the innocence and wisdom of father brown

Chesterton uses his prose like a painter uses paint, true artistry that’s understandable to a modern reader.įather Brown is a fun character. What carries the stories is Chesterton’s voice which I find delightful, even when reading a book over one hundred years after the time. The plot unfolds to reveal the puzzle, Father Brown solves the puzzle and the story ends, often abruptly. This is a battle of wits between you and Father Brown, and most of the time you’re going to lose quite badly.

There’s little violence onstage, although Chesterton can come up with some quite ghastly ways to kill a man. There’s also not any sense of danger or mayhem. They’re there to provide their piece of the puzzle and then get on with it. They’re stereotypical Frenchmen, Calvinists, Rich Men, and Atheists. Outside of Brown and his friend Flambeau, most of the characters remain flat. While there’s plot and action, the main focus is the puzzle, not character development. First of all, many are unlike any detective stories we read today. To enjoy Chesterton’s books, you have to appreciate a couple of things. However, he already knew the priest who would facilitate his confession and Father John O’Connor was the basis of the character. That conversion wouldn’t happen until the 1920s. It should be noted that, contrary to what many people have said, Chesterton was not a Catholic at the time he wrote the first Father Brown stories from 1910-1914. Two years after writing Orthodoxy, he wrapped it in a Cossack and embodied it in the person of Father Brown, a physically unremarkable and humble priest, who uses his wisdom, common sense, and experience as a confessor to solve even the most baffling crimes. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, asserted his vision of orthodoxy was entirely different: conscious, sensible, winsome, and wise. The intellectuals of Chesterton’s time viewed the orthodox Christian as superstitious and weak-minded. Father Brown was in many ways a continuation of what Chesterton wrote in his classic Orthodoxy. This is the first Father Brown short story collection by G.k. Note: A version of this review appeared in 2009 THE GREAT DETECTIVES of Old Time Radio With Host Adam Graham Main menu Skip to content

The innocence and wisdom of father brown