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Aug 17, 2011

Paul rated it:

They say that LSD was first synthesisterised in 1938, so it couldn't be that. But opium was imbibed in British society as we know from Thomas de Quincy up to Sherlock Holmes, so I'm going with opium.

This strange novel is a phantasmagoria which begins as a surrealistic spoof of Boy's-Own detective adventures in which our hero infiltrates the central council of the evil anarchists who are bent on destroying human society. Gathering more absurd elements (elephant chases through central More...

8 comments like (15 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2011

Praj rated it:

‘Humanity crushed once again’. ‘50 dead, 120 injured’. ‘Grave face of terror strikes again’. Familiar headlines scream through the pages of the newspapers each time a bomb goes off annihilating blameless lives. Through teeth gritting resilience, public outcry resonates through the deafened ears of failed intelligence and faith in the state’s law and order hangs by a thin string. As the weeks pass by rapid sketches of the alleged bombers, email links, forensic reports, collected evidence from the More...

10 comments like (10 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Dan rated it:

The Man Who Was Thursday reads like P.G. Wodehouse writing from a Phillip K. Dick plot while on a Nyquil bender. It begins with two poets arguing in the park about whether poetry is more akin to law or anarchy. It turns out that the poet espousing anarchy is actually a member of an anarchist soceity and takes Syme, the other poet, to their meeting place to prove it after a vow of secrecy. Syme is actually a member of an anti-anarchy branch of Scotland Yard and usurps Gregory's spot as the new More...

16 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2010

Nancy rated it:

A very original, wonderfully quirky, thought-provoking little book about an English detective who infiltrates a group of anarchists. Part fantasy, part mystery, part philosophical, lots of Christian symbolism that is not apparent until later in the book, but you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy it. There is so much going on here that I will have to reread it at some point.

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

May 14, 2011

Paquita Maria rated it:

Boy, this was really good until it wasn't at all anymore. An intriguing story which suddenly turned into some sort of muddled message about patriotism? Capitalism? Christianity? Anarchy? Communism? The soul of all mankind? How redheads are hot and god is fat? Don't know, don't care.

Blah. Skip it.

21 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2008

Chris rated it:

I lost my backpack thanks to this book.

It was years and years ago, probably my first winter in Japan, and I'd picked up this book at Maruzen. I had heard about Chesterton, mainly from the dedication page of Pratchett and Gamian's Good Omens ("The authors would like to join the demon Crowley in dedicating this book to the memory of G.K. Chesterton. A man who knew what was going on.") and the title looked weird enough to be entertaining. So, I was reading the book on the t More...

1 comment like (28 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

Skylar rated it:

This short novel is intriguing, humorous, clever, and spotted with stunning descriptions. Ostensibly, it is a tale of an undercover police man (Syme) seeking to infiltrate an organization of anarchists, controlled by the "Council of Seven Days" under the leadership of a man named Sunday. The novel is not as obviously allegorical as The Ball and The Cross, at least not until near the end, when it become entirely symbolic. I struggled with Chesteron's meaning when I concluded the novel More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2009

Terence rated it:

To be honest, I'm still trying to get my head around the book's ending, where the wheels-within-wheels machinations of the anarchists and the special police squad dedicated to eradicating them come to an earth-shattering finale.

Or does it...

The subtitle of the novel "A Nightmare," may not be entirely figurative.

And then there's an underlying idea that we're dealing with fundamental forces of the universe which becomes explicit in the final chapter (P More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Peter rated it:

The Man Who was Thursday is a genuinely strange and original book. Now, much of literature is strange and original. Moby Dick, for example. Gogol's Dead Souls. Burrough's Naked Lunch. Waiting for Godot by Beckett.

But these books all make more sense the more you read them, and they all create worlds that feel unified and complete (imagine here a smiling professor with an ideally bald head and a sunlamp tan forming an invisible sphere in the air with his hands).

The M More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2008

Laura rated it:

The question "What is your favorite book?" has always been impossible for me to answer, but this is the only book I have ever felt comfortable defaulting to. I've read it at least a half a dozen times since I discovered a copy of it in a used bookstore when I was in middle school; I will probably reread it a dozen more in the next ten years. I get something different out of it every time I reread it.

The story itself makes no sense, until you come back to the subtitle: A N More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

Jason rated it:

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0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2010

Bettie rated it:

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0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

Laura rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

David rated it:

Kingsley Amis tells us it is "not quite a political bad dream, nor a metaphysical thriller, nor a cosmic joke in the form of a spy novel, but it has something of all three". However you describe it, it's hilarious. It gives "The Third Policeman" a run for its money, both for how funny it is, as well as the unabashed goofiness of its central conceit.

Read it in one sitting. Then read it again.

Scuttling off to look for more Chesterton .....

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2011

John rated it:

A very odd Victorian thriller which reads sort of like if CS Lewis wrote an anarchist mystery novel. I didn’t really enjoy it, found the characters and situations too implausible to take seriously and not implausible or unhinged enough to enjoy as satire (which I think was the intent more often than not).

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2008

matthew rated it:

nobody reads chesterton but me, it seems, but they should! not so much the father brown stuff, though. this piece of work is just that, and, yet, so much more. i just can't explain it. yes, christianity's mixed up in it, but you'd hardly know if they didn't write it all over the cover. gah! read it!

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

jeremy rated it:

this book is enjoyable on many levels: as a compelling mystery, as a humorous and well-crafted yarn, as classic british literature (1908), and as penetrating allegory. chesterton's novel excels at each count, and was composed without a trace of sanctimony.

more aptly, writing about the man who was thursday in 1929, chesterton asserts, "the bolshevists have done a good many silly things; but the most strangely silly thing that i ever heard of was that they tried to turn this More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2007

Leah rated it:

The Man Who Was Thursday is not an allegory. It is called an allegory for want of a better word, but there is absolutely no symbolism or metaphor. It is completely literal in every way, and the reader who feels the need to say 'allegory' is simply thinking too hard. The ending, especially, is reminiscent of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I think that Lewis and Chesterton are making similar points, and that they are both talented enough to be able to whack their readers over the h More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 30, 2011

Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it:

Such an interesting classic, largely allegorical. Written at a time when anarchy was a true movement, Chesterton uses it to represent evil, and, conversely, the police to represent good. Lots of adventure, including a duel with swords. It's fun with the good versus evil part, even if you don't happen to agree with the spirtual conclusions drawn. The prose is quite good. I happen to like alliteration, and couldn't help but notice when Chesterton used it to describe something or to make a point: O More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 23, 2011

Melissa rated it:

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5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2009

James rated it:

More than one hundred years ago in 1908 Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote a mysterious fantasy called The Man Who Was Thursday. Sixty years later while I was a student at The University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin I discovered this wonderful book.
Part metaphysical, part philosophical, Chesterton's creation fascinates me as the policeman from Scotland Yard, Gabriel Syme, poet extraordinaire, battles with "anarchists". The conspiracy he discovers and the way that Chesterton tel More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

Jeni rated it:

Whoa.. most of this book was like any other British literature of its time, but then when you get to the end, the author goes way out on a limb and makes you STREEETCH your imagination, and comprehension. The whole thing kept me waiting and wondering what would happen at the end, and then when I got to the end, I was like.. "What the??" Keep in mind, the title includes the words "A Nightmare". The end was definitely more dream-like than realistic, and my brain spent many days More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Nick rated it:

Strange mixture of Keystone cops and the Anarchist movement. And with bizarre results. The ending is a mishmash of possibilities. But the whole point is probably made in the first couple of chapters with the discussion between the protagonist and his redheaded friend (and his redheaded sister) about poetry as a saviour of civilization. Most of the book is an enjoyable romp, as the protagonist jumps from one member of a "secret" organization of anarchists to another, discovering each of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 27, 2009

Cwn_annwn_13 rated it:

This book which was written in the early 1900s is about a Policeman/Poet that infiltrates a group of anarchists who are bent on breaking down society. There is some witty dialogue and satire in this but for the most part I couldn't get into it.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Ryan added it

G.K. Chesterton was an English writer during the 20th century. Many believe that he was philosophical and literary antithesis of George Bernard Shaw. Where Shaw expressed his positive opinions of socialism and other leftist ideas, Chesterton was an avid supporter of Christian ideals. Though both used satire to critique contemporary society, their conclusions were remarkably different. Chesterton, like Shaw as well, wrote over 800 varied pieces of literature (novels, essays, poems, etc.). More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 26, 2009

Steve rated it:

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. This novel is a satire on religious anarchy with bubbling undertones of politics, espionage, human loyalty and Edwardian gentlemanly behaviour. Not for the feint hearted, readers should consider a reread when they finish the final chapter; I immediately went back to page 1, read the book again and I felt the better for it. This is a weighty piece of work and although Chesterton writes in a style which keeps the story moving at a fast pace, it requires a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2009

yellowbird rated it:

I heard good things about this book, so I read it. It was ok, but it was not the great masterpiece I was expecting. If this book was a person, it would be a young modern artist who has been told that he is a genius. The writing is too self-aware.
Here's an example - 'Syme, who had sat down once more with his usual insolent languor, got to his feet with an unusual hesitation.'
If you can get past this weird literary style, the plot is a nice twisty brain puzzler that makes fun of secret More...

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Dec 28, 2008

Sam rated it:

Whether you like this book or not will probably have a lot to do with whether you can swallow Chesterton's eventual swing into Christian allegory, and I think that's a shame, because there's so much good going on in the Man Who Was Thursday - and so much tolerance for doubt, confusion, and paradox - that even if you don't have much of a stomach for theology it should have a lot to offer.

What really amazes me about this book is the beautiful sense of structure Chesterton displays. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2012

Jesse rated it:

Well… I can't say that was what I was expecting. Primed by the neatly elegant logic of The Innocence and Wisdom of Father Brown, I wasn't anticipating a "surreal masterpiece" and so it took me a while to get on its wavelength (and I'm not sure that I ever really did). Part of this might be the fact that the older Penguin paperback edition that I picked up from my local library gives all indication of a more straightforward thriller, and, more crucially, the cover bizarrely omits what More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2011

Debra rated it:

From the back cover of the Idylls Press edition, illustrated by John Murphy:

"Originally published in 1908, G.K. Chesterton's nightmare-fantasy of Police vs. Dynamiters, Law vs. Anarchy, and Religion vs. Nihilism has influenced writers as diverse as Franz Kafka and C.S. Lewis, and remains as exuberant and imaginative, as original and prophetic as when if first appeared."

While Chesterton is probably best known for his Christian apologetical works (The Everlasting Man, More...

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