimes not-so subtle) Chestertonian witticisms which are packed into the text like an overripe fruitcake. Pure delight! 'Trace even the Puritan mother back through history and she represents a rebellion against the Cavalier laxity of the English Church, which was at first a rebel against the Catholic civilisation, which had been a rebel against the Pagan civilisation.  Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that these things were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other.  But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end.  For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intent only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being.'

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-21 00:00:00 Perry McLaughlin Chesterton has only a few things to say about Aquinas, really, but that's the way it is with all his books: the ostensible subject is most of the time fondly neglected for the atmosphere surrounding it. And while from most writers behavior of this sort would be intolerable, from Chesterton, somehow, it's better than tolerable; because almost no one else is this fun to read. Chesterton's Aquinas is no vague hypothesizer of miniature angels traipsing about in Nana's sewing kit, but the champion of common sense philosophy, out to rescue medieval Christendom from the slow creep of Platonism, and to return it - with some help from Aristotle - to an affirmation of the reality and value of the material order, and a reasonable sense of our place within it. My grasp on medieval philosophy is perhaps a little rusty, but I recall enough to know that Chesterton is simplifying things. I also know that the compellingly baited hooks of our own "age of uncommon nonsense" (Chesterton's phrase) are sometimes difficult not to swallow. Nonetheless, this is a bright, bracing book and it's got me excited to pick up some of Chesterton's other titles again.