The Wisdom of Father Brown
Ratings13
Average rating3.5
The star of these stories is Father Brown, a character created by writer G.K. Chesterton. Based on a parish priest who was partially responsible for Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922, Brown is a stubby Catholic priest equipped with a large umbrella, a formless outfit and a sharp insight into the human nature. The stories included here are The Absence of Mr Glass, The Paradise of Thieves, The Duel of Dr Hirsch, The Man in the Passage, The Mistake of the Machine, The Head of Caesar, The Purple Wig, The Perishing of the Pendragons, The God of the Gongs, The Salad of Colonel Cray, The Strange Crime of John Boulnois, and The Fairy Tale of Father Brown.
Series
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5 primary books13 released books#2 in Father Brown
Father Brown is a 13-book series with 13 released primary works first released in 19 with contributions by G.K. Chesterton and James Arthur.
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I picked this second book of Father Brown up because a friend was talking about how much she liked the Father Brown tv show. I am not a particular fan of short stories. I like more than what can be revealed in a short story.
And short story mysteries in particular seem to be reduced to too simple stories or slight of hand. I was saying to my friend (who was favorably comparing Father Brown to Grantchester) that I liked Father Brown as an idea, but that he didn't seem fully fleshed out. He was too good, both in the way he solves mysteries and personally. Maybe I am just a creature of this age and want my heroes to be a bit less perfect, but the less than perfect parts of Father Brown are not humanizing, they are characteristics of his age. I know Chesterton is writing against some of the scientific racism and social darwinism in these stories, but the age of the stories shows. There is a lot of cultural stereotyping.
I also am not a fan of the narrator. So that did not help me want to stick these out. I stayed with it for over two hours. But I am moving on.
