The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare [Paperback]

G. K. Chesterton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1595970010 | ISBN-13: 978-1595970015

Originally published in 1908, G.K. Chesterton’s classic nightmare-mystery-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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Idylls Press (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595970010
• ISBN-13: 978-1595970015
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,017,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Thursday..., May 8, 2006

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Paperback)

For a book that's as short as this one is, "The Man Who Was Thursday" is pretty packed.

G.K. Chesterton's classic novella tackles anarchy, social order, God, peace, war, religion, human nature, and a few dozen other weight concepts. And somehow he manages to mash it all together into a delightful satire, full of tongue-in-cheek commentary that is still relevant today.

As the book opens, Gabriel Symes is debating with a soapbox anarchist. The two men impress each other enough that the anarchist introduces Symes to a seven-man council of anarchists, all named after days of the week. In short order, they elect Symes their newest member -- Thursday.

But they don't know that he's also been recruited by an anti-anarchy organization. And soon Symes finds out that he's not the only person on the council who is not what he seems. There are other spies and double-agents, working for the same cause. But who -- and what -- is the jovial, powerful Mr. Sunday, the head of the organization?

Hot air balloons, elaborate disguises, duels and police chases -- Chesterton certainly knew how to keep this novel interesting. Though written almost a century ago, "The Man Who Was Thursday" still feels very fresh. That's partly because of Chesterton's cheery writing... and partly because it's such an intelligent book.

He doesn't avoid some timeless topics that make some people squirm. Humanity (good and bad), anarchy, religion and its place in human nature, and creation versus destruction all get tackled here -- disguised as a comic police investigation. And unlike most satires, it isn't dated; the topics are reflections of humanity and religion, so they're as relevant now as they were in 1908.

But the story isn't pedantic or boring; Chesterton keeps things lively by having his characters act like real people, rather than mouthpieces. From Symes to the Colonel to the mysterious Sunday himself, they all have a sort of friendly, energetic quality. "We're all spies! Come and have a drink!" one of the characters announces cheerfully near the end.

And of course, once the madcap police investigations are finished, there's still a mystery. Who is Sunday? What are his goals? And for that matter, WHAT is Sunday -- genius, force of nature, villain or god? The answer is a bit of a surprise, and as a reflection of Chesterton's beliefs, it's a delicate, intelligent piece of work.

"The Man Who Was Thursday" is a wacky little satire that will both amuse and educate you. Not bad for a book often subtitled "A Nightmare."

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exuberant, Imaginative Classic, November 15, 2011

By 

Debra Murphy (Ashland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Paperback)

[...]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,Orthodoxy, et al.), his novels are simultaneously so much fun and yet so profound that it is long since time for contemporary readers to rediscover them. The Man Who Was Thursday, for instance, while a work of its time--our terrorists are of a different and less civilized sort than those in Chesterton's day, when even a Dynamiter felt obliged to keep his word--Chesterton still has much to teach us. For it would appear that the philosophical foundations of this nastiest of political tactics has changed very little in almost a century.

Part detective thriller, part Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass fantasy, Thursday is the wild and witty tale of a poet turned detective (Gabriel Syme) whose mission in life, after witnessing a horrible bomb blast in London, is to destroy the evil conclave of Anarchists threatening civilization. Meeting another poet, this one of the Anarchist persuasion (Lucian Gregory), Syme goes undercover to infiltrate the Council of European Anarchists.

And just in time, too, as this occasionally frightening, occasionally goofy group of eccentrics, known only to one another by the names of the Days of the Week--Syme ends up as "Thursday"--is plotting nothing less than the assassination of the Russian Czar and the French President during a meeting in Paris.

To prevent this catastrophe (precisely the sort of calculated assassination that led, in reality, to the First World War a mere six years after this novel was published), Syme proceeds to chase (and be chased by) the other anarchists through the streets of London, then the countryside of England and France, in hot pursuit of the larger-than-life President of the Council, Sunday. In the process, Syme (and the reader) begin to discover that nothing in this life, or at least in Chesterton, is quite What it seems.

This novel is in some ways a modest bit of adventurous fluff, which is no doubt how Chesterton himself looked at it; but it has nonetheless proven one of the great little classics of both Christian and mystery literature. No fan of either should miss it.