In my very first post on this blog I shared the belief that G.K. Chesterton’s writing is “too verbose”, and I’ll confess that I’ve found him hard to enjoy in the past. But reading some stories with Countdown John got me thinking that maybe I could suffer to give him another go, and so here, eventually, we are.

The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) is, of course, the second collection of short stories about our crime-solving Catholic priest; arguably I should review the canon de novo, but, since I’ve read several stories in the first collection The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) more than once already, I would really prefer to get on with newer experiences sooner. Thus I’ll probably go through the other collections first and finish with the first one last. If you follow me.

And so…

We begin with ‘The Absence of Mr Glass’ (1912), in which a man seeking to obfuscate his profession from a potential love match hides in his locked room and had conversations with the mysterious Mr. Glass, who has been seen approaching the house out of the fog over the sea. Chesterton uses his atmosphere well — “[T]wo black, barren-looking trees stood up like demon hands held up in astonishment…” — and the clever principle of the hats a man has and the hats that are his is suitably convoluted to appeal.

In a way, this feels like a commentary both on the fallacy of the Sherlockian inferences drawn by Dr. Orion Hood, the genius criminologist Brown calls upon, and on the way simple myths and hearsay take on the concrete appearance of fact through misrepresentation and repetition (coughreligioncough). But maybe I’m reaching and, Chesterton’s just having fun. Certainly, I enjoyed it.

Slightly less successful is ‘The Paradise of Thieves’ (1913), which sees our priest involved with an English millionaire and his children in a journey through apparently bandit-rich terrain in Italy (you have to hand it to Chesterton, his framings are frequently inventive). Thankfully, the man-of-many-trades Ezza has been employed as a courier to ensure they pass through safely. And then, well…

The main problem here is that the reader has no idea what’s going on until Brown unravels it, so the sense of little oddnesses that stack up — the ransom note, the apparent stronghold of the robber baron — don’t really mean anything until they’re explained. I suppose this counts as playing fair, but it would be more helpful if the reader knew what the game was to begin with. It is, though, very well written; I’m glad to be able to enjoy this about Chesterton at last.

‘The Duel of Dr Hirsch’ (1913) relies on the very Chestertonian — a century later we’d be calling it Rumsfeldian, which shows how far we’ve fallen as a culture — principle of ‘accurate inaccuracies’, as the eminent Hirsch is accused by a rival of selling military secrets to Germany and ends up in the very French position of facing a duel for his honour.

You can see why this idea appealed to Chesterton, and it’s one of those detective fiction tropes rolled out past the point of tedium down the years that feels more tenable here on account of the romantic, fairy tale nature of Chesterton’s writing. Never explicitly stating the motive is a genius touch, too, and one that causes this to linger in the mind long after such tawdry tricks should fade from even the most rudimentary recall.

I read ‘The Man in the Passage’ (1913) as part of the Orion Crime Masterworks series. I didn’t understand it then and, upon rereading it, I’m still not sure what’s supposed to have happened. I mean, I get how three men see three different people at the other end of the passage, but whey does each of them only see one person when they’re all there together? And why is…that object there to achieve that effect? And so how was the killing of the actress Aurora Rome achieved?

I’m glad, over two decades later, to have my confusion about this confirmed, because its inclusion in a selection of the apparent best stories featuring the priest boded poorly. Notable, perhaps, as the first appearance of Patrick Butler, K.C., who would find life elsewhere, but otherwise I find little here to commend beyond the wry tone (“If it be true that in the twentieth century more space is given [in newspapers] to murder than to politics, it is for the excellent reason that murder is a more serious subject.”).

Brown’s — and so, we hope, Chesterton’s — disdain for psychometric detection is explored in ‘The Mistake of the Machine’ (1913) in which an escaped convict writes perhaps the longest note ever in his own blood and escapes across country, only to apparently be intercepted by a canny prison warden. It’s difficult not to anticipate where this is going, but even then the final fillip is quite good fun, and again it’s so beautifully dream-like and smooth in its telling that it’s difficult to object to.

The irony here is that the machine which makes the mistake is the man operating the device — “[T]he most unreliable machine I know of.” — and I would have expected Chesterton to explore this more, but he leaves it (I can’t help but feel) unintentionally open as to where Brown’s problem lies…not least given the priest’s own reliance on his interpretations of psychology. Makes you think…? (I am not entirely sure if it makes you think).

I’m going to suggest that ‘The Head of Caesar’ (1913) is over-subtle, with its numismatical bent, young love, and resulting blackmail. The casting of our wonky-nosed extortionist in monstrous terms is magnificently achieved, but the eventual payoff doesn’t rally warrant the nightmarish language which sees the problem escalate so in young Christabel Carstairs’s mind. Interesting, but minor.

Perhaps even more subtle is ‘The Purple Wig’ (1913), which sees a Devonshire nobleman, sporting said colourful hairpiece, hold all-comers in awe with the threat of removing it. What possible terrors could it conceal, except that of a long-rumoured hereditary malforming of the ear?

There’s a superb theme of duality that runs throughout this, not least the superstitious terror that the average man still seems to have for his betters, and Chesterton exploits this particularly well through his correspondent narrator (“Whatever I retain of the gentleman made me stand up. Whatever I have attained of the journalist made me stand still.”). And, good grief, do I ever want to read about “the story of the Scarlet Nuns, the abominable story of the Spotted Dog, [and] the thing that was done in the quarry”.

The framing of ‘The Perishing of the Pendragons’ (1914) is so bizarre, you’ll happily forgive that it isn’t even slighlty fair play on the way to its startling revelations. The Elizabethan-style house on an island in a Cornish stream is so minutely observed, and Brown’s diffidence in the opening paragraphs so keenly felt — “He heard the most important things and the most trivial with the same tasteless absorption.” — that it’s diffcult not to enjoy, and you can see Chesterton’s fingerprints on the Golden Age so very, very clearly here.

I’m not entirely sure what the plot, or point, of ‘The God of the Gongs’ (1913) is, but with its lazy assumption of voodoo, equating of black men to cannibals, and horrible closing paragraphs I think it’s better left unexamined. It feels like Chesterton might be building to something when Brown says “I fear we English think all foreigners are much the same so long as they are dark and dirty,” but, no, it’s just more unpleasantness.

‘The Salad of Colonel Cray’ (1913) finds our eponymous pukka sahib thrice-cursed while out in India, and shooting at possible phantoms when back in good ol’ Blighty. Chesterton does a good job in layering his schemes here — the robbery is, of course, covering for something else — and this has some lovely atmosphere…

Father Brown was walking home from Mass on a white weird morning when the mists were slowly lifting — one of those mornings when the very element of light appears as something mysterious and new. The scattered trees outlined themselves more and more out of the vapour, as if they were first drawn in grey chalk and then in charcoal.

…but, I dunno, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it, because I found myself wishing there was less linguistic elaboration and more in the way of, like, discernible events and actual plot. When the modern-day scheme takes up so little of your story, something has gone awry.

John picked ‘The Strange Crime of John Boulnois’ (1913) for us to read as part of that podcast episode above, and I had confused this in my mind with ‘The Honour of Israel Gow’ (1911). When I eventiually straightened them out in my mind, I remember liking the eventual direction of this, and enjoyed the more subtle psychology this time around. I’m not sure Chesterton stands up to much rereading — dear lord, I just want him to get to the point, which he could do so much more quickly — but this was a largely positive revisit.

Finally, ‘The Fairy Tale of Father Brown’ (1914), which irritated me immensely with it’s very intriguing problem of how a man can be found with a bullet in his head despite the absence of guns on his country. The answer is…not worth it. And this is the problem of Chesterton writ large: all the cicumlocutions and delightful scene-seting really are for aught when the eventual point you’re building to is so…meh.

A Top Five, then:

1. ‘The Absence of Mr Glass’ (1912)
2. ‘The Duel of Dr Hirsch’ (1913)
3. ‘The Paradise of Thieves’ (1913)
4. ‘The Purple Wig’ (1913)
5. ‘The Strange Crime of John Boulnois’ (1913)

I feel justified in my not especially enjoying Chesterton previously, because reading him is a bit like drinking cream: initially delightful, but the thickness of if eventually starts to gag. But having spaced these out over the preceding months — I’ve been reading about six short story collections at once — has made him the perfect antidote at times, when I’m in the mood to be confounded or to appreciate some subtle distinctions.

One of the things that draws me to classic crime and detection so avidly is the sheer range of what exists within what should be such narrow tramlines, and so, while I’ll not race back to Chesterton nor ever be likely to extol his virtues too volubly, or without much in the way of qualification, I look forward to having him to dip into when whatever I’m reading feels too blunt or pedestrian. Which isn’t the most inspiring of tones on which to terminate this review, but what else can I say?

~

The Father Brown anthologies by G.K. Chesterton

1. The Innocence of Father Brown (1911)
2. The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914)
3. The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926)
4. The Secret of Father Brown (1927)
5. The Scandal of Father Brown (1935)