CHIASMUS AND TRAVEL.
CHIASMUS AND TRAVEL. People have favorite figures of speech. One of my favorites is chiasmus—ABBA—and apparently it was also a favorite of G.K. Chesterton. Farnsworth says that Chesterton liked chiasmus because “he believed that modern thought constantly had things backward.” Chesterton also liked paradoxes, which can also create the effect of a reversal of thought. Hitchings (and Farnworth) quote Chesterton: “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” Chesterton’s sentence is an elegant formulation of a life lesson that is important to me. I posted on it here and here.
For multiple examples of chiasmus and a whole book that reflects the concept in its organization and thinking, read Ursula LeGuin’s, The Dispossessed.