Listen to audio

Stream (help)

128kbps M3U (Hi-Fi)
64Kbps M3U (Lo-Fi)

Play / Download (help)

(285.4 M)64Kbps MP3 ZIP

Resources

G. K. ChestertonThe Innocence of Father Brown

Would you like to try our new video/audio player ? (beta!)

Librivox recording of The Innocence of Father Brown, by G. K. Chesteron.

Read by Brian Roberg.

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) is the first of five collections of mystery stories by G. K. Chesterton starring an unimposing but surprisingly capable Roman Catholic priest. Father Brown's ability to uncover the truth behind the mystery continually surpasses that of the "experts" around him, who are fooled into underestimation by the priest's unimpressive outward appearance and, often, by their own prejudices about Christianity. Combining captivating stories and insightful commentary, The Innocence of Father Brown is a delightful read. (Summary by Brian Roberg)

M4B audiobook of complete book


For more free audiobooks, or to become a volunteer, please visit librivox.org.


This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: G. K. Chesterton
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; audiobook; literature

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 68,536 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: mikezane - - June 13, 2011
Subject: Kind of mixed feelings with this story...
I kind of liked this story, but the lead character, Father Brown, was annoying. I actually liked the secondary character, Flambeau, much better.

My grouch with the character is different from prior reviewer. I don't like the fact that Father Brown often lets the bad guys get away. To my mind, he is hiding behind his job.

The stories themselves were okay, and I also enjoyed the reader. He is an excellent reader, easy to follow and listen to. Overall, this is an average book.

Reviewer: Nullifidian - - May 23, 2011
Subject: The extra star is my concession to a fine reading by Brian Roberg
But if I had my choice, I'd give this thing one star at best simply because of Chesterton's writing. Merely from the text, I was able to infer his fascist sympathies simply by listening to these stories. I subsequently confirmed my suspicions by reading up on him, and found that he was supportive of Mussolini, Franco and Portugal's Getúlio Vargas.

I didn't bother finishing the book, but I think 2/3rds is all the hearing this work deserves. "The Wrong Shape" was the story that killed my interest in the rest of the series stone dead, though I did listen to the next story while weighing whether I wanted to give up on the whole thing.

In "The Wrong Shape", Chesterton treats us to Father Brown discussing an Asian dagger:

"It's very beautiful," said the priest in a low, dreaming voice; "the colours are very beautiful. But it's the wrong shape."

"What for?" asked Flambeau, staring.

"For anything. It's the wrong shape in the abstract. Don't you ever feel that about Eastern art? The colours are intoxicatingly lovely; but the shapes are mean and bad—deliberately mean and bad. I have seen wicked things in a Turkey carpet."

"Mon Dieu!" cried Flambeau, laughing.

"They are letters and symbols in a language I don't know; but I know they stand for evil words," went on the priest, his voice growing lower and lower. "The lines go wrong on purpose—like serpents doubling to escape."

"What the devil are you talking about?" said the doctor with a loud laugh.

Flambeau spoke quietly to him in answer. "The Father sometimes gets this mystic's cloud on him," he said; "but I give you fair warning that I have never known him to have it except when there was some evil quite near."

And his "mystic's cloud" is proven to be an infallible barometer for impending evil. So let's think about what that means for a second. Father Brown is proven to be utterly correct in a context where he's just affirmed the irredeemable wickedness of all Asians and Asian culture. This is what the Nazis referred to as voelkisch racial wisdom: the prerational, instinctive, but nevertheless thoroughly correct belief in the inferiority of non-white races. If you're not a white Anglo Christian like him, then Chesterton thinks of you as a lesser being. Good news for you white atheists though, because at least you can be converted—but you'll probably become deranged by your wickedness instead.

To use Chesterton's own words against him, his stories are "mean and bad—deliberately mean and bad". The logic is weak and the resolutions don't make sense because Chesterton isn't interested in the mystery story as a literary form; he is only interested in driving home his reactionary, proto-fascist views to the reader. Father Brown, far from being the humble country curate, has a decidedly petty and vicious streak.