The Secret of Father Brown edition by G K Chesterton Literature Fiction eBooks
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The Secret of Father Brown is the fourth collection of G.K. Chesterton's unassuming and shabbily dressed priest, possesses an incredible ability to solve crimes and murders, Father Brown. Here he reveals the secret of his success. He discovers the culprit by imagining himself to be inside the mind of the criminal.
The Secret of Father Brown contains an interactive table of contents.
The Secret of Father Brown edition by G K Chesterton Literature Fiction eBooks
I am not usually a reader of crime fiction, but I like G.K. Chesterton's essays and biographies so I thought I’d give Father Brown a try. I loved this collection of stories and especially enjoyed that each is really a philosophical or theological discussion. But if you are not into philosophy don’t be scared off: These stories are beautifully written, witty, exquisitely plotted, and populated with intriguing characters.One of Chesterton’s principal philosophical propositions is that while strict materialism is bound by its own definition to rule out all things supernatural, the supernatural is free to include scientific method in its worldview. The quiet unassuming Father Brown, with his combination of sharp observation and incisive knowledge of human depravity, is the fictional personification of this idea, his answer to Sherlock Holmes. I wondered if Father Brown might be a Chesterton alter ego, but Wikipedia says the character is based on someone else – a priest named Father John O’Connor (1870-1952) who was involved in Chesterton’s 1922 conversion to Catholicism.
Father Brown appears in 51 short stories including the eight included in The Secret of Father Brown. These eight stories each illustrate a philosophical point or insight about human nature and are framed by two chapters, beginning with “The Secret of Father Brown” and ending with “The Secret of Flambeau.” Flambeau, a reformed criminal and Father Brown’s long-time friend, has married and settled down on an estate in Spain, and Father Brown has just arrived for a visit. An American neighbor stops by, and having heard of Father Brown’s uncanny ability to solve murder cases, asks him about his secret to solving murder mysteries. Father Brown reveals his secret without hesitation:
“You see, I had murdered them all myself….I had planned out each of the crimes very carefully. I had thought out exactly how a think like that could be done, and in what state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure felt exactly like the murderer himself, of course I knew who he was.”
To loosely illustrate the point, the next eight stories each reveal a different situation in which Father Brown had the opportunity to apply his method. I suppose most crime stories must reveal something about human nature, but this book goes a little deeper, deliberately blurring the line between “the criminal” and the rest of us. To Father Brown, all people have the capacity to be both a murderer and a saint and committing a murder does not necessarily mean a person has reached the lowest point of depravity. His harshest judgment is reserved for people who set themselves up as superior beings with the right to classify other people with labels such as “criminal.”
Father Brown believes in the possibility of redemption for all who realize they are in need of it. In “The Man with Two Beards” for example, he is confessor and friend to one such reformed criminal who he believes has become a saint. Though he may have compassion for criminals he is not soft on crime; however his harshest judgment is reserved for comfortable hypocrites and crass materialists, not all of whom commit crimes in the legal sense.
In the final chapter the American neighbor raises several interesting objections to Father Brown’s method. For example he wonders if might damage one’s moral character by causing you to identify with evil. Father Brown’s view is that his method of “becoming the criminal” functions as a spiritual exercise because it facilitates the recognition of the truth: that we are all capable of evil and in need of redemption. In the end, the American must make his own moral choice when Flambeau, who he knows only as a respectable family man and by another name, reveals his own secret.
I will definitely now want to read all of the other Father Brown stories.
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The Secret of Father Brown edition by G K Chesterton Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Easily the darkest of Chesterton's Father Brown collections, "The Secret of Father Brown" is nonetheless as much of a masterwork of perception into the human condition as his others. The conceit of the book is that it is an exhibition (to an American guest of Flambeau's) of Father Brown's sleuthing style. The collection begins and ends around a woodstove at Flambeau's Spanish castle as Father Brown wearily unburdens himself to the inquisitive guest. Along the way we are treated to the typical impossible crimes and a parade of rogues and saints -- a corpse in shining armor, a thieving mystic, insouciant British aristocrats and a Canadian journalist. We are asked to solve death by duel and pistol shot, and thefts of jewels large and small.
"Secret" betrays Chesterton's pessimism about mankind. In this collection, Father Brown is more inward and is vastly more bothered by human sin and folly than in other books. And Chesterton's annoyance at the greatest theft of precious stone in the world - the dispossession of Catholic churches and abbeys during the Reformation - is particularly bitter. But this is an observation, not a criticism.
The stories in this collection are worth reading (or hearing!) over and over - to see how the plot unfolds, to hear Chesterton's gorgeous and well-informed prose, or to hear the narrator (in this case, the marvelous Geoffrey Matthews) bring life to Chesterton's characters.
Father Brown visits Flambeau and spends the evening with Mr Grandison Chase from Boston and divulges how he solves his cases; telling of his latest mysteries; of the magistrate who seems overly keen to try a suspect for murder, Sir Arthur Vaudrey's baffling disappearance and unpicking the cast iron alibi of the actors amongst others...
Father Brown employs his usual lateral thinking with psychological profiling and his knowledge of human beings . He uses psychology as a science rather than the faux spiritual mysticism that was popular when this was written (1920's) Perhaps the weakest of the Father Brown novels (there are a few unlikely plots crop up such as the use of a corpse to fool witnesses )but Chesterton and Father Brown remain entertaining , witty and wise , He also professes a dislike of the modern art of the day ! Few writers of any era can match this and this is another enjoyable read.
From all I had heard about G K Chesterton made me want to read and understand such a prolific writer. I was very disappointed. Short quck stories with illogical outcomes.
I love Chesterton. The narration is good. It is not just mystery, It is also a bit of philosophy book.
The Father Brown stories are great. I recommend the whole Father Brown collection to any body who enjoys old mystery novels.
I find that you are really drawn into each short story. Once you start one it is difficult to stop until you have finished!
I am not usually a reader of crime fiction, but I like G.K. Chesterton's essays and biographies so I thought I’d give Father Brown a try. I loved this collection of stories and especially enjoyed that each is really a philosophical or theological discussion. But if you are not into philosophy don’t be scared off These stories are beautifully written, witty, exquisitely plotted, and populated with intriguing characters.
One of Chesterton’s principal philosophical propositions is that while strict materialism is bound by its own definition to rule out all things supernatural, the supernatural is free to include scientific method in its worldview. The quiet unassuming Father Brown, with his combination of sharp observation and incisive knowledge of human depravity, is the fictional personification of this idea, his answer to Sherlock Holmes. I wondered if Father Brown might be a Chesterton alter ego, but Wikipedia says the character is based on someone else – a priest named Father John O’Connor (1870-1952) who was involved in Chesterton’s 1922 conversion to Catholicism.
Father Brown appears in 51 short stories including the eight included in The Secret of Father Brown. These eight stories each illustrate a philosophical point or insight about human nature and are framed by two chapters, beginning with “The Secret of Father Brown” and ending with “The Secret of Flambeau.” Flambeau, a reformed criminal and Father Brown’s long-time friend, has married and settled down on an estate in Spain, and Father Brown has just arrived for a visit. An American neighbor stops by, and having heard of Father Brown’s uncanny ability to solve murder cases, asks him about his secret to solving murder mysteries. Father Brown reveals his secret without hesitation
“You see, I had murdered them all myself….I had planned out each of the crimes very carefully. I had thought out exactly how a think like that could be done, and in what state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure felt exactly like the murderer himself, of course I knew who he was.”
To loosely illustrate the point, the next eight stories each reveal a different situation in which Father Brown had the opportunity to apply his method. I suppose most crime stories must reveal something about human nature, but this book goes a little deeper, deliberately blurring the line between “the criminal” and the rest of us. To Father Brown, all people have the capacity to be both a murderer and a saint and committing a murder does not necessarily mean a person has reached the lowest point of depravity. His harshest judgment is reserved for people who set themselves up as superior beings with the right to classify other people with labels such as “criminal.”
Father Brown believes in the possibility of redemption for all who realize they are in need of it. In “The Man with Two Beards” for example, he is confessor and friend to one such reformed criminal who he believes has become a saint. Though he may have compassion for criminals he is not soft on crime; however his harshest judgment is reserved for comfortable hypocrites and crass materialists, not all of whom commit crimes in the legal sense.
In the final chapter the American neighbor raises several interesting objections to Father Brown’s method. For example he wonders if might damage one’s moral character by causing you to identify with evil. Father Brown’s view is that his method of “becoming the criminal” functions as a spiritual exercise because it facilitates the recognition of the truth that we are all capable of evil and in need of redemption. In the end, the American must make his own moral choice when Flambeau, who he knows only as a respectable family man and by another name, reveals his own secret.
I will definitely now want to read all of the other Father Brown stories.
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