Cheap The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown: The Innocence of Father Brown (Book) (G. K. Chesterton, Martin Gardner) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown: The Innocence of Father Brown

The beginning of the Father Brown series
Anyone who would like to become aquainted with the great Father Brown could do no better than to start with this, the first-published collection of stories about the clerical sleuth. It has two of my all-time favorites - "The Hammer of God" and "The Eye of Apollo". These are two stories that will boggle the mind with their incredible plot twists. "The Blue Cross" was the first Father Brown story ever published, and it shows Flambeau still in his criminal stage. When British film-makers decided to make a movie of Father Brown in 1954 with Alec Guinness, this is the story they chose. I had a tough time getting through some of the other stories in this collection; but the good thing about this series is that there is no continuing plot, so you can pick and choose. The footnotes by Martin Gardiner are interesting and stimulating, but are a bit too much at times. If you don't like distracting annotations, then buy another edition.

---

Improbable But Logically Possible - Entertaining and Fun
The Father Brown stories are a bit fantastic and improbable, but that is true of Sherlock Holmes too. For the reader unfamiliar with G. K. Chesterton's creation, this quiet, somewhat shy priest will be a surprise.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are so familiar that today's readers sometimes need to remind themselves that these two friends are indeed fictional characters. For many it may be difficult to imagine, much less accept, that other private detectives were also at work unraveling crimes in the fictional realm of Sherlock Holmes.

Father Brown coexisted in London with Holmes (during Sherlock's later years), but it is not obvious that they ever collaborated. While both exhibited a unique genius, their cases and their methods were indeed different. The solutions to Father Brown's mysteries are often improbable, but logically consistent, and usually have a metaphysical or moral aspect. Father Brown is not a sheltered cleric unaware of sin and evil, but just the reverse. He is able to place himself in the mind of the perpetrator, thereby seeing solutions that the reader fails to notice. Like Holmes, he is often more interested in understanding and solving a mystery, rather than meting out human justice.

Matin Gardner's extended footnotes clarify references that otherwise might be obscure today such as Edwardian manners, outdated technology, London landmarks, literary references, etc. The footnotes are not essential, but I found Gardner's annotation useful and entertaining.

The five Father Brown collections (53 stories in all) begin with these 12 stories,"The Innocence of Father Brown". Father Brown won't displace Sherlock Holmees, but you will not regret getting to know this clever contemporary of Sherlock Holmes.

---

5 stars for the text; 3 stars for the footnotes.
I've read a lot of Chesterton in the last year or so, and I guess I have mixed feelings about his work in general and this book in particular. Chesterton provides extraordinarily beautiful word pictures. I feel like taking a trip to England just to see if the real English sky can match a fraction of the descriptions Chesterton gives it. (Smog abatement measures may have made a fair comparison impossible.) Chesterton's love of paradox can be fun, but it may be best to take it in small doses for optimal enjoyment. The Father Brown stories are short enough that the character development suffers in comparison with G.K.'s novels; on the other hand, these stories benefit from omission of some of the more bizarre flights of fancy found in his longer works.

Now for the footnotes. I've been reading Martin Gardner for a long time. As a young boy, I spent many hours in the local library reading and enjoying his columns in archived copies of Scientific American. I must say that I find his footnotes in this book somewhat obtrusive. They seem to give away too much of the plot too early, and are probably, therefore, best for a second reading of the text. Gardner has deep philosophical differences with Chesterton, and although he does a fairly good job of restraining himself, there are occasions when he apparently can't resist giving us his two cents. I found that a little annoying. The footnotes in the Ignatius edition of _The Man Who Knew to Much_ are an example of what I would have preferred in this book.