Father Brown Mysteries

Father Brown Mysteries, G.K. Chesterton


I have lately been reading G.K. Chesterton's fiction.  To date I have read The Complete Father Brown (fair; short stories about the ubiquitous Fr. Brown.  I found Fr. Brown too all-knowing, making deductions not based on adequate and/or revealed facts), Tales of the Long Bow (good; short stories revolving around a set of characters who fulfill literally popular sayings, such as eating one's hat), The Man Who Was Thursday (good; a novel about an undercover bureau of Scotland Yard that infiltrates a notorious anarchist - "dynamiter" - group, all of whose members turn out to be undercover agents, and in the end it all turns out to be a daydream), Napoleon of Notting Hill (fair toward the end; a tedious story of England in the future - from 1900 - when the king is chosen at random and the random king is enamored with his own nonsensical whims that get out of hand), Club of Queer Trades (good; each short story flows into the next and each ends with the explanation being the trade of one of the protagonists - a trade that never existed before), The Man Who Knew Too Much (fair; another know-it-all, ala Fr. Brown, but more supercilious - he dies in the end).


© Lester L. Noll

11-Nov-2000