The Poet and The Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale

by G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill, Kensington on May 29th 1874. Originally after attending St Pauls School he went to Slade to learn the art of illustration. In 1896 he joined a small London publisher and began his journalistic career as a freelance art and literary critic and going on to writing weekly columns in the Daily News and the Illustrated London News. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. For many he is known as a very fine novelist and the creator of the Father Brown Detective stories which were much influenced by his own beliefs. A large man – 6’ 4” and 21st in weight he was apt to be forgetful in that delightful way that the British sometimes are – a telegram home to his wife saying he was in one place but where should he actually be…….? He was prolific in many other areas; he wrote plays, short stories, essays, loved to debate and wrote hundreds of poems. It is on his poems that we concentrate this volume. They range from the virtues and vices of England and the English to his world view and religious beliefs. GK Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on 14th June, 1936 and is buried in Beaconsfield just outside of London.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Mystery, Short Stories, Literature, Catholic, Philosophy

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.

He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

Reviews

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

ENGLISH: A collection of eight short stories with a single main character (Gabriel Gale, the poet of the title), who has a knack to handle lunatics. Not surprisingly, Gabriel himself is sometimes mistaken for a lunatic and is twice about to be certified as such. The stories I liked most were "The Yellow Bird," "The Crime of Gabriel Gale" (which Joseph Pearce considers a treatment of the problem of pain as good as C.S.Lewis's book of the same title) and "The Purple Jewel," a small mystery whose solution was obvious to me, with no lunatics, at least in the usual meaning of the word.

ESPAÑOL: Una colección de ocho historias cortas con un solo personaje principal (Gabriel Gale, el poeta del título) que tiene una habilidad especial para manejar a los locos. No es sorprendente que el mismo Gabriel sea a veces confundido con un loco y esté dos veces a punto de ser considerado como tal. Las historias que más me gustaron fueron "The Yellow Bird", "The Crime of Gabriel Gale" (que Joseph Pearce considera un tratamiento del problema del dolor tan bueno como el libro de C.S.Lewis del mismo título) y "The Purple Jewel", un pequeño misterio cuya solución fue obvia para mí, y donde no hay locos, al menos en el sentido habitual de esta palabra.

[booklady · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Poet and the Lunatics is a collection of G.K. Chesterton short stories centered around poet and some-time painter, Gabrielle Gale, who either solves crimes committed by lunatics or prevents them before they happen. In the opening story, Gale, himself is so eccentric, you aren’t altogether sure whether he is the keeper or the kept. In subsequent tales, he continues to mystify in his methods.

One is frequently reminded of Chesterton’s other renown sleuth, Father Brown, although Gale’s behavior and monologues tend to be even more bizarre—at least initially and on the surface. As each story unfolds, however, his deeper wisdom comes to the fore. Gale serves as the voice for the author and one wonders at some of his outlandish/extreme crime prevention/ solving techniques. Would they work today? Not likely. Would they be allowed? Surely not! Are they rationally valid? Most definitely!

For the wisdom presented alone—never mind the sheer story-telling genius, The Poet and the Lunatics is most highly recommended.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chesterton takes his paradoxical, sometimes upside down view of the world about as far as it can go - wonderful results and insights.

[LaNavedeCælo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lamentablemente, no logré terminar el libro porque la narrativa del autor es bastante densa y seria, lo que hizo difícil comprender completamente los temas que aborda. Después de investigar, descubrí que sería mejor comenzar con otra de sus obras. Este libro no parece ser la mejor opción para iniciarse con el autor. A pesar de ello, me dejó con ganas de conocer más de su trabajo y estoy decidida a leerlo en el futuro.

Gabriel Gale, uno de los personajes principales, es un individuo intelectual, excéntrico y divertido. Me inquietó un poco saber que tiene similitudes con el autor mismo, aunque es común que los escritores se reflejen en sus personajes. En este caso, la similitud es bastante marcada.

Este libro es una colección de relatos de crimen que exploran las condiciones humanas desde una perspectiva filosófica, mezclando temas cristianos. La complejidad de estas temáticas, junto con la profundidad de los personajes, puede ser un poco abrumadora para quienes buscan una introducción más ligera a la obra del autor.

[Zrinka Dragun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uvijek izvrstan Chesterton.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobody can touch Chesterton for evoking weather and skies and atmosphere. Sometimes these are fairly incidental to his work, but in this they often take centre stage. I love Chesterton for this and many other facets of his writing - so why only 4 stars? Because the notion of lunatics is even more jarring nowadays than his casual anti-semitism. And I just couldn't stifle my unease at the central premise. Shame.

[Knedelfina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Milutko się czytało♡
Jest coś w głównej postaci co mi przypomina wspominanie dzieciństwa jako osoba dorosła. Niby jest długo po 18-stce, ale próbuje widzieć świat na nowo i czuje się dobrze, ale dostaje zmartwione lub zdziwione spojrzenia.

[George]

My favorite book. Helped me appreciate the beauty of small things.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quintessential Chesterton. Paradox, mystery, the aura of place. Who is the lunatic? Who is sane?

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

G. K. Chesterton's The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale is another of his whimsical collections of paradoxical situations. The general principle is expressed by poet, painter, and lunatic Gabriel Gale in the first episode:

What you want is an unpractical man. That is what people always want in the last resort and the worst conditions. What can practical men do here? Waste their practical time in running after the poor fellow and cutting him down from one pub sign after another? Waste their practical lives watching him day and night, to see he doesn't get hold of a rope or a razor? Do you call that practical? You can only forbid him to die. Can you persuade him to live? Believe me, that is where we come in. A man must have his head in the clouds and his wits wool-gathering in fairyland, before he can do anything so practical as that.

The stories in which the adventures of Gabriel Gale are presented are all wildly far-fetches, yet amusing. What I continue to love about Chesterton is the way he can always make me smile.

And that, when you think of it, is a considerable gift.

[Lucas Magrini Rigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chesterton traz algo de Tolkien na descrição dos contos. Faz uma descrição agradabilíssima do ambiente, das personagens, do enredo. Ler os contos é como tomar um banho quente e relaxante após um dia de trabalho... ou quem sabe tomar uma gelada em um dia muito quente... Quero dizer que é um prazer relaxante.
Recomendo ler como um "entre-livros", pois a leitura flui rápido e exercita o ritmo de leitura.

[Theunis Snyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of metaphysical detective stories combined with social criticism. Fans of hardboiled detective stories won’t like this collection. The detective is a poet as well as a painter and he sometimes walks on his hands. This gives him a new view of the world. The world is upside down because it is populated with lunatics. In each story the detective confronts a new lunatic. Also interesting is that the detective sometimes sees the clues before the crime is committed.

[drolmacires · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bellísimo, te seguiré echando el ojo Chesterton

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chesterton’s mysteries are typically solved through the protagonist’s insight into the nature of human behavior and the human mind, independent of the physical evidence. The most famous of Chesterton’s characters that solves mysteries in this fashion is of course Father Brown, and Gabriel Gale is an enigma solver in the same vein—though specializing in mad men, specifically. Like Father Brown, Gale often stays in the background of these mysteries, letting other characters bear the narrative burden, before presenting the solution. There usually aren’t clues that you can put together to solve the mystery before Gale, but if you’ve read enough Chesterton you may be genre-savvy enough to get a step ahead: with Chesterton, you know that if one of two characters is mad the madman isn’t going to be the one that most classically fits that role. Similarly, with Chesterton the murderer is never going to be the pagan when there’s an atheist around. So the mysteries in The Poet and the Lunatics aren’t particularly satisfying as mysteries, but they work just fine if you’re looking for more Chesterton and have already read his better-known works. Similarly to The Man Who Knew Too Much, the collection of mysteries benefits from being interconnected in a way that gives it an overarching story in addition to its independent vignettes. I like Chesterton, so I liked The Poet and the Lunatics just fine, but it’s not as good collections like The Club of Queer Trades or even Four Faultless Felons.

[Sergio Maduro]

"G. K. Chesterton conta que pensou várias vezes em escrever um romance no qual um velejador inglês errasse ligeiramente os cálculos de sua trajetória e viesse a descobrir a Inglaterra sob a impressão de que ela fosse uma nova ilha.
Segundo ele, o motivo pelo qual voltava sempre a essa idéia é que sentia-se ele próprio como esse velejador. Para Chesterton, é preciso enxergar o mundo com uma combinação de espanto e acolhimento — “ser feliz nesta terra de maravilhas sem instalar-se no mero conforto” —, e os trechos mais marcantes de sua obra têm justamente esta característica: a de tirar o leitor dos lugares-comuns e colocá-lo frente a frente com uma realidade notável que até então lhe parecia trivial.
Os quatro livros reunidos neste box — quatro das principais obras de G. K. Chesterton — conduzem o leitor a uma viagem semelhante de estranhamento e reencontro com o mundo, a um romance entre heresia e ortodoxia que tem por clímax a história de um homem eterno" e Freire).

"O Poeta e os Lunáticos é uma ótima escolha de contos fantásticos que carregam em si doses da filosofia chestertoniana. É quase Ortodoxia em alegorias. Se você procura um romance, oferecemos um como você nunca viu: A Taberna Ambulante é um épico cômico sobre o homem comum enfrentando elites tirânicas (como Chesterton fez a vida inteira)" (Sociedade Chesterton Brasil)

[Manuel Taboada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otro estupendo libro de Chesterton que sigue la habitual estructura de historias cortas conectadas a través de un protagonista común. En este caso se trata de Gabriel Gale, poeta y pintor de tan desbordante imaginación que es capaz de ponerse en el lugar de los locos y de esta forma esclarecer distintos misterios y crímenes, ayudado de su capacidad para observar algún detalle u objeto curioso que de alguna manera le orienta hacia la solución. De estructura cíclica, en el sentido de que el último capítulo enlaza con el primero, es un nuevo despliegue de ingenio del autor. No falta por supuesto la crítica a través de la representación de fanáticos racionalistas, materialistas, supersticiosos, ávidos de poder, explotadores del campesinado y otros muchos caracteres que desfilan alegremente por esta fantástica novela.

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of mystery short stories. Chesterton has created a protagonist akin to his popular well-loved Father Brown. In this case, the sleuth is a poet/landscape painter. As the artist, Gale does not think like the modern rationalists that surround, and as a result, can solve the crimes because he better understands the lunacy of the madmen who have committed them.

Like all thing Chesterton writes, the stories are good in their own right. Not quite as good as Father Brown, but that is a bar too high for even the best writers.

[Pluma del Delator · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simplemente maravilloso, adoro como escribe chesterton, y eso que en general las novelas detectivescas me suelen aburrir. Sin embargo, chesterton consigue un libro que mejora capítulo a capítulo escondiendo entre las palabras esas críticas a las derivas filosoficas, culturales e intelectuales que han derivado en la crisis de valores que vive actualmente occidente.

Va a ser cierto que Chesterton es de esos escritores de los que merece la pena leer toda su bibliografía.

[Pnyxis · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Publicado originalmente en http://anunusualstory.blogspot.com.es...]

Si eres de los listos y afortunados locos que siguen el blog no será para ti ningún secreto que Gilbert Keith Chesterton es uno de mis escritores predilectos. Ya hablé aquí de Ortodoxia, uno de mis libros favoritos, y también de vez en cuando te he traído algún texto suyo. Sin embargo, el libro de hoy era desconocido hasta para mí, y eso que he curioseado más de una vez la bibliografía del hombre-montaña inglés.

Por eso, al igual que el pobre infeliz se encuentra un billete de cincuenta cinco euros en el bolsillo y da gracias a lo insondable, yo también me he tropezado de manera totalmente inesperada con El poeta y los lunáticos y no puedo más que agradecerle al cielo tan delicioso descubrimiento.


Gale se conducía siempre bajo el influjo de la sugestión. Cualquier persona medianamente lógica, por ejemplo, sabe, porque lo percibe, que en un simple seto de un jardín o en una revuelta de un camino hay algo tentador, de una belleza digna de admiración. Pero sigue adelante, tras admirar vagamente aquello. Gale, empero, se detenía ahí; aceptaba la invitación, la sugerencia, no se daba a las vagas admiraciones. La forma de una colina, los ángulos de una casa, suponían un gran reto para Gale, algo a descubrir. Y a descubrirlo se entregaba intensamente, hasta creer que había descubierto al menos parte del secreto que allí se escondía; feliz, entonces, porque ya podía dar algún nombre a su fantasía.

Cuando digo que me lo encontré de forma casual quizás se te haya cruzado por la mente una fantástica historia en la que sigo la pista a un peligroso asesino para al final descubrir el libro en una oscura biblioteca de algún viejo caserón no menos oscuro. Lamento desilusionarte pero no fue así. Simplemente estaba por mi casa y nunca lo había visto, lo cual me daría para escribir mil y un ensayos si yo fuera escritor o tuviera algún tipo de retraso. Encontrarse inesperadamente un buen libro es todo un placer, y es curioso cómo lo cotidiano, lo que vemos y hacemos todos los días puede ser -y debe ser- motivo de asombro. Sentir verdadero asombro por la vida con la mirada de un niño. Algo parecido le he leído al propio Chesterton en algún lado, y éste no se lo inventó, sino que lo aprendió de un tipo que dijo e hizo unas cuantas cosas hará algo más de dos mil años.

Bien, puede que llegues a pensar que el párrafo anterior sobra de todas todas, pero eso es porque no has leído El poeta y los lunáticos. No me considero un poeta y tampoco un lunático -normalmente-, pero eso no quita para que de vez en cuando me comporte como cualquiera de los locos que aparecen en este libro, empezando por el protagonista: Gabriel Gale, poeta y pintor para los amigos. Un verdadero personaje en el sentido más amplio de la palabra que además cuenta con un verdadero don: es capaz de captar la importancia de los detalles más pequeños.

¿Y esto de qué le sirve? Bueno, esta habilidad no tendría demasiada importancia si no fuera porque gracias a ella es capaz de entenderse con los locos. Y me volverás a decir, ¿y esto para qué sirve? Pues sin ir más lejos para resolver un crimen o anticiparse a un delito; todo ello como consecuencia de unos planteamientos y deducciones aparentemente carentes de toda lógica pero que sin embargo resultan clarividentes (en contraposición con la supuesta cordura de los demás personajes del cartel, todos hombres de ciencia o de leyes).

Precisamente en este sentido Chesterton nos lleva a mirar a nuestro alrededor y a reconocer que en realidad la verdadera locura está en creerse sensato. Esta es la salsa de la historia y lleva indefectiblemente el sello del escritor inglés. De hecho, ya en el último relato le dice Gabriel Gale al doctor que quiere meterlo en un manicomio:
"Es usted capaz de encontrar anormal cualquier cosa, precisamente porque no es usted normal"

Cuánto tiene que ver este diagnóstico con nuestro mundo de hoy, ¿verdad? Asimismo, y como es habitual en todo lo que he leído de él, el autor aprovecha cualquier circunstancia para acerar su pluma y hacer crítica a políticos e intelectuales de su tiempo. Si has leído El hombre que fue jueves me entenderás perfectamente, pero si no es así te basta con saber que la historia entera está inundada de humor del de verdad.

Y si te piensas que en un libro como este no puede haber espacio para el romanticismo te equivocas por completo. Al fin y al cabo, ¿no consiste el amor en ponerse cabeza abajo y subirse a lo más alto de la locura?

"Agitaba los brazos como débiles ramas batidas por el viento; unos brazos que ahora parecieron a Diana inusitadamente largos. [...] En realidad había estado haciendo el pino, apoyado sobre la cabeza, o mejor dicho, sobre sus manos.
- Perdóneme -se excusó cuando la joven dama llegó a su altura-; suelo hacerlo porque es muy útil para un paisajista buscar perspectivas nuevas, ver el paisaje al revés, con la cabeza a la altura del suelo... Así contempla uno las cosas como son en realidad. [...] En realidad son los que tienen los pies en el suelo los que andan con la cabeza en las nubes".

Quizás haya más lucidez en la locura. Y quizás, sólo quizás, este libro merezca la pena.

[Dan Glover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like this as much as Father Brown, but it could only have come from the same pen.

[Eider Sánchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

El lunático es mi detective favorcito. Por encima de Sherlock y Poirot.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

En principio encontré el libro aburrido, y creo que se debe a que el primer relato es casi ininteligible hasta que has leído el último.
Mis favoritos han sido los siguientes:

- "El pájaro amarillo", que trata el problema de la libertad de manera original.

- "El dedo de piedra", que aborda de un modo singular la cuestión de la vanidad y la honradez que pueden acompañar a la ciencia, sin que sea una excepción al conocimiento humano en general.

- "La casa del pavo real". Puro Chesterton: una situación que te hace flotar de tan extraña y cautivadora como es, y en que siempre se ahonda en la comprensión de lo humano.

- "La joya púrpura". Una historia a lo Stevenson con una explicación a lo Chesterton, es decir, no puede fallar.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chesterton's central conceit, in this loosely connected series of short stories, is that although the world at large thinks Gabriel Gale, poet and painter, to be a species of lunatic, in fact he is a keeper, or guardian, of lunatics, since he knows the manner in which their minds work. Hmm. Afraid I was not totally convinced on that score.

[Steve Vetsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really and enjoyed this book. I recommend anything by G K Chesterton. Just who is the Poet? and who are the Lunatics? Read it and find out. I have read this book multiple times and enjoy it each time

[Life · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dec 2023: 2/5
Sep 2025: 3/5

One still doesn't really believe that people can have motivations the way that Chesterton says they do, and some of the stories aren't as intriguing as his better work. On the whole I enjoyed it more than I did before though.

[Carlota · Rating 5 out of 5]

I

[Christina]

recommended by Sarah Field

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I'll keep a shop in Croydon and marry someone who is into church work. I need to have limits to live a life.

[Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stalled out on this book after the first story...

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars