De las historias de G.K. Chesterton protagonizadas por el padre Brown, Jorge Luis Borges dijo una vez que aún se recordarían cuando el género policíaco hubiese caducado. Pero en las historias detectivescas del padre Brown hay un rasgo que llama la atención: el protagonista no es un detective privado, ni un policía, ni siquiera un aficionado a resolver crímenes; es un sacerdote católico, toda una provocación, dado que Chesterton situó además a este sacerdote papista en plena Inglaterra anglicana, y ni siquiera se preocupó de hacerlo simpático a los lectores. Todo lo contrario: lo retrató como un personaje resabiado, de aspecto y trato corrientes, muy lejos del porte aristocrático de un Sherlock Holmes o del cosmopolitismo de un Hércules Poirot. Al final, sin embargo, da lecciones con una humildad insoportable a todos los que le rodean, ya sea la policía inglesa o las autoridades locales, y, para colmo, en nombre de la razón y de la lógica, a pesar de que casi siempre la explicación inicial del misterio sea de tipo demoníaco o mágico. El presente volumen, El escándalo del padre Brown, quinto y último título de la serie del padre Brown, reúne los siguientes casos: El escándalo del padre Brown, El "rápido", La ráfaga del libro, El hombre verde, La persecución del señor Blue, El crímen del comunista, La punta de un alfiler y El problema insoluble. Se han añadido los relatos La vampiresa del pueblo y La máscara de Midas, aparecidos tras la muerte de Chesterton.

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Title: The Scandal of Father Brown
Series: Father Brown #5
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 239
Words: 65K

Synopsis:

Table of Contents

The Scandal of Father Brown

The Quick One

The Blast of the Book

The Green Man

The Pursuit of Mr Blue

The Crime of the Communist

The Point of a Pin

The Insoluble Problem

The Vampire of the Village

My Thoughts:

While not bad, I really didn't enjoy my read this time. I don't know if there was more, but I noticed the fact that Father Brown would almost like clockwork make a vague announcement and then express surprise when everyone would proceed on that statement in the logical direction the statement was leading. He'd then explain why they were all wrong and why his statement was still correct. But in a sense that nobody but himself would EVER have thought of.

Plus, I've not read the word “Puritan” or some derivative so many times in one novel. Not even the Scarlet Letter ranted against them as much! Apparently wanting to take care of your body by not ingesting various poisons that we all know will kill you is a sure-fire way of being a kill-joy and kill-joys are Satan's minions. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty obvious Chesterton had a thing against Protestants. It was really annoying by the end.

This was the last Father Brown novel in this Chesterton omnibus and I am glad. Like several other mystery writers I have been reading, I'd reached my limit even with judicious spacing out. We'll have to see what I think of his other writings. I am looking forward to them because despite all my grumblings about Father Brown, I still think they are good writing. They just need to be read at a much greater length (like one a year perhaps) than I was willing to go.

★★★☆☆ ( )

While in Mexico reporter Agar Rock sends his version of a story. Of a marriage, an elopement and the part that Father Brown plays in it. But is he correct.
An enjoyable short story ( )

Low-key but absorbing collection of tales involving the meek priest with the talent for crime solving. Some of the solutions are a bit fantastic, but you don't mind it, because of the pleasure in reading the presentation. ( )

A very wide variety of setting, from Latin America in the Scandal itself --in which Father Brown is supposed to be helping a poet elope with a businessman's wife, when he is in fact helping the businessman reclaim her from the poet --the portrait of "romantic" poet as a fussy old man fixed my image of poets for may years -- to the near-cosy British university atmosphere of The Crime of the Communist and the interwar labor troubles of The Point of the Pin. GKC was a great prose stylist, Brown solves mysteries by plain common sense and rational deduction,not as some claim, by mystical intuition. The real Brown is infinitely superior to the recent BBC TV version, which was, among other things, flagrantly anti-Catholic. ( )