It has been said that G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a prolific writer who devoted his entire career to journalism because as a journalist he could not avoid being a controversialist. He wrote essays, often 1500 words in length to fill a page, on a variety of subjects and these appeared in the Illustrated London News for 30 years.
He also wrote a substantial amount of poetry, novels -- including the spy novel The Man Who Was Thursday) -- and the fifty two widely read Father Brown detective stories.
Somewhat overweight and inelegant, Father Brown seems an unlikely detective, but appearances deceive. With keen observation and an unerring sense of man’s frailties gained during his years in the confessional Father Brown succeeds in bringing even the most elusive criminals to justice. In The Blue Cross, when asked how he knows so much of criminal "horrors," he replies "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?"
Chesterton based the character on Father John O'Connor, a parish priest who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922.
Next Sunday, June 21st, at 2 pm, the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will discuss Father Brown: The Essential Tales, a fifteen story collection released by Modern Library in 2005.
P. D. James writes in her introduction, “We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”
Please join us! New faces are always welcome. To reserve a copy of the book, call 291-4821.
