The Complete Father Brown (1987) - Plot & Excerpts
I feel kind of harsh giving this book 2 stars, since I really enjoyed the first five stories, which were the ones I was reading for university. In fact, I enjoyed them so much I decided to carry on reading this 700-odd page anthology, even though the required reading for the module was only the first 125pp or so. Taken on its own, Book 1, "The Innocence of Father Brown", would have easily earned an extra star or two from me. Book 2, "The Wisdom of Father Brown", was still fun to read, but I found the stories were starting to feel either slightly repetitive, as Chesterton resorted to similar plots as those he used in the first collection, or confusing and unsatisfying in their resolutions. I only made it halfway through the second story in Book 3, "The Incredulity of Father Brown", before giving up - I just wasn't being drawn in by the premise any more, especially as Father Brown was by now inexplicably transplanted from his quaint English parish to a globe-trotting career as spiritual adviser to the rich and famous in the Americas. (Seriously, did I miss something there?). Usually I'm loath to give up on a book, but this downturn occurred just shy of the collection's halfway mark, and I decided that on this occasion it was simply an unjustified investment of my time to hang on to the end, 400 or so pages away, just to see if things improved.Not that I'm accusing Chesterton of being a bad writer; he's funny and his characters are engaging in ways that make up for the odd unbelievable moment or plot hole, the sort that are to be found in any long-running detective series. But, as the introduction to the volume informed me when I turned to it for answers, the author was writing from Book 3 onwards under some duress. Like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, Chesterton had grown tired of his signature creation and wanted to retire him; as with Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, public demand for more Father Brown stories eventually wore down the author's resistance; but unlike Conan Doyle and Christie, Chesterton does not, to my mind, succeed in hiding his boredom with the series. The situations become more outlandish as if to make up for the fact that the endearing heart of the original few stories has gone. And for me, it just didn't work.I think that perhaps I'd have had more patience with this series if I'd been reading the five or six original collections separately, rather than in one complete volume. I love Agatha Christie, particularly the Hercule Poirot series, but I think I'd get bored reading all the Poirot stories back-to-back in a single collection, too; this style of presentation does serve to highlight some of the repetitions and escalations that are present in most long-running detective series, but that aren't particularly obvious or bothersome if you read them with a decent gap in-between. I hope to come back to my copy of the Complete Father Brown some day, with fresh eyes and a few other books to read alongside it, to break it up into stand-alone short stories as they were originally intended to be read. In the meantime, I'd recommend anyone who loves detective fiction to go out and find a copy of "The Innocence of Father Brown", but to consider reading it and judging it by itself and on its own merits, rather than using this collection as an introduction to the character and the series.
I did it, I read the whole thing! Short stories can be sort of disruptive to your brain. It takes a page or two to get the gist and then it's over in 10 or 15. There's a ton of stories in this omnibus of 813 pages, It's almost that by the time you've read the next story, you've forgotten what the previous story was about. But you do have the common thread of Father Brown. I did want to read this because I fell in love with the Father Brown series no PBS. I love Syd the chauffeur, and the Lady and Father Brown's Irish housekeeper. But, much like Rizzoli and Isles, it bears little resemblance to the actual stories beyond Father Brown solving mysteries, or more to the point murders. Although, one thing that I did notice with the series and the stories is that Father Brown in his infinite wisdom was from time to time inclined to let a criminal off, not without dispensing some manner of penance though. This Father Brown of the stories has become somewhat renowned for his detective skills, and solicited to give lectures in the States. He's been in several countries for leisure and priestly reasons, and not unlike Jessica Fletcher, stumbles upon murder wherever he goes. Flambeu, the jewel thief turned detective is a recurring character, and a close friend of Father Brown's. I enjoy Father Brown's thought processes. He doesn't going around blowing his own horn, he listens, and banks all his theories on his knowledge of human frailties. While everybody else is chasing their own tails, he stares placidly off into space and waits till they pause for a moment and then says this is what happened and why. Rather than solving mysteries based on DNA and fingerprints, he would more often point out that for all the reasons you think someone is guilty, they are all the reasons he believes them to be innocent. I read someone's review who went on about Chesterton and how he's anti semetic and a long list of other unpalatable personality characteristics, he has no problem throwing the word jew or nigger around, but I think that you have to think in terms of the generation in which it was written, and how permeated with political correctness the world is now, that it's all the more jarring when you hear those words and all they connote, and maybe Chesterton was a total creep in his prejudice's but it's still the way of his era overall. If I'm going to read and learn about other eras or countries, then I want to know how they thought and spoke and not get some sanitized version of how things were.
What do You think about The Complete Father Brown (1987)?
Wow. I picked up this book because I was enjoy mysteries that are neither cozy nor thrillers, so I find that older mysteries are more to my taste. However, I didn't really enjoy these at all. While I thought some of the solutions were problematic, as in "The Invisible Man", and I was put off by the fact that people kept getting killed right under Father Brown's nose, my main problem was with the tone of the stories. A short, incomplete list of people who might be offended by these stories include: women, Jews, black people, Asians, Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, pagans, Italians, Americans, union members, actors, Communists, intellectuals, Celts, Scottish people...basically, if you are not a white male English Catholic, you might want to be prepared for something insulting to be said about you at some point. I realize that these stories were written before WWII, but jeez.On the plus side, these are blessedly short, tightly written stories that won't take up too much of your time. They're so easy to read that I finished the whole book, despite several headdesk moments. I also like the character of Father Brown, a kindly priest who understands the criminal mind because his religion's emphasis on the sinful nature of all mankind. Chesterton is very imaginative author, and some bits are quite funny. I liked the emphasis on redeeming the criminals in these cases--in so many mysteries, it's just toss them in the poky and be done with it. So, you might enjoy these if you can look past the outdated stereotypes.
—Jenn
Father Brown is first introduced to readers as a kindly, clumsy little priest who prattles naively about the valuables he's toting, and keeps dropping his umbrella.But appearances, G.K. Chesterton reminds us, are deceptive. "The Complete Father Brown Stories" brings together the complete collection of stories about the kindly, eccentric detective who has an uncanny cleverness that nobody guesses. Chesterton wraps each story in his warm, sometimes entrancing writing and a very odd assortment of crimes.Father Brown is a pleasant little Roman Catholic priest living in England, who seems just to be a nice little old man on the outside. But when a crime is committed -- or seems to have been committed -- Father Brown begins pottering around in search of clues, and unravels the very surprising truths of the matter.Not just factual truths, but the truths of human nature and theology. Some of the mysteries that confront him are seemingly simple crimes, while others are baffling to the point of impossibility. And some of the stories (such as man who claims he's going to be attacked by a demonic force) seem to have a supernatural basis, but Father Brown's common sense always wins.Chesterton's mysteries are often ignored next to Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, which is odd when you consider his uncanny knack for making mysteries that were a lot simpler than they appeared to be, or else had some sort of bizarre twist at the end. Both kinds of mysteries show up in these short stories, but only occasionally can readers guess what is going on, until Father Brown spells it out with some little detail of human nature.The mysteries are usually written very casually and a little humorously, but with an oblique wall of clues that don't make sense until Father Brown reveals the motives. And Chesterton's crowning achievement is a writing style is absolutely exquisite ("Over the black pine-wood came flying and flashing in the moon, a naked sword"), something that not many mysteries have.And Father Brown is a likable little guy, who looks like an "innocent goblin" and doesn't have to overwork himself to solve mysteries. It's his shrewd brain and rather childlike straightforwardness that carries him through, and his innocuous appearance hides a shrewd knowledge of crime and evil ("The reliable machine always has to be worked by an unreliable machine.... I mean Man")."The Complete Father Brown Stories" brings together some truly memorable mystery stories, with solutions much simpler than they seem.
—Ea Solinas
Chesterton made a man who is sharp-witted, dreamy, kind, hard, dumpy, odd, lovable... in short, who takes my attention and holds it tight. I LIKE Father Brown. I would love to be stuck next to him on a long airplane ride with nothing to do but talk.There is nothing of the thriller about these mysteries. They are more pretty descriptions, a plot twist, and a philosophical musing, generally. They aren't keep-you-up-late stories, so much as curl-up-with-tea stories. But I like that in them, too.Some things which didn't impress me so much in these books, are the author's apparent biases. He can come down rather hard on theologies not his own, at times, and there also seems to be some of what may be racism, if it isn't just outmoded language. Over all, though, it earns its stars.
—Anita
