G. K. Chesterton – Harry Heuser

The Bookshop by the Sea, where I purchased *A Century of Detective Stories*

The Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, where I live, has no shortage of bookstores, first-hand and otherwise. At one of them—The Bookshop by the Sea, which sells both old and new volumes—I purchased, some time ago, A Century of Detective Stories. Published in 1935, it is an anthology of crime and mystery tales introduced by G. K. Chesterton, whose outrageous “Fad of the Fisherman” I found occasion to discuss here previously.

Ystwyth Books, where I purchased *Death by Marriage* by E. G. Cousins on the day I posted this blog entry.

Trying to live up to its title, A Century of Detective Stories is a brick of pulp, and it is not easy to handle when you are reclining in a lounge chair hoping to catch those rare vernal rays that are the oft unfulfilled promise of summer on the typically temperamental and frequently bleak west coast of Britain.

Oxfam Bookshop, Aberystwyth, where someone beat me to a large selection of *Three Investigators* books on the day of writing this entry.

Aberystwyth and its environs have, in part for that reason, been the setting of murder mysteries, among them the noirish detective series Hinterland and the quirky retro-noir novels of Malcolm Pryce. And, as I am writing this, the place is a veritable crime scene, with local booksellers displaying mystery novels and hosting literary events dedicated to the art of murder. It is all part of Gwyl Crime Cymru, billed as “Wales’ first international crime fiction festival.”

Waterstones, Aberystwyth, where I tend to purchase copies of British Library Crime Classics.

Meanwhile, I am still catching up with A Century of Detective Stories. Selections include narratives by Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins and Marie Belloc Lowndes, as well as works by some of the biggest names in crime fiction written between the two World Wars: Agatha Christie, H. C. Bailey, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Edgar Wallace, to drop just a few. The diversity of this collection is part of its strength and appeal. Its title is nonetheless misleading.

“A thing can sometimes be too extraordinary to be remembered.” With that intriguing overthrow of conventional wisdom opens “The Fad of the Fisherman,” a short story by G. K. Chesterton, first published in 1921. “If it is clean out of the course of things,” Chesterton expounds, “and has apparently no causes and no consequences, subsequent events do not recall it; and it remains only a subconscious thing, to be stirred by some accident long after. It drifts apart like a forgotten dream….”

A contemporary illustration for Chesterton’s story by William Hatherell, showing the “extraordinary” incident.

In light of the extraordinary and memorable events unfolding over the last few days like a crumpled serviette disclosing the spat-out remains of a prolonged Partygate feast – the rules-breaking incident that contributed to the eventual if only reluctantly heeded call for the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson – the notion that something might be “too extraordinary to be remembered” does not quite ring true. So much in politics these days is head-scratchingly, gut-churningly out of the ordinary, the Trump Presidency and its aftermath being a prime example. And yet, the violation of established codes of conduct have become so flagrant and frequent that we, or some – or, I suspect, many – of us no longer recognize them to be unprecedented, unethical or unconstitutional.

It now takes greater effort to remember, if ever we knew, what once were assumed to be formal matters of procedure and protocol. And we struggle as well to connect the tell-tale dots that, if they were examined closely – like some seemingly random Rorschach blots – and in relation to each other, might enable us not only to arrive at the “causes” – the egoistic and downright egomaniacal roots – of socio-political developments but also to realize the “consequences” of our inattention to pattern-forming details whose neglect profoundly compromises our ability to draw meaningful inferences from the reality of facts and fictions with which we are confronted: the erosion of trust in political figures who, instead of serving their country, help themselves and cling to power as if they were absolute monarchs. How reassuring, then, are the ratiocinations that bring many a murder mystery to its logical if not always satisfactory conclusion.

It is the conclusion rather than the opening lines of Chesterton’s story – a story involving the unlawful actions of a Prime Minister – that brought to mind the astonishment with which I first reached it – a solution that I, appropriating shelved products of popular culture rather than reviewing them, am under no compulsion to withhold. The by me highly anticipated conclusion to Mr. Johnson’s sorry and increasingly sordid Downing Street saga, meanwhile, remains unknown while I am writing this, the 822^ndentry in my journal. I might as well say it flat out: the Prime Minister in Chesterton’s story is a murderer who gets away with his crime.

Tag: G. K. Chesterton

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