Entry 044: "The Complete Father Brown" Pt. 2 End

Dear Internet,

                Well, I have finished "The Complete Father Brown," which I have learned is not actually complete.  There are 51 "Father Brown" stories, and this collection only covers 49 of them.  Before you ask, no, I will not hunt them down and speed read them for this review.  If you want an opinion bad enough for them, you can go ask Cleverbot.  I am already terribly behind and am writing this well after I should have started it.

                The fourth and fifth books, "The Secret of Father Brown" and "The Scandal of Father Brown," are really where Chesterton takes a strong emphasis on the nature of Father Brown and the manner that he approaches the mysteries placed before him.  In fact, it is the main focus of the vignettes that frame "Secret," the forth book.  What separates Father Brown from Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes copycats is the manner that Father Brown solves each case.  He does not pour over the evidence with a fine tooth comb and recall a mountain of obscure scientific knowledge that no sane individual would be able to retain.  He does not withhold evidence like a smart alec.  What he does do is examine the crime from the perspective of the supposed criminal and go through everything that would make the person commit the crime to the point just shy of committing it himself.  He examines the individuals that are suspected, those that are not, and examines the philosophies of each.  Father Brown attempts to understand the people that he meets as well as the philosophy that each lives by.  That might be putting it bluntly, since most characters, and real world individuals, would not admit to living by a specific philosophy.  Father Brown searches for a motive foremost and the manner of the crime falls into place.  This manner of crime solving is most apparent in the last two books.  

                What are also apparent in the last two books are the same length and flow elements that I had already mentioned.  The stories can sometimes get too complex at first for my taste.  It can be a bit hard to determine just who is essential to solving the crime, but I feel that is more my own fault that the book's.  Especially since that is a core aspect of the mystery story.  Creating a little confusion is tantamount to making the reader feel like a fool.  All mystery stories are made to make the reader feel like a fool, but a rightful and fair fool.  Nobody likes being made a fool if they are made so dishonestly.  Chesterton makes sure not to let this happen.  Everything is there for the reader to figure out for themselves.  Sometimes it is what is left out that makes a clue, but it is pointed out once the solution comes around and is usually shown to have been an obvious hole.

                Overall, "Father Brown" is a wonderful collection of stories that are simply enjoyable all around.  Some of the stories feel dated.  Considering that some of them are at least a hundred years old, this should be expected.  A large majority of the stories, however, are still solvable by today's standards.  The characters are enjoyable and well made, stretching a large spectrum of characteristics.  The crimes have a large range of possibilities that rarely do they feel like they are repeating.  The settings are illustrated well enough that they are painted before the reader.  All of this adds up to a good series of stories, but "Father Brown" is more than just that.  It has good dogma, which is essential to a work being great.  There are underlining levels of the human condition and how the characters react to it which are essential to the stories.  If a character is a Communist, Bolshevik, Christian, Puritan, Atheist, or some other group, it is essential to the plot, but never in the way might that one expect.  The doctrine of each group is analyzed and examined.  There is an amazing insight into each one that reveals the hidden facets that would be rather obvious, but somehow might not be.  Chesterton is a writer that constantly points out the truth and calls out the problem in any given situation, whose insight continues to resonate a hundred years later.

                On the matter of murder stories that I mentioned yesterday, there were 49 stories.  Approximately 18 were murder cases, 11 were theft ones, 10 had the crime avoided, and 10 had no crime actually take place.  These numbers are not very accurate since some stories had both theft and murder.  There were also a few that might be easily categorized a fifth category.  The concentration of murder stories were highest in the latter books, and book two had the least concentration of murders.  It still felt like those Brits were dropping like leaves on a windy autumn evening.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S.  Next is the anime "Saki."

Entry 043: "The Complete Father Brown" Pt. 1

Dear Internet,

                I suspect you have been well.  I surely hope that you did not stop working whilst I was gone.  Even while I was away, I was busy reading while I could.  Even when I was completely sick with a stomach ache for the entire duration of my time away, I kept reading when I could find the chance.  But alas, I was unable to complete "The Complete Father Brown."  Although, 554 pages out of 718 is nothing to sneeze at while being sick.  At the same time because of the abundance of stories that I have read in those 554 pages, doing a single post for the complete book would have forced me to cover too much material for a single post.  In a way, it is better that I did not finish it in these two weeks and force to shrink down a review.  So, here is what I will do for you, Internet.  I will try and cover the first three books that "Complete" includes in this post, and tomorrow I will try to cover the remaining two books, provided that I can finish the remaining 164 pages, which should not be that difficult.  The first three books are "The Innocence of Father Brown," "The Wisdom of Father Brown," and "The Incredulity of Father Brown."

                Father Brown is the titular character, a small and simple Catholic priest who normally resides in England.  Occasionally he will travel to far off lands for missionary work or travel from other reason, but the majority of his time is spent there in England.  The stories he is a part of are mysteries that abound with the usual list of theft, disappearances, murder and so forth.  All is in a day's work for the little priest who relies on common sense and reason to determine the culprit.  Unlike the private eye or the police officer of other mystery stories, Father Brown is less concerned with the justice of mankind but with the soul of the man who falls by the evils of his deeds.

                "The Innocence of Father Brown" and "The Wisdom of Father Brown" should be taken hand in hand for a number of reasons.  The first is the timeframe of the publication.  "Innocence" was published in 1911, and "Wisdom" in 1914.  "Incredulity" was not published until 1926, which marks a twelve year gap between books and the largest gap between any of the Father Brown books.  The second reason is the style of writing.  While it can be argued that Chesterton has a unique and almost iconic style of writing, after that twelve year gap there is a very distinct difference between how the stories are handled.  The manner that Father Brown handles the cases presented before him are the same but there is a slight difference that might be overlooked.  This is mostly due to the third reason, the length of the stories.  In the first and second books, there are twelve stories apiece.  "Incredulity" only has eight, as well as later books.  With each book averaging 150 pages, this means that the first two books move much quicker from one story to the next than the later ones.  This is probably due to the fact that Chesterton had to write the stories in "Innocence" for individual publications and had to keep them brief.  I cannot find information that hints that "Wisdom" was published in the same manner, but it can be reasoned that "Incredulity" definitely did not have this limitation because of the length of the stories and because of how long after it was published hints to a different manner of publication.

                The first two books with their quicker stories are fast paced and include less detail.  There are fewer characters and the mysteries are wrapped up sooner.  The stories are bite sized and quickly eaten and digested.  That quickness is a rather nice in that the stories never sit too long and mull constantly over the mystery.  There is also a certain lightheartedness to the stories that are harder to find in the later books.  I might have to come back to this point in my next review, but in the first two books, there seems to be a lot less murders going on.  I will get a final count to you tomorrow.  Instead there are thefts or implications of theft, much more often.  With the way that the stories go, I would be deadly afraid of ever meeting Father Brown, because it seems people are constantly getting killed while he is around.  The only way to prevent such from occurring to myself would be to stay constantly near the priest until someone else does die.  But I digress into that topic that all mystery series all fall into as they go on.  Eventually people are going to be killed, a lot.

                The third book, however, takes a slightly different turn.  Father Brown is recognized the world over as a sleuth and his advice on mysterious matters are sought out.  The stories are longer and more in-depth.  The mysteries are then of course more complex and harder for the reader to figure out.  I do not want to come across saying that more complex mysteries are a bad thing, but after reading two books filled with much shorter stories, it required me to change gears to reading ones that are more multifaceted in its presentation.  This has an instant effect on the reader.  Since more information is available, the clues can be hidden in more places and every little detail can set off the hairpin reflexes of the reader.  Chesterton knows this and works it to his advantage.  At the same time, Chesterton is able to expand on some of the core dynamics that make Father Brown unique.  

                Father Brown is a priest first.  Saying his business is in souls would be accurate but at the same time blasphemous to say is as such, lest it imply that he trades them like a money lender does with collateral.  He cares about the individuals that he meets, but not in a showy fashion.  He does not chase after the criminal at the end of the story many times, especially if there is a police officer around to do so.  His duty is foremost that of a confessor, and if he can see some redeeming light in the criminal, Father Brown will seek out the soul to save it.  It is a refreshing change from cop dramas where the main character is constantly itching to punch the criminal in the face.

                The only thing that I can say against the third book is that there is not enough of Flambeau, the world renowned thief turned private investigator.  For one reason or another he is my most favorite character in the books.  Perhaps it is because he is more relatable than Father Brown, because sometimes Father Brown's quiet nature comes across as being indifferent to his surroundings when in fact he is mulling over the details.  It could be that Flambeau lives so much more passionately than Father Brown.  I am not sure what exactly my reason for liking Flambeaus is so much.  What did strike me was that he does not even show up in the third book, or at least not much at all.  He makes a key appearance in the forth book but that will be for tomorrow.

                With that I think I will stop here for now, Internet.  There are one or two things that I still want to talk about, but I will roll those in together with the fourth and fifth books.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Announcement for the Next Two Weeks

Dear Internet,

                For the next two weeks I will not be able to get near a computer or a connection to you.  What is occurring was planned for some time and could not be averted.  I regret being unable to fulfill my requirements that I had outlined in the rules of this experiment.  However since this was something that could not be helped rather than an act of laziness or reluctantly skirting my word of duty, I do not feel guilt about this course.  

                In an effort to continue with the Backlog and attempt to make up for the time that I will be unable to access a vast majority of it, I have foreseen a countermeasure.  I have specifically set aside a Backlog card for "The Complete Father Brown," by G. K. Chesterton, for this circumstance.  For the next two weeks, I will be reading it as much as I can in my free time and taking notes in an effort to report back to you.  While I do not know how much time per day that I will be able to allot to reading the work or if I can even finish it in such time, I will do my best to complete it.  If it is the case that I cannot finish it, I will make a post regarding what I have finished and flow the remainder of the book in following posts.

                I will write back to you in such time.  Take care, Internet.  Do not go anywhere that I cannot follow.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop