How One Line from G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man Sent an Artist Around the World

How One Line from G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man Sent an Artist Around the World

Author: Society of G.K. Chesterton June 23, 2026 Duration: 48:47
 

G.K. Chesterton wrote that there are two ways of getting home—stay there, or walk around the entire world until you arrive from the other direction. For graphic novelist Ben Hatke, that line from The Everlasting Man wasn't simply a meditation on returning with fresh eyes: it became a commission. In this episode, Joe Grabowski sits down with Hatke—author of the forthcoming graphic memoir Home/World—to trace how one Chestertonian passage sent him east for 55 days across twelve countries, and how Chesterton's deepest convictions about man, story, and homecoming turned out to be more true the farther from home he traveled.

In This Episode:

  • How a single passage from G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man—the two ways of getting home—became the animating vision behind a 55-day circumnavigation of the globe
  • What Chesterton understood about encountering the world with fresh eyes: the generosity of strangers, the power of a story to cross any language barrier, and the world that waits beyond the screen
  • How Ben Hatke wove historical figures—Ibn Battuta, Nellie Bly, Saint Francis—into the narrative as "ghosts," and why the Chestertonian idea of the communion of saints gives this technique its deepest meaning
  • G.K. Chesterton's imagery of the circle and the line—from The Everlasting Man to Orthodoxy to The Man Who Was Thursday—and what it reveals about why a first encounter with any place is irrepeatable
  • Why creating the book proved as life-changing as the journey itself and what Ben discovered about story, memory, and the difference between what is factual and what is true

Chapters:

  • 00:00: Welcome and Introduction
  • 02:25: The Everlasting Man Quote Behind the Journey
  • 06:01: Memory, Story, and How a Journey Becomes True
  • 08:05: The Generosity of Strangers
  • 13:37: Turkey and the Moment It Became an Adventure
  • 22:33: Circumnavigating Post-COVID: The When and Why
  • 31:02: "I Admire Your Life—It Looks Like Freedom"
  • 35:03: Making the Book: Falling in Love with Storytelling Again
  • 39:09: Historical Ghosts: Inviting the Past into the Journey
  • 44:58: Circles and Lines: Chesterton's Vision of Coming Home

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Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios


Hosted by Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski, Uncommon Sense-The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton applies a timeless, joyful, and profoundly insightful worldview to modern life. This isn't a dry historical review, but a lively conversation that uses G.K. Chesterton's own writings and sprawling legacy as a starting point to examine just about anything. We might delve into the paradoxes of faith, the wonder of ordinary things, or the humor in politics, all through that distinctive Chestertonian lens which finds truth in paradox and gratitude in contradiction. You'll hear discussions that feel both refreshingly old-fashioned and urgently relevant, exploring topics in education, spirituality, and daily life with a sense of intellectual adventure. The aim is to recapture a sense of awe and common sense, which Chesterton argued is anything but common. Each episode invites you to step into a broader, more colorful world, one where logic and wonder comfortably coexist. This podcast, brought to you by the Society of G.K. Chesterton, is for anyone curious about seeing familiar things in a startling new light, finding depth in laughter, and discovering the radical nature of gratitude. For feedback, the hosts can be reached at podcast@chesterton.org.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Uncommon Sense - The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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