The Mirror of the Magistrate
I think I picked this one mostly because I love the visual imagery in it: the garden and the colored lamps, that are at once danger signals to the detective and fairy lamps to the poet; the mirror at the end of the gloomy hallway that holds forever its last scene, the image of the murderer.
By the way, I can easily imagine a poet being so abstracted as to spend two hours gazing over a beautiful garden; but could a poet be so abstracted as to gaze over a beautiful garden and not notice a murder being committed and discovered right under his nose? Then again, I've been known to be almost that abstract, and perhaps his vantage point didn't allow him to see the pond well.
By the way, I can easily imagine a poet being so abstracted as to spend two hours gazing over a beautiful garden; but could a poet be so abstracted as to gaze over a beautiful garden and not notice a murder being committed and discovered right under his nose? Then again, I've been known to be almost that abstract, and perhaps his vantage point didn't allow him to see the pond well.
posted by Queen of Carrots @ 5:07 AM
4 Comments:
At 2:25 PM,
Devona said…
The only thing I didn't like about the character of the poet was that it seemed as though he were either dumb, or really rude. Like you mentioned, he was there for hours but didn't witness the murder?
Then when they questioned him he was spacy and incoherent. At least that's the impression that I got. I think that GKC was trying to create an aloof, and abstract poet, but I only found him cold and detatched.
Other than that I really liked the ending. I liked how the prosecutor was so intent on getting the poet convicted. And I liked how the guilt killed him.
It never said whether the poet was convicted or not. Did I miss it? I assumed that he was not. Otherwise Father Brown would have said something to the authorites I'm guessing?
At 4:13 AM,
Queen of Carrots said…
I guess since the police were inquiring on new lines they may have had enough evidence to let the poet go. But I notice most mystery writers are much more concerned about the solution to the mystery than to convicting the right guy. Maybe it would get boring to send them all to jail.
The poet was a bit odd. Then again, he was an anarchist poet and somewhat foreign, so he would probably not communicate very well at best.
At 8:03 AM,
Devona said…
Oh yeah. That makes more sense, some how I glazed over that part. That's why we're reading in a group. :)
At 10:43 AM,
Rev. Alex Klages said…
The whole "anarchist poet" theme is important in others of Chesterton's works, too.
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