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The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

G.K. Chesterton

Start date: June 1, 2025

Finish date: June 30, 2025

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

* 2025 Must Read Lesser Known Classics: Scheduled Reads
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What Members Thought

Nov 11, 2012 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction-20th-century, british-literature, e-books, novellas, gutenberg, read-2018, vintage-crime, 1000-guardian

Free download available at: Gutenberg Project.

From BBc Radio 4 Extra:
When young poet Gabriel Syme meets Lucien Gregory, he is introduced to a mysterious Edwardian London secret society.

Episode 2 of 13
In an underground HQ, poet Gabriel Syme witnesses Lucien Gregory addressing the Central Anarchist Council.

Episode 3 of 13
When Gabriel Syme turns the tables on Lucien Gregory, the Central Anarchist Council take action.

Episode 4 of 13
Gabriel Syme meets his fellow anarchists at a breakfast meeting in L ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Aug 18, 2015 Douglas Beagley rated it did not like it

Not a novel, really, but an extended series of philosophical and metaphysical arguments. It is sort of like The Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce, but in the frame of a spy novel, with less heart, less cleverness, and more annoying, pointless action, intended to be farcical.

The characters are not people, they are ideas. As I read, I found no motivations that I could relate to. Every conversation, every action, and even the settings were clearly manufactured for philosophy and could not occu Not a novel, really, but an extended series of philosophical and metaphysical arguments. It is sort of like The Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce, but in the frame of a spy novel, with less heart, less cleverness, and more annoying, pointless action, intended to be farcical.

The characters are not people, they are ideas. As I read, I found no motivations that I could relate to. Every conversation, every action, and even the settings were clearly manufactured for philosophy and could not occur in real life. You're stuck reading something that could not actually happen, about people who don't feel real. It's impossible to care about anything in this book but the ideas.

I love novels that have ideas, but I can't love a book that has nothing but.

Many of the ideas themselves are quite interesting... whether you agree with them or not. There are some wonderful, juicy, philosophical quotes, and now and then some very good descriptive writing appears, sort of like a squirrel chattering in a public library. There are some turns of phrase that make you stop and think. Also, the main character occasionally turns manic as he extemporizes, and the result is genuinely funny. The madcap action is clever, often cinematic, and filled with climax after climax.

But when the main character is in dire peril, I just don't care. Because he's not even remotely relatable. He's made of tissue paper, and even extending all of my imaginative powers I did not for one second think of him as a real person. Even the dramatic chase scenes lose their punch, as they are peppered with improbably and impossible things, manufactured only to illustrate a philosophic point.

Also, besides the fact that the book exists in a world entirely peopled by men and only men, wherein any female characters are about as relevant as a chair, the book is also a bit racist. The villainous is always described in terms of dark complexion, swarthy, eastern, etc., and the noble and good are always discovered to be blond, pale-skinned, and English. The foreign is repeatedly described as the root of evil. In order to disguise oneself as evil, various characters make themselves darker. These and other stereotypes are carried out to an almost ridiculous level, to the point where I thought briefly that maybe the author was actually poking fun... could the racism be satire? Eh. If so, he's not selling it well.

All of it is almost forgivable. I can readily believe that this is someone's favorite book. But it didn't work for me. ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Aug 30, 2023 Kara rated it liked it

I feel like this could be a 4 star rating from me, once I re-read and do a little more research to understand it better! It’s brilliantly written, I’m just not sure what was going on.

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