The following is an excerpt of a letter I wrote to the Class of 2023, accompanying a collection of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries.
We tend to think of detective novels as popular fiction – as “beach reads” more so than works of great literature. But G. K. Chesterton wrote that the detective story “is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life.”[1] The detective novel is “poetical” in Chesterton’s estimation because it lends a sense of excitement, adventure, and value to life in a modern, bustling city. Chesterton maintained an optimistic, cheerful appreciation for modern life. He deeply appreciated the city as part of mankind successfully living out the dominion mandate. As he put it, “a city is, properly speaking, more poetic even than a countryside, for while Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones.”
But there is another layer to the value of detective stories according to Chesterton: they affirm for us, at a fundamental level, that there is an order and harmony to the world we live in. If there were not, mysteries would be impossible to solve. Truth could not be found, regardless of the cleverness of our efforts. But they can be solved. Truth is attainable. While much of 20th century modern literature was, as you know, presenting a fragmented worldview haunted by an overwhelming sense of brokenness and hopelessness, the detective novel was affirming, again and again, the importance and beauty of regular people fighting chaos and seeking truth. Chesterton wrote,
While it is the constant tendency of the Old Adam to rebel against so universal and automatic a thing as civilization, to preach departure and rebellion, the romance of police activity keeps in some sense before the mind the fact that civilization itself is the most sensational of departures and the most romantic of rebellions. By dealing with the unsleeping sentinels who guard the outposts of society, it tends to remind us that we live in an armed camp, making war with a chaotic world, and that the criminals, the children of chaos, are nothing but the traitors within our gates.
The culture you are launching into is indeed one that preaches departure and rebellion against civilization. The institutions and ideas that have upheld western civilization for millennia are being trampled upon in the chaotic stampede towards each new ideological trend that captures our society’s interest. The idea of a transcendent, universal truth is not only laughed at but derided. Reality is increasingly seen as something we can only perceive in individual narratives, rather than something about which there can be any collective consensus.
It can be disheartening to move from an education that has nurtured you on transcendent truth, goodness, and beauty into a world that rejects these things in deference to chaotic individualism. In many ways, our culture is a mess of broken pieces. When you feel discouraged by the chaos, read a detective story. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries are a great place to start.
Everyone loves a good detective story because, innately, we love to see mysteries solved. The simple gratification we get at the end of a good detective story when the answer has been revealed and justice served is no small thing! It is an affirmation that our world has been harmoniously and intentionally crafted by a Creator who has made us in his image, capable of perceiving clues and piecing together the truths of this reality.
As much as our culture seems to revel in chaos, human beings actually do ache for harmony, order, and sense. Our culture is longing for the answers to life’s big questions. And answers born out of individualism and relativism simply don’t cut it when chaos compounds and starts really causing suffering. I truly believe that your generation is the one that will begin to pick up the pieces from previous generations that our contemporary culture has smashed and buried and start to winsomely and graciously offer some solid foundations upon which to build towards truth again.
That is hard work, but you are equipped and capable. As you move forward into adulthood and pursue careers, start families, and discern your vocations, remember that truth is universal, attainable, and articulable. Piece together the clues and articulate and live out the truth.
[1] Chesterton, G. K. “A Defense of Detective Stories”
True Ends 