Entry 136: "Four Faultless Felons"

Dear Internet,

                Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a writer of paradoxes.  The various novellas, novels, and short stories he penned are filled with them.  Just about anything that you pick up by the man has a paradox at its core.  Not to be confused with the oxymoron which is more a contradiction in the purest form, Chesterton's paradoxes require the two things that they present to be both true yet seem like they contradict one another.  For example, the courage of a soldier when caught behind enemy lines can only save his life by throwing away his concern for his life and risking death.  If he stays still, he will surely die, but if he risks his life, he may save it.  Another example would be Chesterton's arguments for the smallness of man against God yet hugeness to that of the rest of the universe.  But I will not go on and on since you are most likely wondering what any of this has to do with "Four Faultless Felons."  The title of the book probably holds a clue.

                "Four Faultless Felons" is a collection of four novellas or shorter tales telling of four individuals who are more than mere criminals.    Each of the four men tells his tale to reporter Asa Lee Pinion, an American reporter gone to England to find a story on Count Raoul de Marillac.  Pinion goes to London hoping to learn about the extravagant lifestyle of the count.  In one way, he is not dissapointed.  The count frequently eats expensive dishes and goes out to see the newest bawdiest plays that are being produced.  It is only when the reporter is left alone with the four men that he learns the truth.  The count is in fact living a rather penitent lifestyle.  All the dishes he eats are counter to his tastes, and he goes to the plays because they are boring and uninteresting.  The men that tell Pinion this truth about the count have each committed a crime of sorts, but there is obviously more to each tale.  The crimes committed are murder, fraud, theft, and treason.  Like the count, each man is counter to what he originally appears.  Together, the men form the "Club of Men Misunderstood."

                The stories are told in a classic detective manner with the catch that there is usually no crime being committed.  The reader is privy to this understanding just from reading the title of the book.  It is understood right from the beginning that there is going to be mysteries that go beyond the immediate ones being told, but that does not mean that those mysteries are going to be easy to solve.  I do not wish to even go into the details of each story since doing so will end up giving away a clue or two.  So, you will just have to take my word that the tales are each riveting and play out well.

                The book is less like a detective novel than I might be leading on.  A normal detective story flows in a rather strict formula.  The various characters are presented, giving each just enough of a presentation that the audience can understand them in an instant.  The setting is likewise given such treatment.  Afterwards, the crime is committed.  The clues are presented either at this point or in the following moments.  Depending on the length of the story, a number of false accusations and incorrect attempts to the solution are presented.  Eventually, the mystery is solved with the truth being presented to the audience at least and the various characters at most.  In "Four Faultless Felons," just one of these elements is skewed.  The crime itself is given scrutiny.  The crime itself is called into question.  The crime itself is brought forward to testify in the witness chair.  If anything, the book is more of a vanishing act.  The crimes, not the criminals, pull escape acts.

                I have already done a review of Chesterton's more famous mystery stories, the Father Brown books.  It would be probably best to compare this book with those stories since the Father Brown stories are more widely recognized.  In the same way that the Father Brown stories center around the criminal rather than the crime, "Four Faultless Felons" center on why the individuals act in the manner that they do rather than merely figuring out how they pulled off their actions.  It is not enough to know how the action is committed but to figure out why it is committed in the first place.  The motive is what lays down the groundwork for each tale.  Without motive or intent, a crime is usually just an accident.

                Unlike the Father Brown stories, which are usually less than twenty pages, the stories here average near the forty five page mark.  Also, the four stories are broken into subsequent chapters.  This means that each of the stories is given a wide birth to be built, examined, and solved.  This of course leads to a number of notable characteristics.  With the lengthening of the story, there is much wider chance for the audience to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed.  Yet at the same time, the story can become much more intertwined and complicated.  Chesterton walks right down the middle without leaving the reader ensnared in the thicket of connecting lines.  The added lengths do not make the stories convoluted.  They allow the stories greater depth and life, but they also allow Chesterton a greater ability to explore a specific theme.  In the Father Brown stories, most of the themes would end up being a short speech delivered out by the amateur sleuth at the end each story.  They were very much "and the moral of the story is" type of deliveries.  This was due to the brevity of the various stories.  Here, Chesterton is able to dig into the themes well before the solution is presented.  He is able to have the characters expand their positions well before the curtain is going to set.  The antagonistic characters are even able to express themselves without being curtly cut off or summarized.  

                "Four Faultless Felons" is a great small collection of mystery stories.  The only thing that I wonder is why it went out of printing for so long.  The most immediate answer in my mind is that it is so similar to another book by Chesterton.  "Manalive" is right next to this book in how it handles crime mysteries.  Unlike this book, "Manalive" attributes all the crimes to a single individual instead of four.  "Four Faultless Felons" can be considered a continuation of the same themes, but the breaking up of the crimes allows a small variety of settings and characters to be created.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next week is "The Worm Ouroboros."

Entry 106: "The Ball and the Cross"

Dear Internet,

                Well, I am back.  Did you miss me?  No?  Yeah, I did not think so.  Looking at the difference of page views shows that straight enough.  But hey, what should I expect.  I said I was going to be gone for two weeks.  Why would anyone look for new content when there plainly was going to be none?  I do not know.  Maybe I am getting traffic considering that I have over 100 of these entries now?  Well, more or less with the see-saw leaning on the "less" side considerably.  But that is neither here nor there.  Right now, I want to talk about "The Ball and the Cross."  

                The last time I was away from the Backlog I grabbed all of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories, short one or two mind you.  This time, I only grabbed a single novel.  This is mostly due to the fact that this time I knew I would have less available time reading than I did last time.  That is not to say that I did nothing in particular or accomplished little.  I accomplished a lot, but none of it weighing heavily upon the Backlog, so I will not talk about it here.  "The Ball and the Cross" is one of Chesterton's less known novels.  I base this on one single fact.  The All Knowing Wiki does not even dedicate an article for the book but instead just has a digital version of the whole book on the commons site.  So, there goes my "go to" crutch, but that is for the best.

                "The Ball and the Cross" follows the adventure of two individuals who are trying to kill one another but are prevented from doing so by a plethora of outside influences among other reasons.  There is the Catholic, Evan MacIan, and the atheist, James Turnbull.  While walking down the street, MacIan reads an article written by Turnbull hanging in the window.  The article is a denouncement of the Virgin Mary, saying that she is either fictitious or an elaborate lie.  MacIan thrashes at Turnbull's window into a dozen or more broken pieces in response.  The two men brawl and are brought before a court.  MacIan pays the fine and covers the cost of the broken window.  However, the two men's quarrel is far from over.  They insist on a duel.  The one fights for the honor of Mary while the other fights against the cross.  As they attempt their duel, they are prevented by the police and chased through the streets of London.  The book continues as the pair try time and time again to go through their duel of ideas and ideals.

                Now, of course, seeing as this is a book by Chesterton, do not expect it to be a straight forward adventure story.  One might think this considering that the novel opens up with a short scene concerning a fling ship sailing over St. Paul's Cathedral, but I will ignore that aspect for an analysis entry some other time.  Chesterton's works are filled with the battling of ideals and ideals.  As the two men run over the breath of England, they find themselves and the duel between them to be examined from a number of different angles and philosophies.  A Tolstoian tells them that they should not fight because fighting does not solve a thing and will soon go out of fashion.  This only spurs the two men to fight with renewed vigor.  An English practitioner of some Pacific tribal religion tells them to kill one another for his own amusement and that of his pagan god.  This makes the two men in turn want to throw down their swords.  So on and so on, the two men and their fight are examined and reexamined while they avoid the police.  What they inevitably are caught by turns out to be much more sinister.

                The book is a good read to say the least, even if the wording is a bit heavy at times.  You can easily take the book for the plot that it presents to the reader, but that would discount it a considerable amount.  The plot is filled with suspense in regards to the matter of the duel and the escape from the police, but there is more.  For every character that the two come across on or are interrupted by, the plot reacts accordingly while maintaining the suspense of the duel.  The matter of which of the two men will win the fight constantly keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.  MacIan and Turnbull are not only being chased by the police but also chasing the truth of their conflict.  There are times that Chesterton delves deeply into the book's philosophical and theological nature, which slows down the flow of the book, but it is an important slowdown.

                The book's philosophy is one that examines less the philosophies of the two men and more the ones held by the populace.  "The Ball and the Cross" is a social commentary book that still rings true 103 years after it was published.  The reactions of the secondary individuals are the same that would spout forth today.  Take the nature of how the general view upon religion is that it should be kept within the confines of a place of worship instead of being within the hearts and minds of people as they interact with one another.  This view is the same that is addressed in "The Ball and the Cross" concerning English attitudes of the time.  It is a silly notion that holds no weight and only goes to show the hypocritical notion of the society that holds such a notion to be true.  If the English society of the time and that of the modern one truly held this notion to be true, they would not allow the atheist to display his thoughts and beliefs in a shop window.  Instead, they only care when a Christian belief is brought into the public realm.  Then all hell breaks loose.  The book goes one by one through various attacks upon the two men from outside themselves.  It is astounding how many of these attacks are still occurring today.

                "The Ball and the Cross" does a lot of things right.  It presents a story first and a philosophy second.  It is entertaining and thought provoking, and it provokes in the right direction.  The book pushes the reader to the end to find the conclusion instead of going in circles for hours on end with no direction, spouting blatant lies and muddled insults while masquerading as intellectual prophetism.  If you are familiar with my postings, you can figure out who and what I am talking about.  Instead, Chesterton does what a normal person would do.  He examines the arguments and plays them out to the logical conclusions.  It is sad that the illogical is often considered legitimate sometimes.  

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Sonic and the Secret Rings."  The stream will most likely not happen due to a technological difficulty that I am not going to correct any time soon.

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