fragments of an attempted writing.
WM4 has been doing his research on how JRR Tolkien was appropriated by Italian far-rightists…

- from here.

Interesting.  I'll be on the look out for the results of that research.  

3 comments:

  1. As an avid Chesterton fan I've noticed that so many fans of the Second Spring/Inklings group have a hard time admitting how Fascists around the world loved such writers. Mussolini read Chesterton and the two even met while Chesterton was on a holiday to Rome. Probably among the many reasons I was not impressed when Huckabee quote Chesterton.

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  2. I vaguely remember reading about this before, perhaps it was something you wrote. What were Chesterton's impressions of Mussolini?

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  3. I did write something about this, back in '08 when many conservative Catholic were emailing me about Huckabee, whom I detest to some degree. As for Chesterton's impressions of Mussolini, he at first expressed some respect for Il Duce. A lot of his soft criticism in The Resurrection of Rome mostly notes that the things Mussolini was doing openly were also taking place in England but behind closed doors by capitalists and government agents; eg, an unfree press and limited elections.

    So, Mr. Chesterton wasn't too harsh on Mussolini and this can be a difficult thing for fans of his. While hindsight is helpful with judging the Fascists, there's always that vexing question of whether or not Chesterton should have known better.

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