Subject: Re: (whorl) Father Brown

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 00:01:00 +0000

[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #5308829 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

If I remember right, Father Brown has a criminal sidekick for a few
early stories, named Flammbeaux or something like that (a master
jewel thief, or something like that).  A team of "cloth & crim" just
like Silk and Auk.  And the commonfolk of Viron live in a 19th
century mode of technology and society; by itself a fact of little
consequence, but strengthening the "Brownishness" imho.  (Or is Brown
solidly 20th century?  Well, we might argue that the 20th doesn't
really start until the horrors of the Great War have destroyed the
European aristocracy . . . works for Proust!)

=mantis=

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 19:16:13 +0000

In message <199706140018.RAA11640 at lists1.best.com>, m.driussi at genie.com writes:
>like Silk and Auk. 

	Excellent! That's something that eluded me though I read those
stories myself! I think that the collection has roughly the first half
of the stories predating Flambeaux's alliance (conversion?) with
Father Brown. I don't remember looking up the publication order, so
I'm not sure whether the Flambeax & Brown tales were first.

>Well, we might argue that the 20th doesn't really start until the
>horrors of the Great War have destroyed the European aristocracy
>. . . works for Proust!)

	Perhaps the Trivigaunti/Ayuntiamento war is the first to break
Viron's class-ridden society? (I assume Trivigaunt has fought wars with other
statelets or even just skirmished with them.)

	Tercel