Call number
813 CHE
Status
Available
Call number
Pages
192
Description
Set in London in the early 1900s, this metaphysical thriller follows undercover policeman Gabriel Syme, who, in partnership with a Scotland Yard task force, attempts to take down underground anarchists. Syme encounters Lucian Gregory, a passionate anarchist who eventually takes him to a secret meeting place. Once there, Syme begins to influence the anarchists and is eventually elected to the central council. In his attempts to destroy the council of anarchists from the inside, he starts to uncover more secrets, each more mysterious than the last. Thick with Christian symbolism, this classic G. K. Chesterton novel will have readers on the edge of their seat until the final secrets are revealed.
Publication
Penguin Classics (1995), 192 pages
Original publication date
1908
ISBN
0140183884 / 9780140183887
Collection
Subjects
User reviews
LibraryThing member skholiast
This is an unimprovable work, a jack-in-the-Chinese-box of a book, an instinctively balanced marriage of convention and somersault. It is a "thriller," yes, a "political parable," yes, any of a number of things; and like all masterpieces it "transcends genre," yes. But "the genius and wonder of the
It’s like the paradox of the unexpected hanging (look it up, it may save you an unpleasant shock someday). The "trick" of "Thursday" can be anticipated by any reader of average intelligence-- G.K.C. is a true democrat-- well in advance of the ending. Nor is it, like the tired already-cliché broken stingers in the tail of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, meant to "blow your mind"-- which may be why it does. For having guessed, we keep reading, partly to see how it will come about (like watching "Oedipus Rex" or "Colombo"); partly driven by the fierceness and farce of the language; and at every step, with recognition and surprise, exclaiming, "Yes. Yes! Yes, *of course!*" even as the very thing we thought would confirm our expectations exceeds them.
With all due respect to the reviewer who felt G.K.C. was commending Christianity as the only antidote to chaos, "Thursday" is not a tract for the times. It is true that G.K.C. was a Roman Catholic and wrote many skillful and beautiful apologetic works, but "Thursday" is not one of these, nor yet exactly a novel. Rather-- as he cautioned-- it is "a Nightmare," albeit a comic one in precisely the Dantean sense.
During a night of drinking with his poet-friend, Gabriel Syme unexpectedly finds himself as a double-agent embroiled in an anarchist conspiracy that is progressively unmasked over a hundred or so pages as-- as-- as I hardly know what; as elephant and blind men, poem and punchline all together. On one level, the denouement is as conventional as any joke; yet the brilliance is that the whole point is how much of a joke, and how *good* a joke, convention is. On another level, though, the joke is a cosmic epiphany: Krishna addressing Arjuna on the battlefield, the Lord answering Job from out of the whirlwind.
The darkness of Chesterton's nightmare, like Job's, is dark indeed, and heavy, albeit mostly by implication; the single best summary of it I know is Borges', whose essay on Chesterton-- an elegant and frightening piece of three-quarter-truth-- I commend to all. The light, also, is--well, light; and a delightful light, dazzling, an answer to prayer *de profundis*. Some have indeed found it *too* dazzling, or at least a little too bright. But cumulatively the whole book makes an impression of both chiaroscuro and revelation. I, for one, turned the last page "a sadder and a wiser man." It's as though you completed a Rubik's cube to discover, dazedly, that you have squared the circle.
And then the thing "resets" in your hands to scrambled, leaving you wondering if it ever happened; for alas, "Thursday" is, after all, only a book. That's what makes Chesterton's slapdash-nonsensical adventure, cloaked in carefully predictable formulae, a study in nakedness as the best disguise. It's also why, as another reviewer has remarked, the ending is so puzzling, in ways both at harmony and at odds with how it is profound. The Man Who Was Thursday, like the creation of the world itself, is indeed "Very Good:" a perfect crime and its own perfect alibi in one.
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thing" is *how*: not by overstepping the genre, not by giving it some "twist," but rather by following the form so faithfully-- even, dare one say, formulaically-- that "formulaic" turns into a badge of honor and one is almost stunned by what the form is capable of holding. Chesterton aimed not to destroy the law, but to fulfill. His law in this case was the law of the surprise ending, and he was so scrupulous in his observance that we can ourselves observe the surprise coming a mile away-- and yet when it comes we are not only surprised, but astonished by a kind of (not unmixed) Joy; not because we were wrong, but because we are right, and yet knew not how right we were. It’s like the paradox of the unexpected hanging (look it up, it may save you an unpleasant shock someday). The "trick" of "Thursday" can be anticipated by any reader of average intelligence-- G.K.C. is a true democrat-- well in advance of the ending. Nor is it, like the tired already-cliché broken stingers in the tail of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, meant to "blow your mind"-- which may be why it does. For having guessed, we keep reading, partly to see how it will come about (like watching "Oedipus Rex" or "Colombo"); partly driven by the fierceness and farce of the language; and at every step, with recognition and surprise, exclaiming, "Yes. Yes! Yes, *of course!*" even as the very thing we thought would confirm our expectations exceeds them.
With all due respect to the reviewer who felt G.K.C. was commending Christianity as the only antidote to chaos, "Thursday" is not a tract for the times. It is true that G.K.C. was a Roman Catholic and wrote many skillful and beautiful apologetic works, but "Thursday" is not one of these, nor yet exactly a novel. Rather-- as he cautioned-- it is "a Nightmare," albeit a comic one in precisely the Dantean sense.
During a night of drinking with his poet-friend, Gabriel Syme unexpectedly finds himself as a double-agent embroiled in an anarchist conspiracy that is progressively unmasked over a hundred or so pages as-- as-- as I hardly know what; as elephant and blind men, poem and punchline all together. On one level, the denouement is as conventional as any joke; yet the brilliance is that the whole point is how much of a joke, and how *good* a joke, convention is. On another level, though, the joke is a cosmic epiphany: Krishna addressing Arjuna on the battlefield, the Lord answering Job from out of the whirlwind.
The darkness of Chesterton's nightmare, like Job's, is dark indeed, and heavy, albeit mostly by implication; the single best summary of it I know is Borges', whose essay on Chesterton-- an elegant and frightening piece of three-quarter-truth-- I commend to all. The light, also, is--well, light; and a delightful light, dazzling, an answer to prayer *de profundis*. Some have indeed found it *too* dazzling, or at least a little too bright. But cumulatively the whole book makes an impression of both chiaroscuro and revelation. I, for one, turned the last page "a sadder and a wiser man." It's as though you completed a Rubik's cube to discover, dazedly, that you have squared the circle.
And then the thing "resets" in your hands to scrambled, leaving you wondering if it ever happened; for alas, "Thursday" is, after all, only a book. That's what makes Chesterton's slapdash-nonsensical adventure, cloaked in carefully predictable formulae, a study in nakedness as the best disguise. It's also why, as another reviewer has remarked, the ending is so puzzling, in ways both at harmony and at odds with how it is profound. The Man Who Was Thursday, like the creation of the world itself, is indeed "Very Good:" a perfect crime and its own perfect alibi in one.
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LibraryThing member PastorBob
At first, I was a little unsure of what I was reading. I'd missed the subtitle 'A Nightmare'. But in a short time the tone of the book, and its brilliant humour become, more clear. In the moment comes the delight. The recruitment of those who become what they think they're supposed to oppose, in
There is a role we're to play in the world: what if someone confused and scuttled it, or rendered the task impossible to really discern? What if reality and God Himself were somehow disguised beyond our description, and we had no bearings among our peers left? A clever depiction, perhaps, of the horror the secular world has brought.
Some spectacular quotes lie within for whomever is willing to see the truth ;-p
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order to stop it, only to discover they all share in that task, that none of them are who they thought, and that even the real opponent is not who they assumed; the impossibility of appearances at telling the truth, and our own personal vulnerability at seeing what is true; the experience of being pursued as something you are, or might not be, when the truth of a situation is lost to opinions and perspectives and conjecture: all these are the foundation of the nightmare. There is a role we're to play in the world: what if someone confused and scuttled it, or rendered the task impossible to really discern? What if reality and God Himself were somehow disguised beyond our description, and we had no bearings among our peers left? A clever depiction, perhaps, of the horror the secular world has brought.
Some spectacular quotes lie within for whomever is willing to see the truth ;-p
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LibraryThing member Cecrow
A long time ago I read several of the Father Brown mysteries. This is a less-conventional bird, but didn't live up to its billing as an unpredictable ride. This novel's genre is heralded as difficult to pin down, but it's easily categorized as Christian allegory. There's plenty of meant-to-be-fun
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nonsense about police versus anarchists that becomes a slog if you see the emerging pattern. Much of this tale rings less farcical in today's world. Anarchists are anything but comic when anyone with an extreme viewpoint seems abundantly prepared to inflict massive casualities to make their point. Modern perspective's wounding of this story comes to a head with the conclusion. Read as giving answer to terrorists, it's a terribly poor one. I'm not convinced it was a great answer by the allegory interpretation either, but at least more palatable. Show Less
LibraryThing member Meredy
A note in the front of my paperback copy of this 1908 novel says 2/16/1967. That's when I bought it, and soon afterward I enjoyed a first reading. A few years later I reread it with the same pleasure. And then it sat in the hidden second tier of a shelf among hundreds of other books for at least
But as to the story, all I recalled was the main setup of the plot, namely, that a man named Syme infiltrates an anarchists' cell whose members have as code names the days of the week. The anarchists set off on a mission to prevent the prevention of a planned bombing incident. Our main character plays along while trying to think of ways to foil it himself.
Then, 7/8 of the way through this short (194-page) novel, it suddenly turns metaphysical. In fact, we begin to see that it has been allegorical all along, even though the fantastic element had seemed well anchored in a recognizable terrestrial reality. It has been so long since I last read this that it surprised me; so I guess what was memorable about it was less its own particulars than the fact that I enjoyed it so long ago.
Now it seems to me a bit manipulative, although not crudely so, and treats of themes that I am well tired of meeting as if by ambush around shadowy corners.
But this is not the fault of the book, which is unchanged--indeed, demonstrably so, for I am reading the selfsame edition that I purchased more than 40 years ago. This is one way that a book or movie or memento or landmark can be a mirror to us: if we know that it is a constant, then our altered perception of or response to it denotes a change in ourselves. In the case of this novel, I felt as if I had been conned, and yet at the same time it's hard not to feel elevated as well, even from the point in the story where the balloon goes aloft. Chesterton achieves his transformation competently and respectably, and the element of mystery still enchants.
I just don't think I'll be going along with it again. There's too much left that I've never read at all.
A sampling of passages that I liked:
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. (page 89)
[Syme speaking] "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front..." (page 176)
The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon. (page 183)
When I first listed this book in my library, I rated it five stars based on the old memory. Now I find it very hard to rate, never mind classify; but I settled on three and a half stars just to hold as consistently as possible to my own ratings values. I would still recommend this book, though, to any reader who likes to think about things from different angles.
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four decades, until something sent me looking for it about a month ago. Amazingly, I was able to go right to it. Hurray: I haven't yet lost that store-and-retrieve connection. I'll be in trouble when I do, because there's nothing overtly systematic about my system. I usually find things by snapshot visual memory.But as to the story, all I recalled was the main setup of the plot, namely, that a man named Syme infiltrates an anarchists' cell whose members have as code names the days of the week. The anarchists set off on a mission to prevent the prevention of a planned bombing incident. Our main character plays along while trying to think of ways to foil it himself.
Then, 7/8 of the way through this short (194-page) novel, it suddenly turns metaphysical. In fact, we begin to see that it has been allegorical all along, even though the fantastic element had seemed well anchored in a recognizable terrestrial reality. It has been so long since I last read this that it surprised me; so I guess what was memorable about it was less its own particulars than the fact that I enjoyed it so long ago.
Now it seems to me a bit manipulative, although not crudely so, and treats of themes that I am well tired of meeting as if by ambush around shadowy corners.
But this is not the fault of the book, which is unchanged--indeed, demonstrably so, for I am reading the selfsame edition that I purchased more than 40 years ago. This is one way that a book or movie or memento or landmark can be a mirror to us: if we know that it is a constant, then our altered perception of or response to it denotes a change in ourselves. In the case of this novel, I felt as if I had been conned, and yet at the same time it's hard not to feel elevated as well, even from the point in the story where the balloon goes aloft. Chesterton achieves his transformation competently and respectably, and the element of mystery still enchants.
I just don't think I'll be going along with it again. There's too much left that I've never read at all.
A sampling of passages that I liked:
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. (page 89)
[Syme speaking] "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front..." (page 176)
The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon. (page 183)
When I first listed this book in my library, I rated it five stars based on the old memory. Now I find it very hard to rate, never mind classify; but I settled on three and a half stars just to hold as consistently as possible to my own ratings values. I would still recommend this book, though, to any reader who likes to think about things from different angles.
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LibraryThing member SashaM
I don't know why this book is listed as crime. There is no actual crime involved. Just a lot of hysterical policemen running around trying to arrest each other when they are all undercover. If you want to read this book start by expecting Alice in wonderland. It make about as much sense. It even
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references Alice a few times. It then devolves even further to some sort of religious allegory that even the author says he was pulling out if a hat. ( last couple of pages on the penguin edition I read ) In short, if you want a story that has no logic, reason or intelligent characters but is heavy on religious symbolism this is the one for you. Personally it just made my brain itch. And not in a good way. Show Less
LibraryThing member EricCostello
A strange and startling book. At one level, a spoof of anarchism. At another level, a spoof of police efforts to infiltrate gangs and expose them. At still a deeper level, a metaphysical dream novel. The last point comes to sneak up on you, and hits you hard in the last few chapters of the book. It
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does well to remember the subtitle of the book, as Chesterton himself pointed out very shortly before he died. Show Less
LibraryThing member DrLed
I've always like the Father Brown mysteries by G.K. Chesterton, so for the book of less than 150 pages in the 2016 Reading Challenge, I chose this one.
LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
You've got to be curious about any book described as a "surreal anarchist fantasy" (Wordsworth edition introduction). I was pleased to find the classic wit of Chesterton on every page.
This book's paradoxical. Chesterton's writing is expansive and leisurely, yet the pace of the mystery is
The plot itself is very curious. The story's about a group of seven anarchists (named after the days of the week), who have been infiltrated by a spy from Scotland Yard. I hesitate to share any more lest I give too much of the plot away. By the last couple chapters, I found myself questioning how Chesterton could possibly bring such a tale a fitting conclusion without being predictable. He exceeded my expectations. I'll return to that last chapter more than once to let it sink in.
Chesterton's at his best: relaxing and thrilling, silly and profound. The entire narrative is laced with Christian symbolism that comes to a poignant theological head without sounding preachy. This is a great summer read.
This book's paradoxical. Chesterton's writing is expansive and leisurely, yet the pace of the mystery is
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breathtaking at times. It's difficult to find a writer who can make paragraph length blocks of dialogue come alive so effortlessly.The plot itself is very curious. The story's about a group of seven anarchists (named after the days of the week), who have been infiltrated by a spy from Scotland Yard. I hesitate to share any more lest I give too much of the plot away. By the last couple chapters, I found myself questioning how Chesterton could possibly bring such a tale a fitting conclusion without being predictable. He exceeded my expectations. I'll return to that last chapter more than once to let it sink in.
Chesterton's at his best: relaxing and thrilling, silly and profound. The entire narrative is laced with Christian symbolism that comes to a poignant theological head without sounding preachy. This is a great summer read.
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
I have had some slight contact with Chesterton through his 'Father Brown' stories and 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill', a fantastical novel about that distant year of futurity, 1984. So I came to this eager to see what he made of politics and aesthetes in Edwardian London.
An aesthete is recruited to
Many have commented on the religious allegory in this book, which is a little obvious but not unexpected for a story from such a man in such a society. What I found interesting was the political perspective. There is a critique of capitalism in this book barely acknowledged by a lot of people; and a perspective on anarchism no less unexpected - especially as the initial premise, that there is a "Central Council of Anarchists", is either massively tongue in cheek or horrendously misguided as to the true nature of anarchism. (I'm reminded of a university Anarchists Society I once encountered, which was required by the university to register its rules. They literally had to produce their one and only rule, which said 'The First Rule of the Anarchist Society is that the Society shall have no rules.') Chesterton then goes on to make some telling points that we would do well to remember in our modern times; that the poor have never been in favour of anarchism; it is always the rich who are the greatest exponents of total anarchy, as laws are far too restrictive upon their own freedom to act as they choose in the pursuit of their own interests.
Many writers of the fantastic have tried over the years to depict anarchist societies; few have succeeded well, in that they always need some sort of body that allocates resources or makes some sort of policy decisions for the whole society. Those who have depicted truly libertarian societies have ended up showing us unpleasant alternatives where the strong prey on the weak at all levels, and even if resources are scarce and no-one can acquire very much more than anyone else, that doesn't stop some individuals getting better positions in life than others, unless the society starts out from a very low base of material availability. Descriptions of the purest form of an anarchist society, which has no central law-making or law-enforcing bodies, but who devise laws for themselves from within communities and enforce them equally from within those communities, are rare. Chesterton starts out by adhering to the popular image of the 19th century anarchist, opposing all forms of governance and fighting governments with bombs and individual acts of violence; yet that is only possible with a degree of leadership and organisation that operates entirely counter to the whole concept of anarchy.
The situation of the protagonist. who, one by one, finds that all the anarchists are, like him, actually policemen, is well described and gave me a good picture of the aesthetic life of the era - until surrealism took over. Those who recollect Patrick McGoohan's 1960s tv series The Prisoner' will warm to the ever-escalating levels of weirdness; and then will be perhaps a little surprised to find God standing behind it all as protagonist , instigator and nemesis.
My edition was the 2001 US Modern Library edition, with various critical commentaries by modern and contemporary writers, and a set of discussion points for 'reading groups' which made me feel as though I'd opened a very slick-looking school textbook.
An aesthete is recruited to
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an anarchist conspiracy. As he digs further, there are multiple reveals and life and events get stranger and stranger. Finally, it turns into a shaggy God story and then the main protagonist wakes up - the book is, after all, sub-titled "A Nightmare".Many have commented on the religious allegory in this book, which is a little obvious but not unexpected for a story from such a man in such a society. What I found interesting was the political perspective. There is a critique of capitalism in this book barely acknowledged by a lot of people; and a perspective on anarchism no less unexpected - especially as the initial premise, that there is a "Central Council of Anarchists", is either massively tongue in cheek or horrendously misguided as to the true nature of anarchism. (I'm reminded of a university Anarchists Society I once encountered, which was required by the university to register its rules. They literally had to produce their one and only rule, which said 'The First Rule of the Anarchist Society is that the Society shall have no rules.') Chesterton then goes on to make some telling points that we would do well to remember in our modern times; that the poor have never been in favour of anarchism; it is always the rich who are the greatest exponents of total anarchy, as laws are far too restrictive upon their own freedom to act as they choose in the pursuit of their own interests.
Many writers of the fantastic have tried over the years to depict anarchist societies; few have succeeded well, in that they always need some sort of body that allocates resources or makes some sort of policy decisions for the whole society. Those who have depicted truly libertarian societies have ended up showing us unpleasant alternatives where the strong prey on the weak at all levels, and even if resources are scarce and no-one can acquire very much more than anyone else, that doesn't stop some individuals getting better positions in life than others, unless the society starts out from a very low base of material availability. Descriptions of the purest form of an anarchist society, which has no central law-making or law-enforcing bodies, but who devise laws for themselves from within communities and enforce them equally from within those communities, are rare. Chesterton starts out by adhering to the popular image of the 19th century anarchist, opposing all forms of governance and fighting governments with bombs and individual acts of violence; yet that is only possible with a degree of leadership and organisation that operates entirely counter to the whole concept of anarchy.
The situation of the protagonist. who, one by one, finds that all the anarchists are, like him, actually policemen, is well described and gave me a good picture of the aesthetic life of the era - until surrealism took over. Those who recollect Patrick McGoohan's 1960s tv series The Prisoner' will warm to the ever-escalating levels of weirdness; and then will be perhaps a little surprised to find God standing behind it all as protagonist , instigator and nemesis.
My edition was the 2001 US Modern Library edition, with various critical commentaries by modern and contemporary writers, and a set of discussion points for 'reading groups' which made me feel as though I'd opened a very slick-looking school textbook.
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LibraryThing member mykl-s
Strange story, typically Chesterton, magic realism of his own kind, wonderful details. There is some point to this book, I think, but with GK the point is not the thing. The magic is more interesting than the realism, and there is more of it.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
This is a favorite novel of mine and a delightful fantasy. More than a romance set in the streets of London, subtitled A Nightmare, it is in part a meditation on the meaning of anarchism. The chase scene at the close is "worth the price of admission", as they sometimes say, and the book is unique
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in many other ways. Chesterton knew how to spin a good tale and set your head spinning at the same time. Show Less
LibraryThing member dawbre42
Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear and timid; as if Nature made a first attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose.
Public domain i know but flipping through my books i found this old jem
We follow gregory sym a secret detective and an anarchist now witch is he is the
“roughly speeking its a book abbout anarchists…roughly speeking its a mystery story. Many dont get it and if you dont you ask”
This is verry true for a book that starts sedate in a park outside london then decides on a whim to do a abbout face runn arround in a fasion so eratic it makes plutos orbit seem regular. Then will stop just as suddenly and drop you somewhere compleetly diffrent give you a hug and make a speech that makes Shakespeare look mute. It philosophies a little abbout right and wrong makes you look twice at the neerest lamp post and think abbout it for a week.
It is briliantly written for all the reasons above and one more as you read you see the coulers of london and the french country side around you “and are left with a profound insight into, into whatever the book was abbout”
Public domain i know but flipping through my books i found this old jem
We follow gregory sym a secret detective and an anarchist now witch is he is the
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question. As orson wells stated in his brodcast adaptation “roughly speeking its a book abbout anarchists…roughly speeking its a mystery story. Many dont get it and if you dont you ask”
This is verry true for a book that starts sedate in a park outside london then decides on a whim to do a abbout face runn arround in a fasion so eratic it makes plutos orbit seem regular. Then will stop just as suddenly and drop you somewhere compleetly diffrent give you a hug and make a speech that makes Shakespeare look mute. It philosophies a little abbout right and wrong makes you look twice at the neerest lamp post and think abbout it for a week.
It is briliantly written for all the reasons above and one more as you read you see the coulers of london and the french country side around you “and are left with a profound insight into, into whatever the book was abbout”
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LibraryThing member ben_a
On re-reading, Chesterton's miniature masterpiece remains as fresh and queer as ever: a star-fruit among the bananas. No one seems to know quite where to place this book, and almost all definitions fail. Lethem calls it a somersault, Chesterton himself subtitled it "a nightmare." Rather than add my
There are books which acquaint you with parts of yourself you find disagreeable, shameful, or low. All this past month, I have been trying to finish a book by Philip Roth. He's a marvelous stylist, and has an absolute needle eye that penetrates through all one's lies about oneself. Yet, his characters are loathesome: they think loathesome thoughts, they want loathesome things, they evoke loathesome responses. They are an education in baseness. Chesterton's books are the precise opposite of this. You may not find Chesterton's ideology sustainable, you may think him deluded, you may even consider him flippant, but his work ever and always points you in the direction of the person you would like to be, that you wish you were. He speaks to the elements of your personality you hope will become stronger, or govern you more fully. That's the kind of book The Man Who Was Thursday is, and that's why you should read it. (8.25.06)
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own failed attempt, I will note a thought sparked by this re-reading.There are books which acquaint you with parts of yourself you find disagreeable, shameful, or low. All this past month, I have been trying to finish a book by Philip Roth. He's a marvelous stylist, and has an absolute needle eye that penetrates through all one's lies about oneself. Yet, his characters are loathesome: they think loathesome thoughts, they want loathesome things, they evoke loathesome responses. They are an education in baseness. Chesterton's books are the precise opposite of this. You may not find Chesterton's ideology sustainable, you may think him deluded, you may even consider him flippant, but his work ever and always points you in the direction of the person you would like to be, that you wish you were. He speaks to the elements of your personality you hope will become stronger, or govern you more fully. That's the kind of book The Man Who Was Thursday is, and that's why you should read it. (8.25.06)
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LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
Terrific book. Whimsical, satirical, philosophical and just a little dark. To be honest, I was expecting it to be considerably darker, but Chesterton mixes up humour and philosophy so well it still retains a serious edge. It clearly hales from a time when anarchistic nihilism was the bête du jour
Perhaps bizarrely, it reminded me a bit of The Magus. But much shorter, much more fun, and better written and - as a result of all those - more rewarding.
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- nowadays materialism seems to have beaten back the anarchists, and religious/political fundamentalism has taken its place (with probably a touch less whimsy).Perhaps bizarrely, it reminded me a bit of The Magus. But much shorter, much more fun, and better written and - as a result of all those - more rewarding.
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LibraryThing member JaneSteen
When The Man Who Was Thursday was first published, in 1907, the big terrorist threat came from anarchists, who threw bombs and assassinated people for a variety of complicated reasons. They turn up quite regularly in the literature of the time, quite often as vague caricatures representing some
The book's an allegory, so no character can be taken at its face value--and to complicate matters, within the novel every character is revealed to be quite different from what he seems. (This is almost exclusively a male tale, born of a society where the men of the English ruling class were expected to move in men-only circles from an early age, through boarding school to clubs to Parliament.)
The plot is relatively straightforward: the poet Sykes infiltrates a group of anarchists nicknamed according to the days of the week (Sykes is Thursday). He is co-opted into the anti-anarchist police by a mysterious personage whom he meets in a completely dark room. The anarchists are led by a larger-than-life, terrifying character called Sunday.
The book has a repeating pattern of wild chases and moments of revelation that build on one another to become funnier as the plot thickens. For this is a comedy, although a subtle and disturbing one. I'd hate to spoil the book for you by explaining exactly what's going on, but I can say that terror alternates with relief and a sense of the ridiculous. The climax of the book is quite thrilling and profound. The novel's subtitle, A Nightmare, may give you a hint about the plot's strange shifts and reverses.
If you ever liked the Narnia books, you'll like Thursday, which in some ways is the adult counterpart to C.S. Lewis's books. One day I will go through my bookshelves and make a special section for books that deserve to be re-read at intervals during my life; this book will make the cut.
There are many different editions of Thursday: the one I read was published by Ignatius Press, edited by Martin Gardner. I did not particularly like the edition, which was idiosyncratic and self-serving. There must be a better one out there.
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kind of destructive force or forces of evil. This is the case in The Man Who Was Thursday, where Chesterton uses the anarchists to represent all that is negative in the world, and doesn't tie them in to any particular political movement.The book's an allegory, so no character can be taken at its face value--and to complicate matters, within the novel every character is revealed to be quite different from what he seems. (This is almost exclusively a male tale, born of a society where the men of the English ruling class were expected to move in men-only circles from an early age, through boarding school to clubs to Parliament.)
The plot is relatively straightforward: the poet Sykes infiltrates a group of anarchists nicknamed according to the days of the week (Sykes is Thursday). He is co-opted into the anti-anarchist police by a mysterious personage whom he meets in a completely dark room. The anarchists are led by a larger-than-life, terrifying character called Sunday.
The book has a repeating pattern of wild chases and moments of revelation that build on one another to become funnier as the plot thickens. For this is a comedy, although a subtle and disturbing one. I'd hate to spoil the book for you by explaining exactly what's going on, but I can say that terror alternates with relief and a sense of the ridiculous. The climax of the book is quite thrilling and profound. The novel's subtitle, A Nightmare, may give you a hint about the plot's strange shifts and reverses.
If you ever liked the Narnia books, you'll like Thursday, which in some ways is the adult counterpart to C.S. Lewis's books. One day I will go through my bookshelves and make a special section for books that deserve to be re-read at intervals during my life; this book will make the cut.
There are many different editions of Thursday: the one I read was published by Ignatius Press, edited by Martin Gardner. I did not particularly like the edition, which was idiosyncratic and self-serving. There must be a better one out there.
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LibraryThing member kant1066
This review contains spoilers.
This was originally published in 1908 when Chesterton, one of the greatest Christian apologists of the first third of the twentieth century, was still a Protestant. He wouldn’t convert to Catholicism until the 1920s. Yet even as a Protestant, he had managed to do
The main struggle Chesterton presents – relentlessly forced down your throat until you almost can’t bear it anymore – is that of anarchy versus order. Gabriel Syme (paladin of law and order) is a member of the Scotland Yard division that keeps an eye on political anarchists. He meets Gregory, an anarchist, at a party where they discuss what makes poetry poetic. Is it law, rationality, and reason – or disorder and anarchy? Syme suggests that Gregory is only a tongue-in-cheek anarchist, since he rightfully claims that total anarchy would never be able to accomplish its political goals. Gregory counters by offering to take Syme to an underground anarchist meeting to show him that they really do exist.
The rest proceeds almost predictably: we find that one member after another of the anarchist council is also working undercover as a member for the Scotland Yard. In fact, of the seven members (each named after a day of the week), five of them are discovered to be police officers. The first time or two this is surprising; by the fifth time, I was almost rolling my eyes. By the end, we find out that not even the leader of the group, Sunday, is an anarchist. Instead, he too has been a force for good.
In the end, everything comes off sounding like a paean to reason and rationality, but the message comes off as both heavy-handed and confused, as difficult as that is to imagine. Maybe it was the overt force of the message mixed with the phantasmagoric style on top of the need for Chesterton to turn absolutely into a symbol with some latent meaning. There were just too many things he was trying to do here, and none of them come off with any virtuosity.
This was originally published in 1908 when Chesterton, one of the greatest Christian apologists of the first third of the twentieth century, was still a Protestant. He wouldn’t convert to Catholicism until the 1920s. Yet even as a Protestant, he had managed to do
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some wonderful writing, including “Orthodoxy,” his classic defense of the inner workings of Christian faith. However, I found this book to be less successful. The characters were so obviously meant to be symbols of something above and beyond themselves that it comes across more as a fable (or, as the subtitle has it, a “nightmare”) than a realist novel.The main struggle Chesterton presents – relentlessly forced down your throat until you almost can’t bear it anymore – is that of anarchy versus order. Gabriel Syme (paladin of law and order) is a member of the Scotland Yard division that keeps an eye on political anarchists. He meets Gregory, an anarchist, at a party where they discuss what makes poetry poetic. Is it law, rationality, and reason – or disorder and anarchy? Syme suggests that Gregory is only a tongue-in-cheek anarchist, since he rightfully claims that total anarchy would never be able to accomplish its political goals. Gregory counters by offering to take Syme to an underground anarchist meeting to show him that they really do exist.
The rest proceeds almost predictably: we find that one member after another of the anarchist council is also working undercover as a member for the Scotland Yard. In fact, of the seven members (each named after a day of the week), five of them are discovered to be police officers. The first time or two this is surprising; by the fifth time, I was almost rolling my eyes. By the end, we find out that not even the leader of the group, Sunday, is an anarchist. Instead, he too has been a force for good.
In the end, everything comes off sounding like a paean to reason and rationality, but the message comes off as both heavy-handed and confused, as difficult as that is to imagine. Maybe it was the overt force of the message mixed with the phantasmagoric style on top of the need for Chesterton to turn absolutely into a symbol with some latent meaning. There were just too many things he was trying to do here, and none of them come off with any virtuosity.
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LibraryThing member cdeuker
Read this at 20 and now again 35 years later. Chesterton can certainly write. Some of the images are startlingly beautiful, but the philosophy is a bit much to take. I'm sure the Chesterton lovers can make sense of it all, but to me it was a hodge-podge of conservative Christianity and Buddhism.
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
There are so many reviews which comment on the religious allegory of this book so I will refrain from doing that, except to say I enjoyed the "dueling with the devil" scene the most. There are also many reviews that mention how weird the story gets. Agreed. Completely. This is one of those
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situations in a story where purpose overshadows plot because the whole thing is really quite ridiculous. In a nutshell, Gabriel Symes is an undercover detective who infiltrates an anarchist group (Council of the Seven Days) only to find that the entire membership, with the exception of its leader, is made up of undercover New Detective Corps members. Each member goes by a day of the week for an alias, hence the Council of the Seven Days. Symes has just been nominated as "Thursday". As a collective week they are all trying to get at the elusive leader, "Sunday". Except, they are all in the dark as to each others true identities. What I find curious is that when Sunday sniffs out a spy his fears are confirmed when the undercover policeman reveals he is carrying his membership card to the anti-anarchist constabulary. Wouldn't you remove that piece of evidence, especially if you bother to go through the trouble of wearing an elaborate disguise? Gogol posed as a hairy Pole, accent and all. The Professor posed as an invalid old man with a huge nose. Turns out, all six policemen are carrying the tell-tale blue identification card. Not one of them thought to leave it at home. But, I digress. For most of the story it is a cat and mouse game with the good guys chasing the bad guys (until one by one, they find out they are all good guys). The theme of "who can you trust" is ongoing. Show Less
LibraryThing member m.belljackson
The author's vivid descriptions of scenery and settings, as well as certain philosophy, make for memorable reading.
The plot moves along with intriguing mystery and excitement, then becomes redundant and thoroughly improbable, but worse, boring.
The plot moves along with intriguing mystery and excitement, then becomes redundant and thoroughly improbable, but worse, boring.
LibraryThing member cookiebatter
Obviously intended as a theodicy, but has things to say on a sociological and political level, too. The overarching themes are so big and grave that the insanity of the plot catches you unawares; I actually doubt it would have worked if not for the writing style. With regular pithy insights and
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some fantastic imagery, Chesterton forces you to take his story seriously, and you are rewarded, in the end, when the absurdity of the plot is equated to the absurdity of the universe. Worth reading unless one is completely allergic to Christian allegories. (So sayeth a dedicated atheist.) Show Less
LibraryThing member Karin7
This is an allegorical novel that on the surface is about a group of anarchists, but questions many other things along the way. Being a nightmare, it has nightmarish qualities throughout, and the descriptions of scenery, weather and people reflect this. Had I liked this better, I’d reread it to
This novel is an allegory dressed as a nightmare, and the only thing that saved it from being a total nightmare or a read for me were some of the amazingly brilliant lines and prose. Had I not realized it was written as a nightmare, I’d have never made it through during this second attempt at reading this novel. I realize it has many fans. This review is based purely as my take on it as a literary novel, and not on any theological underpinnings or references to the book of Job, since discussing Chesterton’s theology is fodder for an entirely different kind of forum
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really dig into more of that, and if this is your sort of novel it is worth reading more than once.This novel is an allegory dressed as a nightmare, and the only thing that saved it from being a total nightmare or a read for me were some of the amazingly brilliant lines and prose. Had I not realized it was written as a nightmare, I’d have never made it through during this second attempt at reading this novel. I realize it has many fans. This review is based purely as my take on it as a literary novel, and not on any theological underpinnings or references to the book of Job, since discussing Chesterton’s theology is fodder for an entirely different kind of forum
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LibraryThing member LisaShapter
A book about how to be good in a world that may not be.
A brilliant book -- read it instantly.
Superb plot, stunning writing, gives you Chesterton's patented ethical vertigo when you begin to wonder whether he hates anarchists or sympathizes with them. (This was the era of the Haymarket riot.)
Unlike
Very, very highly recommended. (And very influential on later Fantasy.)
A brilliant book -- read it instantly.
Superb plot, stunning writing, gives you Chesterton's patented ethical vertigo when you begin to wonder whether he hates anarchists or sympathizes with them. (This was the era of the Haymarket riot.)
Unlike
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C.S. Lewis' Narnia books (a pale shadow compared to this work) you do not have to be Christian to enjoy the depth and power of this book.Very, very highly recommended. (And very influential on later Fantasy.)
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LibraryThing member misirlou
The strength of the allegory lies in its ability to entertain while teaching. A good allegory shouldn't let the message overpower the story; too many times an allegory has been derailed by flat characters or a loosely connected plot with more McGuffins than a detective novel. Christian allegories
Chesterton avoids this writing pitfall and delivers a story where the characters are both symbols and individuals, evolving as they fulfill their role in the story. The dialogue is witty, well written, and surprisingly fair. As a Chrisitan apologist, Chesterton seems to understand the appeal of nihilism but instead of simply defaming it, he works to understand the causes which drive a man to feel that any action is meaningless.
One of the most impressive aspects of The Man Who Was Thursday is the whimsical quality of it. Throughout the telling his story, Chesterton embraces a sense of surreality that allows him to deliver an insightful message about the motivations of man without going into the melodrama of everyday situations. In order to deliver a fantastice message, you need a fantastic story and this novel provides both. Whatever you're looking for-- an adventure story, beautiful imagery, a sensible allegory, a philisophical text, or simply a good quote you'll find it in The Man Who Was Thursday.
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tend to suffer from the writers' need to distill their character's humanity down until they're nothing more than a caricature of their most prominent traits. Chesterton avoids this writing pitfall and delivers a story where the characters are both symbols and individuals, evolving as they fulfill their role in the story. The dialogue is witty, well written, and surprisingly fair. As a Chrisitan apologist, Chesterton seems to understand the appeal of nihilism but instead of simply defaming it, he works to understand the causes which drive a man to feel that any action is meaningless.
One of the most impressive aspects of The Man Who Was Thursday is the whimsical quality of it. Throughout the telling his story, Chesterton embraces a sense of surreality that allows him to deliver an insightful message about the motivations of man without going into the melodrama of everyday situations. In order to deliver a fantastice message, you need a fantastic story and this novel provides both. Whatever you're looking for-- an adventure story, beautiful imagery, a sensible allegory, a philisophical text, or simply a good quote you'll find it in The Man Who Was Thursday.
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LibraryThing member TheBoltChick
This book is part thriller, part fantasy, and even part comedy. It is certainly a strange combination, and not always successful.
The was written during a time of anarchist bombings in London, and takes the core idea of the plot from those events. Detective Syme is assigned by Scotland Yard to
The complete title of this novella is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. I think one must keep that in mind when reading, as the events and situations can come at the reader at near breakneck speed.
The book's ending was a bit disappointing, but overall I will give this one 3-1/2 stars.
The was written during a time of anarchist bombings in London, and takes the core idea of the plot from those events. Detective Syme is assigned by Scotland Yard to
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infiltrate a group of anarchists. Each man is named for a day of the week. As he gets to know the men, he begins to fear for his safety. But the more he learns, the more he realizes none of them are exactly what they appear to be on the surface. The complete title of this novella is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. I think one must keep that in mind when reading, as the events and situations can come at the reader at near breakneck speed.
The book's ending was a bit disappointing, but overall I will give this one 3-1/2 stars.
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LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
A detective inflitrates a gang of anarchists in London, cunningly gaining entry to the super-secretive 'Council of Days', led by the godly Sunday. His mission: to prevent a plot to blow up the Czar on his visit to Paris.
The first half of the book is an exciting tale of wit and invention, but soon
The first half of the book is an exciting tale of wit and invention, but soon
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the tale becomes grossly absurd; the climax is surely allegorical but for me it was greatly unsatisfying, especially considering all the drama that had led to it. Show Less
Awards
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Haycraft Queen Cornerstones (1908)
Horror: The 100 Best Books (1908)