Four Faultless Felons

I'm a sucker for alliteration. I once wrote flack for a community theater group and would get the paper to print my offerings under such headlines as "Strong Singers Staged Stunningly", and so forth. So naturally, I couldn't pass up this book. For some reason, I had problems getting into it, but after a while, it did grow on me. Chesterton has some interesting viewpoints.

This isn't really a novel but a collection of four short stories, or perhaps novelettes (15,000–17,000 words) tied together with a common conceit. The book begins and ends with four men around a table in the presence of a noted journalist. In the prologue, the journalist is introduced to the four men and learns that the one thing they all have in common is that they show more have committed crimes, one a murderer, one a medical quack, one a thief, and one a traitor. They seem like normal people, so what is it about them, the journalist wonders, that led them to crime? Good journalists in those days, we are told, were excellent listeners. People like to tell their own stories, so one just needs to listen with encouraging interest. Bullying people to get their stories isn't remotely necessary. Thus, he elicits each "felon's story, one novelette at a time. Yes, each did commit the crime associated with him, but in each case it was to provide a better overall result than if he'd not acted out his crime. Something like that.

So, it was an ok read, but not special, basically, just thin entertainment of no particular consequence, and something merely to be finished so I could go on to something better. show less

Collection of four detective/criminal stories.
What is the basic difference here (in comparison with classic rules of named genres), Chesterton con-structs his narration more like allegory - in other words, it is not a detective story the reader could logically solve (like in Sherlock Holmes‘ stories), because some essential details remain hidden untill the very end, when Chesterton uses them to reveal some general moral about society. However, he is still smart and sometimes adorable in this, so: really pleasant reading.

I don't know. I just wasn't amused. By reputation, I suppose I should try it again some later point in time, maybe I was in a bad mood, but it bored me.

Has Chesterton's virtues and faults in equal proportions.

Intriguing. I think I missed most of the symbolism.

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El Club de los Incomprendidos o «cuatro granujas sin tacha», narra las diferentes historias de cuatro hombres que han formado un extraño Club, unidos por el vínculo común de sus maltrechas reputaciones. Así, los cuatro miembros fundadores del Club de los Incomprendidos (el ladrón, el charlatán, el asesino y el traidor) han sido difamados con negros y repugnantes crímenes, pero no se han visto perseguidos por sus fechorías, sino por sus ocultas virtudes.