March 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I only discovered G. K. Chesterton a few years ago, through his essays which are generally excellent, and some which I would call brilliant. More recently I\u2019ve dipped into his fiction. The Man Who was Thursday<\/em><\/strong> was superb, both surreal and funny, and laden with the striking descriptions \u2014 of landscapes, settings, people \u2014 of which Chesterton is a master. After that, just last month, I tried a second piece of fiction, The Napoleon of Notting Hill<\/em><\/strong>. <\/em> I wrote a brief review of that, and, as I said, I did not care for that at all \u2014 it was clearly produced by the same author, but there the surreal became simply absurd, and the humor farce. Suspension of disbelief failed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, having liked so much of his writing, and having found so little recent fiction satisfying, I wanted to try again, and so turned to his Father Brown stories about a Priest-Detective. The friend who had initially brought GKC to my attention recommended the story, The Blue Cross, as his favorite, and sent me a link to this volume on Project Guttenberg. The Blue Cross was indeed excellent, and so I proceeded through the rest of the volume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n As a whole, it was a much more mixed bag, in part because after a while, various motifs become evident. Father Brown is portrayed as a humble, and rather odd and awkward figure, often initiallly dismissed or at least underestimated. There is always a set of bizarre events or clues that seem inexplicable in their incongruity. Other detectives are always present, and though portrayed as competent, they are always at a loss. However, Father Brown is not, and rapidly makes sense of the incongruities, though what he understands is generally revealed more gradually than he apprehends it. The characters are often associated with particular religious affiliations \u2014 Catholics and Anglicans being seen positively, whereas atheists, pagans, and often Calvinists, portrayed negatively, often being the criminals or the suicides. The stories are often set pieces \u2014 there is rarely much in the way of action or movement from place to place \u2014 rather, Father Brown looks at the scene and arrives at his conclusions.\u00a0 Finally, when Father Brown solves a crime, if the criminal is alive he is not turned over to the police, but instead encouraged to repent. In particular, this is the case of Flambeau, who is featured as a master criminal in the first few stories, but is \u2018saved\u2019 by Father Brown, and is later featured as an amateur detective and FB\u2019s only friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In what follows, I touch on each story in the book, primarily offering quotes which capturing the aspects of GKC\u2019s writing that I most admire. Favorites are noted with a *. <\/p>\n\n\n\n