The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922)

I read only the first half. There is always something in Cheaterton, but this is not his strongest

Pleaeant, articulate writing, with a title character a little like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and a very sad Basset hound. Eventually the progression of stories take on an increasingly prejudiced, xenophobic tone.

I just finished up this set of short stories starring the laconic, encyclopedic Horne Fisher. With any "series" of formulaic fiction, the question isn't quite what you do with it, but in the dance to get there. So, a basic run down of a Chesterton story of the fishing persuasion -

Horne Fischer is an upper-class intellectual who seems to have an absolute acquaintance with the ruling government of Britain and an omnipotence on all subjects, such as fish, art, magic, and politics. Hence the title, "The Man Who Knew Too Much". This knowledge amounts to rather little in the way of an individual story's plot but it does add an amount of wit and charm to what would be an irritating old chap of a protagonist.

In most stories, we follow Harold March, a yellow newspaper man with a disturbing lack of personality, morals and lines of dialogue, as he follows Fisher around and acts like Fisher's personal cipher and memory-hole. In most stories, someone's killed, rich people fret anxiously and Fisher concludes the truth via "deduction", or as I like to call it "detective writer's deus ex machina!". Very few of these pieces pass the sniff test, but really, no one who reads "deduction" stories cares about the sniff test, just the "clever" test -- and by golly, Chesterton writes some clever tales.

Sometimes, Fisher covers up crime. Sometimes, the crime just goes unpunished. Usually, I didn't care that the story actually ended.

All of these stories take place in rich people's houses, rich people's golf clubs, rich people's countryside estates. England's political landscape in the WWI and early twenties forms the most important background, as each story seemingly builds on the previous piece. Brick by brick, Chesterton's Fisher of Men alludes to the world-shattering importance to the lewd, petty murders he investigates. Brick-by-brick, as each villain escapes from true justice into a murky, amoral conspiracy theory, Chesterton builds up to outbreak of world war. And when war happens, according to Fisher, and maybe therefore to Chesterton (I'm no scholar of his), it seems the Jews started it by being moneylenders.

What a complete load of crap. It kills the book for me really and turns me off to Chersterton about as much as "White Man's Burden" killed Kipling for me. Which is to say, I've read a novel and I won't really dip into that well again.

As a historical piece of fiction, I think I can see the worth in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" - we have a bridge between the Victorian "rightness" of Doyle's Sherlock and the amoral (but usually moral) reflection of life found in Block's Scudder series, to shades of Clancy's political thrillers and Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Detective Goren's similar mixture of psychology, confrontation and esoteric knowledge. The turns of phrase can stop a reader cold in appreciation. The plots fit together as tight and well greased as a good British naval gun. I just wish it didn't show the flaws of the age and maybe the man. ( )

Although in a non-religious setting, very similar to Father Brown stories. Chesterton is here again putting in vicious digs against rationalist thought, as well as airing his antisemitism. ( )

For me, not quite up to Father Brown, but interesting, particularly the one in which a British finance minister poisons a set of millionaires to balance the budget on their death duties. ( )