false 184419 119 In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called <I>The Man Who Was Thursday</I> "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon." But Chesterton is also concerned with more serious questions of honor and truth (and less serious ones, perhaps, of duels and dualism). Our hero is Gabriel Syme, a policeman who cannot reveal that his fellow poet Lucian Gregory is an anarchist. In Chesterton's agile, antic hands, Syme is the virtual embodiment of paradox: <i>He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realization; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinthe and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike.... Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left &#8211; sanity.</i> Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery <I>and</I> save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday &#8211; the only quotidian thing about this fantasia) does his best to undo his new colleagues, the masks multiply. The question then becomes: Do they reveal or conceal? And who, not to mention what, can be believed? As <I>The Man Who Was Thursday</I> proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone &#8211; what happens if most members of the council actually turn out to be on the side of right? Chesterton's tour de force is a thriller that is best read slowly, so as to savor his highly anarchic take on anarchy. <I> &#8211; Kerry Fried</I> 195447 book 1907 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare total:2260|5:716|4:901|3:464|2:145|1:34| 2260 8900 3514 388 5 11 false false Fri Aug 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 31 06:31:51 -0800 2008 Sat Aug 30 06:45:27 -0700 2008
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 demo...more...]]> 3 5 false false Sun Dec 23 09:47:12 -0800 2007 Fri Jan 04 09:05:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 7 false false Thu Oct 02 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Fri Oct 24 11:26:38 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 24 11:35:03 -0700 2008 1 more...]]> 3 3 false false Fri Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 15:47:49 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 11:02:31 -0800 2009 1
Or does it...

The subtitle of the novel "A N...more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Jun 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 11:46:34 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 13 18:08:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 6 false true Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 14:11:55 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 15:03:30 -0800 2008
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

This week: The Man Who Was Thursday (190...more...]]> 4 3 false false Mon Apr 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 21:58:57 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 21:58:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Sep 29 13:37:32 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 18 03:17:13 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 23 00:12:47 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 27 00:47:34 -0700 2008
more aptly, writing about t...more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 14:52:15 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 15:23:44 -0700 2007 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, i...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Mar 10 18:50:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 18:52:12 -0700 2009 Part metaphysical, part philosophical, Ches...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Nov 05 21:17:46 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 21 22:05:58 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 21 11:10:22 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 06:28:56 -0700 2009 4 1 false false Sat Jun 28 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 26 13:21:14 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 13:21:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 23 10:28:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 10:28:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Feb 22 13:36:26 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 07:59:32 -0800 2009 Here's an example - 'Syme, who had sat down once...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Dec 28 10:34:01 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 10:50:26 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Oct 31 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Oct 31 12:33:06 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 12:33:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jul 14 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Jul 19 15:56:23 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 15:57:45 -0700 2009

7 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Anarchists in Drag, July 14, 2006

I've read several turn-of-the-century books recently that shed a curious light on the naive attitude of intellectuals toward communism prior to the...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 07 14:17:26 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 07 14:31:41 -0700 2009 more...]]>