The Innocence of Father Brown

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Father Brown is the prototype of the intuitive amateur sleuth like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and TV's Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote , who runs into murders everywhere he goes and manages to solve the crimes with only one or two clues where thorough, professional investigators are stumped.

Nor is the character of Father Brown fleshed out to make him more sympathetic. We have no idea of his background, his actual age his elderliness varies in the stories , his parish he turns up all over the world , or any of his daily life—apart from solving murders and spouting intriguing observations. And he's a priest, for godsake. An unusual priest, granted. But his main interest in uncovering criminals is not to serve earthly justice but to save their immortal souls. All this would seem to add up to a ghastly reading experience, especially for the non-religious reader.

The mysteries are extremely clever on the most superficial level, with several innovations on the classic locked-door mystery and other more novel situations. But on top of that, they involve an understanding of human nature—or at least of how human nature operates in society. Typically, Father Brown solves crimes by sharing the perpetrators' own insights into human perception, which allow them to commit the deeds and him to uncover them.

He sees what others, including the readers, do not, even when it is right before our eyes. When we reach the solution in a Father Brown mystery, we're less likely to exclaim, "Wasn't that smart! In about a third of the stories I did see the solution coming from a long way off. I suspect though this is because these stories, like the mysteries of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe, have become embedded in our culture.

The surprise has worn off because the tricks have been replayed so many times in stories, movies and television shows since they were invented by these masters. What about the religious content though? I prefer to read it as moral content, apart from any denominational standpoint. Interestingly, Chesterton wrote the first volume of Father Brown stories long before he became a Catholic. The idea of a mystery-solving pair consisting of a priest and an atheist detective seemed interesting to me, and I wanted to see how two men of such differing beliefs would manage together.

Then I got to the end of that second story, and my hopes were dashed.

The revelation about Valentin came out of nowhere unless his atheism was supposed to be a clue, in which case the entire story just plain makes me angry , and seemed, to me, to be an easy out for Chesterton. Rather than having to deal with potentially complicated future conversations between a religious man and an atheist, he simply took the atheist out of the picture. I didn't see Flambeau as much of anything beyond a constant reminder that Father Brown's way of doing things lead to people doing the Right Thing.

And what was Father Brown's way of doing things? Well, in cases that didn't involve the police, his way of doing things meant not necessarily even contacting the police.

In at least one of the stories, he left it completely up to the murderer to turn himself in. In another story, Father Brown figured out how Flambeau set up one of his thefts and could probably even have arranged for the police to catch him. Instead, he told Flambeau to give up his life of thievery and return what he stole.

I've read that Father Brown's actions were in keeping with his profession, but that didn't mean they made for satisfying reading, at least not for me. I don't know that I would have minded as much if all his cases had involved thievery, but they didn't. I wasn't really comfortable with Father Brown figuring out how a murder had occurred and not always telling the police about it. In at least one story, there was no guarantee that any of the authorities ever found out what truly happened.

Maybe that didn't matter to Father Brown, but it mattered to me. After finishing the first story in the book, I saw Father Brown as an interesting character, one I could potentially like quite a bit. I came to like him less and less, however. His lack of interest in helping to see that secular justice was carried out bothered me, as I've said.

I also felt that the way Chesterton wrote about him sometimes made him seem a bit creepy and unnerving. Below is a good example. By the way, the "it" he's referring to is a knife. But it's the wrong shape.

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It's the wrong shape in the abstract. Don't you ever feel that about Eastern art? The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the shapes are mean and bad—deliberately mean and bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey carpet. Flambeau spoke quietly to him in answer. Don't you see that it has no hearty and plain purpose? It does not point like a spear.

It does not sweep like a scythe. It does not look like a weapon. It looks like an instrument of torture. Except, at that point, he had no way of knowing any of that and was just having some kind of dreamy, creepy moment while holding a knife. I don't think it was nervous laughter as a result of being around the dead body. I think he was just amused at the clever little hint he had given everyone Overall, while I found several of the mysteries to be interesting, they didn't always end in ways I found satisfactory.

Eine kleine aber feine Sammlung an Detektivgeschichten. Bald geht es mit dem zweiten Band weiter. Feb 18, Johnny rated it liked it Shelves: They became more like television episodes of a favorite mystery series. The prose can be a little dense at times, but the occasionally slow-going usually features a nice pay-off. The anthology gets its name, I presume, as a pun on events in the first two stories where Father Brown is under suspicion.

The following summary suggests what I enjoyed about each story. The third mystery hinges on the mystery of two walking styles. The crime involves the English pantomime version of "commedia del arte" and ends with a sermon combined with solution by Brown. In my opinion, it is one of the best stories in the collection. You will sit up in your free forest cold at heart and close to death, and the tree-tops will be very bare. You used to boast of doing nothing mean, but you are doing something mean tonight. You are leaving suspicion on an honest boy with a good deal against him already; you are separating him from the woman he loves and who loves him.

But you will do meaner things than that before you die. Fifth, is a story that deals with perception or the lack thereof when a murder is committed by an invisible man. This story underscores something I began to realize about halfway through the book. I noticed that Father Brown rarely actually brings the perpetrator to justice, but often toward redemption.

Sixth, there is a cute little macabre story about missing gold, even down to the gilt on illuminated manuscripts. Seventh, we read GKC's idea of miracle when a phony Indian swami appears to kill the victim by auto-suggestion. The eighth tale is a bit like a "call-back" in comedy in that it refers back to another story, foreshadows the result in this story and pulls it together with an unexpected twist. I loved the "Hammer of God" story for GKC's parable about needing other people to worship authentically lest we fail to see ourselves as we really are.

And once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole world seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his brain turned also, and he fancied he was God. He would never have had such a thought if he had been kneeling with other men upon a floor. But he saw all men walking about like insects. The one spiritual disease according to Father Brown is to believe oneself well. That is how the mystery around the new Apollo sect begins. Another story deals with the past reputation of a military hero. The exposition was fascinating and not what I was expecting. In yet another story, GKC suggests that people cannot tolerate constant cheerfulness without accompanying humor.

What an interesting insight! Yet, I am delighted that I read it. Why must you be so frustrating? Such a beautiful prose for such an insubstantial fare! Chesterton's style is so pleasant to read that I want, I really want to like these stories. I'm certainly very fond of passages like this: There is in the world a very aged rioter and demagogue who breaks into the most refined retreats with the dreadful information that all men are brothers, and wherever this leveller went on his pale horse it was Father Brown's trade to follow. The ves Alas, Chesterton! The vessel was just comfortable for two people; there was room only for necessities, and Flambeau had stocked it with such things as his special philosophy considered necessary.

If only the plots lived up to the way they are written!

The Innocence of Father Brown

I don't understand why Chesterton is considered an authority of the detective story. There are some clever ideas, but cleverness is no substitute for logical sense. His stories rely heavily on contrivance and unbelievable circumstances; his criminal masterminds consistently fail to think their schemes through; his great sleuths resort to methods that have no business working, yet they do.

Perhaps I'm seeing this the wrong way? Perhaps this is not how these stories should be appreciated? Granted, my only other contact with the genre has been through Sherlock Holmes, but I can attest that even the worst Holmes story is better plotted than mostly anything in this volume.

Also, Arthur Conan Doyle made the wise move of making Holmes's rational approach fallible, whereas Father Brown's often baseless intuitions end up being proven right every time. Many a mystery is solved by his miraculously noticing something that has been miraculously overlooked by everyone else. Perhaps he gets help from the Holy Ghost? I say that only half-jokingly, as the religious apologetics is all-pervasive.

Father Brown misses no chance to expound on the superiority of Catholicism, or, more annoyingly, on the evils of pretty much everything that is not Catholicism. He is supposed to be a mild-mannered, unassuming priest, yet he often comes across as rather smug and even positively bigoted. This is not necessarily a bad thing in a literary character: The difference is that Holmes has Watson to call him out on those. No one calls Father Brown out when he quaintly claims, for example, that the Scottish favoring Calvinism rather than Catholicism is somehow related to the alleged fact that their ancestors worshipped demons.

Or consider this passage, more beautiful prose, but this time in the service of less than beautiful notions: In "A Scandal in Bohemia," view spoiler [he underestimates Irene Adler on account of her being a woman and, as a result, she outsmarts him and gets away hide spoiler ]. Contrast this with "The Secret Garden," where Father Brown reasons that view spoiler [being an atheist is motivation enough to commit a gruesome murder hide spoiler ] , and the author heartily agrees.

In Chesterton's literary universe you may be a good, well-meaning person, but if you're not Catholic then you're a potential homicide. At the very least, you are suspicious enough to serve as a red herring. Because man's heart is wicked, you know, and only the Church's discipline can prevent him from going over to the devil.

This is not just how Father Brown sees other characters: He doesn't acknowledge the faults of his protagonist because he shares them and considers them virtues. As a creator, G. Chesterton has shaped a world after the likeness of his prejudice and sent forth Father Brown to spread his word upon it. Jul 30, Wealhtheow rated it did not like it Recommends it for: Really awful Christian propaganda posing as murder mysteries. Unfortunately, Chesterton has a narrowness of view. In the first story of the collection, the clever police chief Valentin is the main character.

I quite liked him, and looked forward to more interactions between him an atheist and Father Brown a saintl Really awful Christian propaganda posing as murder mysteries. I quite liked him, and looked forward to more interactions between him an atheist and Father Brown a saintly priest. But did you never see in that cold, grey eye of his that he is mad! He would do anything, anything, to break what he calls the superstition of the Cross. He has fought for it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it. The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the shapes are mean and bad-- deliberately mean and bad.

I have better things to do with my life than read your bigotry. Aug 16, Joseph rated it it was amazing Shelves: I quite enjoy Father Brown stories. I began reading them a couple years ago In writing each story, the writer inevitably comes by the personage of Father Brown as almost of a side-note, and each story he is introduced again as if it didn't matter that the entire volume of stories were his stories. K Chesterton writes very colorfully, in rainbows and spirals, populating his stories with color, extreme weath I quite enjoy Father Brown stories.

K Chesterton writes very colorfully, in rainbows and spirals, populating his stories with color, extreme weather and landscapes, and eccentric personages--in all cases the figure of Father Brown is an inconspicuous contrasting blot, suggested by his name, which is not only the most uninteresting of colors but also a most common unremarkable name. He is further described as short, having blank little eyes, and face which is sometimes likened to that of a baby.

He, however, is quite discerning into man's sinful nature that he is able to see through the superfluity of each crime and discover its core. In each case, Chesterton also seems to be making a theological point he was a converted, enthusiastic Catholic the most over arching one perhaps is that of becoming simple--boring even--and clear-headed.

Not only do the murderers reveal their natures as bad, but also more subtly, the people around Father Brown reveal their own blindness by their own limited ideas of what actually happened. Over and over again, the Father is the only sincere Catholic, the only one with a path so to say, and each story you see everyone else go astray. Commenting on a new age religion, the priest of which has presumably just committed a crime, Father Brown says, "Yes but can it cure the one spiritual disease?

He also finds it appropriate to critique those that "read the bible" and simultaneously accusing one person the suspicion of that person is cleared by having this "good" attribute , by noting that Mormons read the bible and find Polygamy, a type setter reads it and finds errors, a Christian scientist reads it and finds no arms and legs. For Father Brown there is no, no one religion fits all, and thats the delight of reading these stories. His spiritual certainty and depth is strikingly attractive, and familiar to anyone who has fully embraced a religion, and it is perfect to fit it against crime,the largest most gross manifestation of small imperfections of spiritual dispositions.

The only narrative problem with the stories is that he is a Catholic Priest and it becomes harder and harder to believe that would happen to be around went so many deadly crimes occur. This is eased by his friends presence who he always seems to be visiting who is a detective but enough stories occurs where the crime happens in the next room to where they are sitting talking The murders and stories are not quite as real life as those say in Sherlock Holmes stories Feb 21, Ritesh Kukrety rated it liked it. Okay, so confession time see what I did there?

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

I liked its cover, which had this cartoonish figure in a brown coat and a light brown hat and a big fecking magnifying glass glued to his eye, and I liked its title and blurb. Now before any of you go chastising me over my faux-pas, allow me to state that I always judge a book by its cover and judge it more for Okay, so confession time see what I did there? Now before any of you go chastising me over my faux-pas, allow me to state that I always judge a book by its cover and judge it more for what is inside the cover.

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