Finishing Father Brown

with American Book Poll

Good Morning Readers,

I hope you have had a good week of getting back to normal post Easter Octave celebrating. We have enjoyed the return to normalcy over here. I am always sad for breaks to be over, but then end up enjoying the routines of normal life more than I remember. I also find that I get to read more during our “busier” days because the reading is part of the routine. On breaks I always make grand plans for all of the fun reading I am going to do, but because I have too much time and freedom (as much as one can have of those two things with 6 kids under 9) I end up reading less, not more. This feels like a G.K. Chesterton style paradox. So speaking of…

I hope you all have enjoyed The Innocence of Father Brown as much as I have. These stories are so delightful. In my Heroes of Great Literature class (see below for details) I came across this quote from Horace…

“Poetry should instruct and delight”

Chesterton does this so well with Father Brown. Each story is delightful in a simple way but also under the surface is teaching me something, but not in an obnoxiously pedantic way.

I know we only officially read four of the short stories (there are twelve in total) but I have been reading and listening to some of the other stories and they are more than worth it. I have been especially enjoying listening to them! This is the season of the audiobook for me I guess. I just listened to The Queer Feet and liked it more than some of the other stories we read. But onto our “assigned reading"…

The Sign of the Broken Sword

Summary

Flambeau and Father Brown are at a monument for a supposed English war hero. Father Brown tells Flambeau about a “cold case” concerning the General as they walk to the inn they are staying at that night. We find out that although the General has supposedly died in battle he actually was involved in lots of secret sin that led him to murder one of his own men and then cover it up by pursuing a battle he knew they would lose. His men put two and two together and hang him for treason but then keep secret about it. Father Brown also decides to keep the secret since none of the innocent men’s names are being drug through the mud on account of this false hero. When they get to the inn Flambeau realizes that this too is named after the General and Father Brown says that they will never escape him in this world.

Things I Noticed

• Flambeau is the classic literary device of a character so that the detective can explain things to the reader…traditionally almost always wrong so we feel a little smart (though we are never as smart as the detective).

• Hell is talked about so much in this story starting from the first few sentences until almost the very end.

• The landscape compared with the churchyard seems to be an objective correlative for the heathenry of the General amidst his fame as being a heroic and faithful man….Dante puts his traitors in a circle of ice.

• On my first read I missed that they were walking to the inn (that bears the General’s name)….just another shrine. Flambeau is sick of seeing him everywhere. This points to something bigger.

• We have the two generals compared with the head and the heart again…which hearkens me back to the thoughts I had about The Secret Garden.

• Their path plunges downward the moment after Flambeau makes his guess. It is almost like they are going to descend into Hell as Fr. Brown reveals the truth about this false hero. With all the mentions of Hell in the story I cannot think this an accident. Even Dante is mentioned at least once!

• They were in the dark corridors of a dream and a dark wood keeps being mentioned….more Dante like description.

• The General reminds me of Bulstrode (from Middlemarch, March 2024). He starts with little sins and they only get bigger. Both ending in murder (directly or indirectly).

• Fr. Brown brings up the idea that whether one ends up in heaven or hell depends on which “lord” you worship…this brings together all of the heaven and hell imagery a bit!

• Toward the end of the story Chesterton directly connects Flambeau with Dante and Fr. Brown with Virgil…they are going on a journey of the soul through the solving of this “cold case.”

• Father Brown continually prays for the innocent and the guilty. He is truly concerned for souls more than anything else.

Quotes

• “One man was enormously big and the other, perhaps my contrast, almost startlingly small.”

• “Where does a man hide a pebble?”-Brown

• “Well that is the first mystery: what had become of the English General’s head? The second riddle is: what had become of the Brazilian General’s heart?”- Brown

• “I believe I can guess it at my first go.”-Flambeau

• “Madness and despair are innocent enough. There are worse things…”-Brown

• “The dark wood and the dark sayings got on his nerves.”

• “Flambeau felt truth all around him as an atmosphere, but not as an idea.”

• “I cannot prove it but I am sure of it…”-Brown

• “When will people understand that is is useless to read his Bible unless he reads everyone else’s?”-Brown

• “Oh I dare say he was honest as you call it, but what is the good of a man being honest in his worship of dishonesty?”-Brown

• “You will never have done of him in England…”-Brown

• “There is so much good and evil in breaking secrets…”

Choose Your American Book

The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O’Connor

Flannery is a fairly famous American author as well as a faithful Catholic. We read her “book about books” (Mystery and Manners, September 2021) and two short stories (A Good Man is Hard to Find and Parker’s Back) a few years ago and the stories were a bit divisive (though I think most people enjoyed them…I apologize to anyone I traumatized!). I read Flannery’s novels before I ever read any of her short stories and I enjoy her more in long form so I would love to read The Violent Bear It Away with you all. However, I don’t wish to deceive you, it can be similar to her short stories in its weirdness and violence and shock value. I think overall it is a fun read with deep themes of baptism woven throughout. It would definitely lead to great discussion and I would be excited to read it again and talk about it. I’ve read it 2 or 3 times and each time I have wished I could talk about! But, again, I feel like I need to include a trigger warning so as not to catch anyone off guard. There is not a podcast series on this book if that affects your vote at all.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

The first option we had a Catholic author with non-Catholic characters. For this second option we have a non-Catholic author with Catholic characters. Willa Cather is another famous American author who writes about the American West. She writes beautifully and Death Comes fort the Archbishop was particularly moving for me the first time I read it. I actually had to look up if she was Catholic when I read it because I thought she handled the Catholic aspects of the story so well. I think this would be a fun and important novel to read together. Also, on a side note, I am somehow distantly related to Willa Cather. So that is a fun tidbit!

Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I feel like this is literary confession time. I have never read ANY Mark Twain. It feels like a huge gap in my literary education (that probably stems from not reading much until I was an adult). So I cannot give a personal recommendation for either of these, but my husband loves both dearly. He says that we should definitely start with Tom Sawyer, but I am assured by many other readers that skipping Tom Sawyer and reading Huck Finn is totally fine and a more interesting book club book for discussion. So I will let you all decide which way you’d rather go!

Feel free to vote in the poll below, but if your answer requires more nuance you know that I always welcome more discussion about books. Feel free to message me or comment on this post with any thoughts. I will heavily consider the poll results, but also keep in mind other input from book club members as well!

Other Things I’m Enjoying

• Close Reads HQ
  is doing Father Brown stories for their paid followers during June (as part of their Year of Mystery series). I do pay for their extra stuff because I find them to be an education in reading in really fun way! If you wanted to try it out for a month that could be a fun month (this is not sponsored, I just really love Close Reads!)

• Dixie Dillon Lane
  ’s review of Why Aren't Americans Having More Children was really interesting. It made me want to read the book and chat with her about it!

• I am taking this (free) The Heroes of Great Literature class from Christendom. My personal plan is to listen to a lecture each Wednesday evening. If I can get through this series of five lectures, I’ll let you know what I’m doing next!

• I have really been enjoying

  Emily Stimpson Chapman
  and her husband and friends conversations on their new Podcast The Visitation Sessions. The latest one on Modesty was excellent!

• I got Wine Simple by Aldo Sohm from the library this week and it is so fun and pretty to look at. I heard about it from

  Heidi White
  on the
  Close Reads HQ
  Year in Reading Podcast and have had it on hold, but was waiting until Eastertide to read about and hopefully taste some good wine. If you like wine, but don’t know that much about it, I heartily recommend this book!

And that is all I have for you on this beautiful morning. I wish you many quiet moments with books over the weekend and can’t wait to chat about more books with you soon. See below for the link and schedule for our next book which I will start writing about next week.

Enjoy your reading until we meet again!

“People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.”
-Flannery O’Connor

A Few Reminders

• If you haven’t taken the survey for this year yet, please do so here!

• Next up we have Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner for our May book. I am very excited to chat about this one and maybe introduce you to a new author that I love. Feel free to read the book at any pace that works for you, but below is how I am planning to read and the dates I will post about each part if you’d like to read along.

  April 20th: Part I: ch 1-7 (pgs 3-104)

  April 27th: Part I: ch 8-13 (pgs 105-195)

  May 4th: Part II (pgs 199-271)

  May 11th: Part III (pgs 275-327)

• After that we have The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro for June.

  

• If you are part of a group, but you’re not on our Slack page, please contact me. That is where people share thoughts and logistics for each in person group.

• Here is the whole list of this years book selections

  

• Book lists from previous years can be found here.

• We are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (with links to Substack) in order to spread the joy of the reading life to more people...if you want to like or share with any friends that want to start their own groups (or follow along virtually) please do!

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