The Innocence of Father Brown, Large-Print Edition

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The Innocence of Father Brown, Large-Print Edition (Father Brown #1)

by G.K. Chesterton

3.85 · rating details · 1,157 ratings · 111 reviews

The Innocence of Father Brown is the first book of G.K. Chesterton's ingenious, thoughtful, and lyrically written mystery stories featuring the unassuming little priest who solves crimes by imagining himself inside the mind and soul of criminals, thus understanding their motives. The stories are full of paradox, spiritual insight, and "Chestertonian fantasy," or ...more

Paperback, 292 pages

Published August 3rd 2006 by Waking Lion Press (first published 1911)

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Oct 16, 2010

Justus rated it

· review of another edition

Reading this reminded me all over again why I hate the Agatha Christie style of whodunnit where people commit bizarrely complicated murders for equally bizarre reasons. Let's take the second story in the collection.

M. Valentin is the Chief of Police and also an atheist. He hears a rumor that an American millionaire is going to donate his fortune to the Church of France. Since he is a rabid atheist he sets out to murder the man before he can amend his will. Let's pass over that centra...more

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Feb 01, 2009

Peregrino rated it

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Shelves: 2009

Cuando compré este libro, recomendado por Juan Mari, he de reconocer que lo hice sin muchas perspectivas de empezarlo en breve. Había intentado leer una biografía de S. Francisco de Asis del mismo autor, sin superar la página 10.

Sin embargo, he de reconocer que me ha encantado. Me parece un libro muy ameno, inteligente, muy bien escrito, donde se mezclan historias muy sencillas con mensajes más de fondo. Parece que el autor fue publicando las distintas historias del sagaz padre Bro...more

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May 05, 2011

Nullifidian rated it

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Recommends it for: Members of the BNP and others who long for the days of "Empahr".

Shelves: librivox-audiobooks

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Okay, I admit that I didn't finish the book, but I think reading eight stories out of twelve is all the consideration that Father Brown deserves.

I listened to this as a LibriVox audiobook, and I can highly recommend it for those who can stand Chesterton's unrelenting smugness. I, alas, could not.

At first, I, like another reviewer, was briefly surprised and pleased to find Chesterton pairing up Father Brown with an atheist copper. Here might have been a fruitful give-and-t...more

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Mar 21, 2011

Adam Graham rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Father Brown, as best I can tell is the second among the Great literary detectives, right after Sherlock Holmes. In some ways, Father Brown was a continuation of what Chesterton wrote in his classic Orthodoxy.

The intellectuals of Chesterton's time viewed the orthodox Christian as superstitutious, weak-minded. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy asserted his vision of orthodoxy was something entirely different: It was conscious, sensible, winsome, and wise.

Two years after writing O...more

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May 17, 2010

Surreysmum rated it

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Shelves: 1984, mystery, short-stories

[These notes were made in 1984:]. Twelve short stories - but arranged progressively. Hence Father Brown's opponent in stories one and three, Flambeau, is his colleague from four onward. His French atheistic counterpart, the detective Valentin, looks like becoming a regular, but commits a crime and then suicide in story two. The mysteries are wild enough, and not terribly plausible; Father Brown solves them by intuition and (we suspect) faith rather than logic. What keeps us interested is (a)...more

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Feb 06, 2010

Jim rated it

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Shelves: chesterton

Because the first G.K. Chesterton story I had ever read -- many years ago -- was "The Blue Cross," the story that opens The Innocence of Father Brown, I have been consciously avoiding the Father brown stories and reading just about everything else by GKC that I could lay my hands on. Was it that I didn't like the story? Not at all! It was just that I was saving it for another occasion. Well, that occasion arose this week.

There is a strange disconnect between the characters ...more

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Dec 14, 2009

Brendan rated it

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Shelves: 2009, fiction, mystery

Obviously, I enjoy mystery stories. And I understand that G.K. Chesterton is a revered and honored British writer, and that his father brown mysteries are most enduring and likeable. But they didn’t do much for me.

Don’t get me wrong, they were clever enough, with some nice reparte between the eponymous mystery-solving priest and his quarry, but the action was almost always removed from the story, and the solving of the mystery was as often as not done by F.B. in his mind at some da...more

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Nov 01, 2011

Talons And Tea Leaves rated it

· review of another edition

Chesterton's Father Brown is a detective in league with Christie's Miss Marple, an armchair detective. Like the Victorian old maid, Father Brown is an unassuming soul who inevitably surprises people with his detective skills, unlike Mr Holmes and Mr Poirot who are preceeded by their formidable, and, it must be said, well-earned, reputations.

The Catholic priest starts out the first of five books centring him by cornering and out-witting the French criminal mastermind, Flambeau, althou...moreChesterton's Father Brown is a detective in league with Christie's Miss Marple, an armchair detective. Like the Victorian old maid, Father Brown is an unassuming soul who inevitably surprises people with his detective skills, unlike Mr Holmes and Mr Poirot who are preceeded by their formidable, and, it must be said, well-earned, reputations.

The Catholic priest starts out the first of five books centring him by cornering and out-witting the French criminal mastermind, Flambeau, although the official detective in the first story is a Frenchman named Valentin. However, Valentin is soon sent out of the picture, and Flambeau turns a new leaf and joins Brown as a private detective.

Brown's criminals are often not turned over to the police, but are often forgiven in keeping with his vocation.
As can be expected of books written in that era, there is a certain contempt of non-Europeans that would not be politically correct today. There is also the typical early-twentieth century caricature of people from the New World as loud-voiced, beefy barbarians. However, in context with the times when Chesterton lived and wrote, it is really not a very big deal.

What irks me about the series is Brown's obvious intolerance for other religions, even other Christians who are not Catholics. Granted, since the protagonist is a Roman Catholic priest, one would not expect the stories to be completely without any mention of faith --that would be uncharacteristic-- but the large extent to which the Father invokes his beliefs is somewhat annoying.

There is also a certain calm and lack of urgency to the stories, even in the cases when a murder is committed. I assume the Father is supposed to have seem many sins and is therefore immune to them, but surely it is not expected for even a world-weary Catholic priest to be moved by the horrors of crime. In a way, this calm of Father Brown is what irked me when reading this book the most. I like my crimes, to paraphrase Agatha Christie, with a little more blood and gore.

The stories are enjoyable enough, don't get me wrong, but the protagonist detective is without any personal quirks that could make him lovable. I would personally like it better if the criminal-turned-detective Flambeau were the point of view from which the story was told, and Father Brown were a secondary character. An ex-con would certainly have made a more colourful character, because our catholic priest cum detective does lack a certain flair.(less)

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Sep 07, 2011

Shinn rated it

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Shelves: 2011, detective, religion, philosophy, britain

I have no complaints about G.K. Chesteron's ability to construct a good mystery. While the first four stories in this book are a little repetitive when it comes to characters, most of them have nice twists and turns that the reader will enjoy seeing unravelled, even if they are a little improbable at times - with the exception of the second story which is VERY improbable and borders on the ridiculous.

What I had a problem with was the often narrow-minded tone of the book, particularl...more

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Jul 21, 2010

Werner rated it

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Recommends it for: Mystery fans

Shelves: mystery-crime-fiction

Chesterton was a contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and though he created his principal fictional sleuth, Father Brown, after Doyle had written the bulk of the Holmes canon, he can also claim a formative role (though not nearly so important as Doyle's) in the shaping of the genre. Father Brown is the first --but not the last!-- in a tradition of men and women of the cloth who solve traditional mysteries, the lineal ancestor of such figures as Father Dowling and Brother Cadfael, and the fir...moreChesterton was a contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and though he created his principal fictional sleuth, Father Brown, after Doyle had written the bulk of the Holmes canon, he can also claim a formative role (though not nearly so important as Doyle's) in the shaping of the genre. Father Brown is the first --but not the last!-- in a tradition of men and women of the cloth who solve traditional mysteries, the lineal ancestor of such figures as Father Dowling and Brother Cadfael, and the first series sleuth who's an amateur, rather than a professional, detective. Arising and set in the same late Victorian/Edwardian British milieu, the two characters, Brown and Holmes, have some similarities. Both are extremely smart, and have a capacity for minute observation and mental analysis of small but significant details that others tend to overlook. Flambeau, the continuing character in most of these stories, who under Brown's benign influence transitions from thief to honest detective, comes to serve as a Watson-like foil (though not narrator) for the priest detective. The latter even occasionally smokes a pipe -and more rarely (like Chesterton himself, though not like Holmes) a cigar. Like the mysteries of the Holmes canon, these stories are demanding intellectual puzzles, requiring a rationality of which the Neoclassicists would have heartily improved; but they're also steeped in the Romantic tradition, with any number of macabre, exotic or even Gothic elements: the spooky gloom of a Scottish castle as the storm wind howls, a swordfight to the death, a sinister Hindu fakir, a beheaded corpse, a religious cult, madness.

There are also, however, significant differences. Most importantly, Father Brown relies much more on intuition than Holmes does; in this respect, Chesterton sometimes seems influenced more by Henry James than by Doyle. :-) But Brown's intuition is grounded in his understanding of the dark side of human nature, gleaned as a confessor and a moral theologian, just as his knowledge of criminal techniques comes from years in the confessional in crime-ridden urban slum parishes. His priestly calling is thus not incidental to his sleuthing; and it's often the vehicle for serious observations about philosophical and spiritual truth, which are lacking or much less prominent in the Holmes canon (where both Holmes and Doyle have convictions much less definite than Chesterton's, and Brown's). Both men like the intellectual challenge of solving mysteries; but Brown isn't a hired detective, and his main interest is pastoral --he wants the reformation of the offender, not necessarily punishment, and he never takes his knowledge to the police for that reason. (He does usually encourage the culprits to confess -- with mixed success.) Holmes extends a similar mercy in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," but it's not his normal operating procedure. Where Holmes is assertive, flamboyant, and proud of his abilities (though not vain), Brown is mild-mannered, humble, and self-effacing. Chesterton's prose is something the reader is much more conscious of than Doyle's: fulsome, orotund, rich in metaphor and similie; and his much more vivid and lovingly detailed descriptions of the world around him are those of a writer who takes actual joy in the creation, founded in an appreciation of its Creator.

The dozen stories here were all written in 1910-1911; most take place in or near Chesterton's native London. A bare majority (seven) are murder mysteries; two actually turn out to involve no crime at all, and the others are daring thefts or attempted thefts. "The Secret Garden" is a noteworthy example of the first group, in that it involves an early variant on the locked-room mystery: the victim was dispatched in a garden attached to a house (belonging to the Paris chief of police, no less!), with no access save through the house, and the house has only one continuously guarded door --so how did the victim get there? A couple of cases turn on the mental inability of the class-conscious British gentry of that era to notice servants/menials as anything more than part of the furniture --a feature that Agatha Christie no doubt borrowed from Chesterton in her Poirot story "The Yellow Irises."

The particular edition I read has extensive annotations by Chesterton scholar Martin Gardner; hence, it's titled The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown (first published in 1988 by Oxford Univ. Press). These are a mixed blessing. Some of them provide interesting background matter, explanations of Edwardian terms, and textual variants, etc.; too many others explain the obvious, and some critical comments miss the boat. I don't agree with Gardner's negative view of "The Wrong Shape" or the reason for it; and while I agree that the reference to "one fat Chinese sneer" in "The Three Tools of Death" is racially insensitive and deplorable, I don't find a similar problem with any other language here. (The successful Jewish hotel owner in "The Queer Feet" isn't portrayed negatively because he's successful; if Chesterton had never mentioned that a character was Jewish, we'd no doubt hear complaints that Jews are "invisible" in his work! And the bracketing of Jews with country squires, in a passing reference in "The Flying Stars" to groups that can be seen as distinct, is no more disparaging to Jews than to country squires --a group Chesterton, given his social thought, probably more admired than the reverse.) For readers interested in Chesterton scholarship, the value of this edition is enhanced by such features as a printing history of the stories here, and an over 20-page comprehensive bibliography of critical works on Chesterton in general and the Father Brown canon in particular.(less)

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Jun 27, 2011

cindy rated it

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Shelves: crime-fiction, books-in-1-and-0

After reading it about three or four chapters, my first impression is a little confused, who was the main character? By the first few pages, we were introduced to Valentin, a French Head Police who chasing Flambeau, a French grifter, from Paris, to Brussel, and now London. Then following a bizzare trails left by a stumpy priest -namely Father Brown- and his tall friend, he finally can arrest the criminal mind he had been pursuit all along. But, in the second chapter, Head Police Valentin became ...moreAfter reading it about three or four chapters, my first impression is a little confused, who was the main character? By the first few pages, we were introduced to Valentin, a French Head Police who chasing Flambeau, a French grifter, from Paris, to Brussel, and now London. Then following a bizzare trails left by a stumpy priest -namely Father Brown- and his tall friend, he finally can arrest the criminal mind he had been pursuit all along. But, in the second chapter, Head Police Valentin became the criminal himself, comitting premeditated homicide in his own back yard. Again, the stumpy priest was the hero detective of the story. After that, in chapter three and four, Flambeau (don't know how he could deflected the law!!) is incidently cross path with Father Brown again, which then lead to his repents in crime. In the next chapters, Father Brown will befriended with Flambeau and partner up in solving various crimes.

The story of detective conduct of Father Brown itself is more like logical deep thought of man with a lot of experiences and conffesions of other man dark sins. More intuitive than psychological (like Poirot or Ms Marplle) or deductive science (like Sherlock Holmes). They were short and without explaination or necessity of whatever happened next. They were about the crimes, not the punishments, just like Father Brown himself is about a confessor and not the judge.

From what I knew, Chesterton writing as almost always reflected his opinion of the world. So, if that was the case with this stories, then they were slightly to "offend" other beliefs, from socialist, capitalist, atheis, pagans, protestant, to merely criminalist and opportunist.

This is my first GKC's book I read --mostly because Gaiman mentioned him in several occasions-- and after reading it, in general, I liked Agatha Christie's Poirot and Sir Arthur Doyle's Holmes better. But still, I could see why his works influence other writer after him.

Note: Read it in free e-text provided by Gutenberg Project www.gutenberg.org and audiobook provided by Librivox www.librivox.org. Thank you.(less)

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Jan 26, 2012

Ariadna73 rated it

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Un libro sobre detectives, tal como Sherlock Holmes, o Columbo, o Angela (lo que sea), o Poirot. El padre Brown descubre muy pronto los detalles que al resto de los mortales se nos escapan. Saqu� este libro de la biblioteca de la universidad, para impresionar a un novio potencial, que despu�s me demostr� saber mucho m�s de tantas clases de literatura, que me desbord� de admiraci�n. En suma, siendo yo la m�s impresionable e impresionada, el novio dej� de ser potencial para volverse real (todav�a tengo pes...more

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Feb 24, 2011

Aaron rated it

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This is the second of Chesterton's works that I've read. I can only describe it as I might Father Brown - quirky genius. Here printed are 12 short tales of murder and mystery, loosely interwoven.

"The Blue Cross" was one of my favorites. The simple inconspicuous deep cunning of Father Brown was most blatantly exhibited for us here. It was like witnessing a feather render an anvil unto powder. Here we first meet our two most important reoccurring characters - the brillia...more

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Feb 19, 2011

Badarudheen Kunnathodi rated it

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Shelves: detective-fiction, favorites

Yes, it's a weird work if you look at the plausibility of the story. But it is not so bad as to say implausible and difficult to imagine. Especially people like myself, who is used to reading sci-fiction novels.

It contains many short stories, with Father Brown as the protagonist. His character very much reminds one of Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie books. In fact, I think, Agatha Christie must have been inspired by Father Brown. The reason why I enjoyed this very much must also be...more

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May 11, 2010

Mark Ames rated it

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Just finished the first story "The Blue Cross". Lovely introduction to the character of Father Brown and his "strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths rather than scientific details", as the wikipedia entry states. For me I love Chesterton's use of the English language, in particular his somewhat overheated/bombastic use of the language for Aristide Valentin and then his change to a gentler, clearer use for Father Brown. Makes both charact...more

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May 15, 2007

David rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: murderers; theologians

Not only are these among the best detective stories ever written, but this particular edition is edited by a complete madman whose footnotes are nearly as entertaining as the text.

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Jun 14, 2011

Alina added it · review of another edition

Ffor some reason, every summer I end up devouring detective novels. Usually my poison is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple novels (perfe...morefor some reason, every summer I end up devouring detective novels. Usually my poison is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple novels (perfect for wash/incubation/random down time in lab). But this summer, I'm limited by what I can get on my Kindle kostenlos. The Father Brown series seemed legit (unlike a lot of the free kindle bo...more

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Jun 27, 2011

Sharakael rated it

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Shelves: short-stories, proper-murder-mystery

This was quite an enjoyable read, if somewhat rather jarring to me. Probably because I was used to detective+partner stories (Holmes with Watson, Poirot with Hastings), that this one felt unusual... most notably because the "partner" figure was missing and thus the reader's "perspective" was missing. The only sort-of-partner that existed in the book didn't do much to serve as the reader's perspective, and felt more like a bystander to the whole proceeding.

Because of...more

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Mar 17, 2011

A. J. rated it

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This book was a series of surprises for me, all stemming from my own ignorance. To begin with, I wasn't expecting it to be a series of short stories. I had also somehow assumed that G. K. Chesterton was an American writer, so was startled to find that he was British.

But having got over those two hurdles of the unexpected, I enjoyed the stories. They're straight-forward lateral-thinking-style murder mysteries. Some more believable than others. In some ways I found them hard to date - so...more

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Oct 31, 2011

Ron rated it

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Shelves: ebook, drama

Good, but not as good as I hoped/expected. While the Father Brown short stories are in one sense classic detective tales, they focus on the preternatural ability of the diminutive cleric to pull solutions out of (apparently) thin air. Since the reader is not given enough background to even make faulty conjectures, the fun is diminished.

The title character is a winning one, though I found myself substituting Alex Guinness' image (who played the good father in an early movie adaptation) ...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Russell rated it

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A collection of murder mysteries by G. K. Chesterton featuring a visually unremarkable priest, the titular Father Brown, but who has a deep understanding of the human soul, it's foibles and strengths, combined with a sharp and penetrating mind. Chesterton takes the standard murder mystery formula and doesn't change it as much as uses it to express a moral lesson, or just an intriguing moral quandary. Father Brown is the embodiment of "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves".

...more

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Apr 26, 2011

Marti rated it

· review of another edition

This was the first ebook in the Complete Father Brown series at a great price. I remember having read some of the stories before. This book is different because there really are not chapters in a continuing story--each segment is self contained, with just Father Brown and the great French detective recurring. They are well written, with well delineated characters, interesting plots, and of course aa twist as to who is the murderer. I plan to space these out with other books, as there are 756...more

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Jun 18, 2010

Heather rated it

· review of another edition

At first I set out to read The Complete Father Brown, but I found the quality of the stories inconsistant enough that I settled on reading only the first book. Some of the stories are quaint, funny and charming. Others were too absurd to make sense or be enjoyable. It also seemed that the author was not consistant about the time in which these stories took place. One involved housekeeping robots, where another involved a blacksmith accused of murder. I think these stories would be better-enjoyed...more

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Dec 19, 2011

ELK rated it

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Charming and satisfying.

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Dec 06, 2010

Trin rated it

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Shelves: english-lit, mystery, shortstories

Chesterton is perhaps best known for his Father Brown stories, so I was deeply disappointed to find that they represent him at his preachy, intolerant worst. If I’d started here, instead of with the wonderfully weird and delightfully dark The Man Who Was Thursday and The Napoleon of Notting Hill, I would have had no desire to pick up anything by Chesterton again. All of these stories seem to revolve around the irritatingly smug Father Brown proving that some type of non-Christian is wrong wrong ...more

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Dec 11, 2009

F.R. rated it

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I have read the adventures of a number of detectives who followed Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t think any of them make a good a job of matching the Baker Street resident as Father Brown. That's interesting in that Brown isn’t as much a ‘character’ as Holmes, there are no grand gestures and he often appears a passive person (more than once his sheer normality is emphasised) who steps in with the correct solution when everyone else is baffled or has eagerly grabbed hold of the wrong one. We therefo...more

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Sep 17, 2010

Manny rated it

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If you haven't come across the Father Brown stories (I'm surprised how few reviews there are), then they are worth reading. G.K. Chesterton is much more entertaining than your average Christian apologist, and if only the basic assumption of these books actually were true then I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards the Christian Church.

Chesterton doesn't just want to convince you that Christianity is different from superstition; in his universe, it's the opposite of superstition!...moreIf you haven't come across the Father Brown stories (I'm surprised how few reviews there are), then they are worth reading. G.K. Chesterton is much more entertaining than your average Christian apologist, and if only the basic assumption of these books actually were true then I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards the Christian Church.

Chesterton doesn't just want to convince you that Christianity is different from superstition; in his universe, it's the opposite of superstition! The idea in each story is always the same. Something happens (most often, a murder), and there is some plausible-looking account which appeals to people's love of the supernatural or the inexplicable. "Ah yes!" everyone is saying. "Sometimes things are beyond our understanding, but you know... you just know!" Then dumpy, prosaic Father Brown comes in, and finds a common-sense way of looking at the facts which explains everything without any supernatural drama.

To give you a taste, the one I remember best is "The Oracle of the Dog". The rich old guy has been mysteriously stabbed. No one can figure out how it could have happened; there appears to be neither weapon nor opportunity. But there is this strange thing with the dog. Just about at the moment when his master would have died, the dog was playing down on the beach, running after sticks that one of the guests was throwing for him, and then he lets out this weird, unearthly howl. Supernatural explanation! The uncanny bond between dog and master! Chesterton sets up the red herring with great skill, and I certainly fell for it.

But Father Brown is a clearer thinker, and knows what really tends to freak dogs out. In fact, the guy on the beach is disposing of the murder weapon, a sword-stick. The dog howls because he can't retrieve it; he's never seen a stick get thrown at the water and just sink! It's amazing how often Chesterton manages to get you, even once you know what the twist is going to be and you're looking out for it. He was a smart guy.

(less)

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Oct 31, 2008

Mikejencostanzo rated it

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Shelves: reviewed

An Ode to the Cozy Mystery...

I've always been a big fan of mysteries. I realized how much mysteries have been a part of my life just this morning, as I was thinking about being 33 years old. I was hit by a wave of nostalgia that took me back to my first crush on crime-solvers. I can remember as an early elementary school student, loving the 10-minute "Bloodhound Gang" mystery segment at the end of each episode of the 80's television show "321 Contact." And of ...more

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Sep 27, 2008

Matthew rated it

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Recommends it for: Bigots (no just kidding)

Shelves: fiction

Am a huge fan of GKC, and this book didn't disappoint, but what I wanted to address what the criticism in another review of his religious bigotry. Such a critique perhaps fits better on some of CS Lewis' work, such as the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, which is a rather transparent retelling of the gospel stories. I've heard, and accepted, criticism that CSL's work is too unsubtle for literary tastes, and indeed has fallen out of favor, though I'd still argue works like That Hideous Strength or even ...moreAm a huge fan of GKC, and this book didn't disappoint, but what I wanted to address what the criticism in another review of his religious bigotry. Such a critique perhaps fits better on some of CS Lewis' work, such as the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, which is a rather transparent retelling of the gospel stories. I've heard, and accepted, criticism that CSL's work is too unsubtle for literary tastes, and indeed has fallen out of favor, though I'd still argue works like That Hideous Strength or even The Silver Chair would be entertaining and thoughtful stories for anyone.

Back to Chesterton, I think there is a difference between (i) a writer who cloaks his opinions in different words, who puts a personal message into the mouths of various characters, and (ii) a writer crafting original stories but whose opinions necessarily shine through.

GKC strikes me more as the latter. Yes, Father Brown is a Catholic priest (Chesterton himself was Catholic, and a journalist), yet the inspiration behind the stories was not so much religious as the observation that, over the course of myriad confessions, a priest, outwardly innocent in mind, could become extremely familiar with evil – and hence be an excellent detective. The stories are, of course, unique because their conceit lies more in an acute observation of human nature and the question of whether a particular man of a particular personality would or would not commit such a crime in a particular way, and a reverse engineering of if not him, then who? They differ in that way from the usual Sherlock Holmes forensic putting together of physical clues, where the conceit is more an intellectual puzzle than an observation of human behavior.

This, of course, requires Father Brown to make particular comments. Some of the sharpest I read as atheistic, in the sense of not requiring adherence to any particular religion to appreciate. Take for example the following line, which I love: the context is that of Brown having caught Flambeau – a famous thief he later converts to a friend and detective – in the act, but letting him go. Asked why: “I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the earth, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread”. Open to religious interpretation, yes, but anyone who’s ever sat in an interesting lecture and been captivated by an idea will also immediately recognize the reference.

Other lines, I acknowledge, are influenced by the author’s Catholicism. But perhaps I am just less sensitive to religion, though, as I didn’t find them objectionable to call GKC a bigot. In fact, he made Flambeau, Brown’s closest friend and confidante, an atheist.

Still, some of the stories are rather far-fetched (ala Dickens, he wrote sequels chiefly to raise cash); I do prefer GKC’s Parables of Mr Pond, a series with equally sharp observations and more realistic storylines.

(Aargh. I wrote a lovely review of this book, but accidently replaced it with a 'c' by pressing the wrong key to copy paste onto this bloody Mac. I've tried to recreate it above, but such things are often awful so I apologize.)(less)

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Mar 08, 2011

Jesse Broussard rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: excellent, fiction, chesterton

I have, at this point, gone through the first nine of this collection of twelve stories, and I am now fully convinced that Chesterton was not only a man of a brilliant mind, but of a very singular mind. His paradox is well known, his way of looking at things in an entirely novel light, his self-deprecation, his humor and wit and sheer genius are all legendary, but these stories are a glimpse into the workings of his mind when he decided to amuse himself with a train of thought, and are fascinat...more

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About G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction.

Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox". Time magazine, in a rev...more

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“My brain and this world don't fit each other; and there's an end of it.” — 3 people liked it

“Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.” — 2 people liked it

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title link	preview: The Innocence of Father Brown, Large-Print Edition
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The Innocence of Father Brown, Large-Print Edition (Father Brown #1)

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