The Complete Father Brown (Father Brown Mystery)

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Publisher:	Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release date:	06 January, 1987
List price:	~~$16.95~~
Our price:	$11.53 that is 32% off!

The Complete Father Brown (Father Brown Mystery)

Average rating: Stars

"The little priest was not an interesting man to look at."

G.K. Chesterton's "Father Brown" stories are indeed second only to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, in my mind, among British mysteries. Chesterton writes with a more poetic hand, his language often breathtaking in its prose: "The Vernon Hotel, at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners, was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society that has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product---an 'exclusive' commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing that paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away." A deep love of words is one of the advantages of Chesterton over Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes stories. The flip side of this is that Doyle wrote with more economy of words, which is a different gift but equally worthy.

Father Brown is an enjoyable character because of his naievete. One never quite expects him to solve the puzzles with which he is presented, yet after awhile it just becomes commonplace to read Chesterton's description of his "colorless voice" and "piggish eyes" again being vital in uncovering a cause of death or any number of less dramatic mysteries. He's a Father SpongeBob with an awesome gift, lovable and feckless, winning us over and entering our hearts.

Yet the stories of Father Brown don't attain quite the depth of Holmes. Partly this is due to the priest being so mysterious; we don't know his background, where he came from, anything at all about his personal quirks, etc., other than his being small and somewhat round, cheerful yet wise in a Pooh sort of way, very sharp in putting clues together, and a bit clumsy. Whereas any Holmesian could give a full account of the great consulting detective's personality quirks, likes and dislikes, physical traits and habits, home life, acquaintances, etc. Father Brown is just not as fully drawn, and therefore doesn't as fully get his hooks into our souls.

There is also the unfortunate racist tone sometimes struck by Chesterton, with his offhanded comments about Negroes, Jews, the Celts, or any one of several given ethnic groups, in which he attributes one or another generalized negative trait to that entire subsect of humanity: The Celts "accept easily the superstitious explanation of any incident," or a character's wish that "the Jews...should rather find themselves penniless," elsewhere finding it necessary to point out that a minor character was a Jew such as "the power of a Jew money-lender living in the manor," or "eastern heroes who rode with twelve-turbaned mitres upon elephants painted purple or peacock green; of gigantic jewels that a hundred negroes could not carry," etc.

Unfortunate, but at least these ignorant moments are only occasional and are easily seen as such by modern readers. The stories themselves are often brilliant, sometimes obtuse, but always a pleasure to read. Recommended in spite of Mr. Chesterton's prejudices, a product of his time that he apparently was unable to rise above.

The Complete Father Brown (Father Brown Mystery) - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Superior mystery fare

G.K. Chesterton is a humorous writer, and he writes sterling prose; these two enviable qualities distinguish him as superior to Arthur Conan Doyle as a mystery writer, not to mention superior to most writers in any genre. This Penguin omnibus of nearly fifty stories featuring his clerical sleuth Father Brown is an excellent introduction to the man's classic English style of understated wit, taste for the exotic and the mythical, unbounded imagination, and worldly philosophy, helpfully reduced to easily digestible epigrams by the discursive priest. Chesterton doesn't cloister his protagonist in a strictly ecclesiastical environment; Father Brown's social realm lies far outside the church and well within the material world of theatrically colorful disguises, melodramatic villains and their not entirely innocent victims, big business, and fabulous wealth.

If Chesterton has anything in common with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, it is the way he incorporates his strong religious convictions into his fiction. Two of the Commandments--the ones forbidding stealing and killing--are the most typically transgressed in these stories, the committers of these sins betrayed by moral weakness detected by Father Brown, a scholar of motives and the human tendency to do wrong in the absence of a solid spiritual anchor. Like Sherlock Holmes, he solves crimes by noticing small details that everybody else misses and applying the most rigid logic, but he is more human and animated than the stolid Holmes. He even has a professional cohort, a French private detective who goes by the name of Flambeau and who bedeviled the world as a master thief before the solicitous Father Brown showed him the error of his wicked ways.

Aside from his short, stout stature, mildly clumsy behavior, and the benevolent patience with which he tolerates atheists, socialists, skeptics, mystics, pagans, etc., Father Brown's greatest distinction as a character is his representation of the supreme logic and rationale Chesterton considers inherent in Roman Catholic theology; he is less a visual figure than an embodiment of a set of ideas, a projection of his author's conscience and intellect, clothed in black. Although Chesterton undoubtedly hopes to enlighten the heathens among his readers, he doesn't insult their intelligence with simplistic morality tales; he knows that we don't need Father Brown to remind us, however eloquently, that stealing and killing are wrong. Chesterton rather uses the conflict between good and evil as the context within which he can expound his philosophical opinions through a priestly voice.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton - The Complete Father Brown (Father Brown Mystery)

A treasure trove!

Other authors may have excelled in the detective story, but it was G.K. Chesterton who elevated it to a higher intellectual and literary level. His writing combines wit, humor and whimsy with deep insights into psychology, philosophy, and even theology. While others viewed the detective story as a mere entertaining puzzle, G.K. treated it as a serious art form, with potential for symbolism and allegory. Father Brown is one of the classic fictional detectives of all time, a character more "real" than many living people. How wonderful to have all the Father Brown stories under one cover! Keep this volume by your bedside or near your favorite armchair, so you can dip into it on a rainy weekend, before you go to bed, or at any time you like. All confirmed Father Brown devotees must have the Penguin COMPLETE FATHER BROWN, and those who have not yet discovered this detective genius could find no better way to become acquainted with him.

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