A Father Brown (and Bookpile) Sunday

Bookpile first!  This morning, snow greeted me as I tramped out to the mailbox.  I hadn’t checked mail in a few days, because I assumed that my amazon and bookmooch stuff wouldn’t be in yet.  So imagine my delight when I found all of these books waiting for me!  It’s difficult to see in the picture, but the cover of Salinger’s Nine Stories is super-cool: each of those coloured squares has one of the story titles, and the back cover is the same.  All of these were ordered/mooched in the final days of 2007, so I haven’t broken my resolution yet. :)

For the short story Sunday this week, I’m going to look at a book I’ve already mentioned, but this time in greater depth. And the Book? The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton (This was cross-posted at the Outmoded Authors Blog yesterday)

This was my first experience with Father Brown, and Chesterton for that matter. The collection starts off with a great story, “The Absence of Mr. Glass” that basically mocks Holmes-style detective fiction. It opens with Dr. Orion Hood, “an eminent criminologist,” in his study. His study is described in great detail, and every sentence reinforces Dr. Hood’s extreme orderliness. I thought you guys would appreciate this passage:

Poetry was there: the left-hand corner of the room was lined with as complete a set of English classics as the right hand could show of English and foreign physiologists. But if one took a volume of Chaucer or Shelley from that rank, its absence irritated the mind like a gap in a man’s front teeth. One could not say the books were never read; probably they were, but there was a sense of their being chained to ther places, like the Bibles in the old churches.

Then, into this eminent Doctor’s day, “there shumbled into the room a shapeless little figure, which seemed to find its own hat and umbrella as unmanageable as a mass of luggage. The umbrella was a black and prosaic bundle long past repair; the hat was a broad-curved black hat, clerical but not common in England; the man was the very embodiment of all that is homely and helpless.” Needless to say, this is our erstwhile hero Father Brown. The two go on to try to solve a mystery; a boarder who has fallen in love with the landlady’s daughter has been found tied up in his room, with everything in disarray. Meanwhile, before this the landlady overheard the boarder arguing with a mysterious Mr. Glass, who seems to come from the sea. Whatever is going on? As Dr. Hood provides his thoroughly scientific and rational answer, Father Brown seems to be trying not to laugh. And eventually he sees through the heart of the matter.

There are twelve stories, and my other favourites was “The Perishing of the Pendragons,” which deals with an old family curse that keeps causing Pendragons to be shipwrecked. It’s difficult to choose however-all but one of the stories were perfect gems! Throughout the collection, Father Brown is traveling: we see him in Scarborough, Italy, Paris, London, Chicago, Devonshire, Cornwall, Essex, and Germany. I don’t know if that’s usual of Father Brown stories, but I found the constant change of scenery quite refreshing! I do wish I could have gotten to know Father Brown a bit better, though…there isn’t much character development in this collection.

I did alude to one story that I did not like at all: “The God of Gongs.” It’s the ninth story, so I was quite used to Chesterton’s style, when all of a sudden this story appeared and through everything out of joint. It got very muddled very quickly, and Father Brown got in a violent altercation (which is quite unlike him), and it talks a lot about “negros,” (and a much nastier n-word) and uses adjectives like “insolent” when referring to them. In fact, Father Brown’s friend says, “Sometimes…I’m not surprised that they lynch them.”  Edited to add: as Gramps rightly pointed out, Father Brown’s reply is “I’m never surprised by any work of hell.”  While that certainly gives Chesterton and Father Brown much more moral standing, I don’t think it mitigates Flambeau himself.  The ‘solution’ is very confusing and talks about Voodoo, and I’m still quite annoyed that such a racist, garbage-y story is in the middle of an otherwise perfect collection. I realise the book was published in 1913, but it just didn’t seem to fit any of the other stories. Oh well!

Other than that one story, I highly, highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys mystery stories. I know I’ll be searching out the other Father Brown stories!  (And, in case you haven’t visited the blog lately, there are four days left to enter my book giveaway drawing. :) Just leave a comment on Resolutions and Challenges ’08 (it’s easier for me if all the entrants are on the same thread) if you want a chance to win Ex Libris or The Collector. Post a link to the contest on your blog for an extra chance at winning!)