The Man Who Was Thursday

Written as a “metaphysical detective thriller,” Chesterton achieves a fresh style and effect in this novel that I’ve not yet encountered. Right up to the last chapter, the story reads as an entertaining and fast-paced mystery, following the adventure of detective Gabriel Syme as he infiltrates the underground anarchists of London. He himself deceptively earns a place on the anarchist’s council of seven, each of whom are named for a day of the week. Chesterton’s wit and humor are on full display as he weaves his tale, which would be entertaining enough apart from any higher meaning, but the reveal of the last chapter takes it to another level entirely. He so colorfully answers the question: What is a man in the great scope of show more the universe? He is a word spoken by God in the darkness, a day of creation, sent to infiltrate the anarchy of disorder and work out the righteousness of God. He obeys his commission at great peril, but discovers great help and surprising kinship as he does. show less

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 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 show more 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 at a time, 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. show less

An fascinating novel with seemingly endless twists and turns. As the book wore on, so did its strangeness. My intrigue with reading didn't lessen, however. The story unfolded with a protagonist detective, a true champion of order and law, venturing undercover and infiltrating a secret society of anarchists. Soon after, he was elected to the council of days, the secret body of the anarchist movement led by one larger than life (and size) figure named Sunday. The plot develops into a roller coaster ride far beyond a simple undercover crime novel. Chesterton is a master of weaving together wonderful storytelling and thought-provoking allegory. He is a profoundly talented writer.

At the close of the book, I found myself wondering as the show more protagonist did, what was the point of it all? Chesterton concedes that many initially saw one character, the mastermind ruler of the anarchic and of the order, as a comparison to the Deity. But this was not his intention and cannot be read back into the story. Chesterton himself clarified much in an interview later, saying the book, "was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was, even when my thoughts were considerably less settled than they are now. It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date; with just a gleam of hope in some double meaning of the doubt, which even the pessimists felt in some fitful fashion." show less

Well now, this was a peculiar little book. I’m glad I’d read some of Chesterton’s political writings beforehand, otherwise I’d just be sitting with my mouth open trying to understand what it was I just read. This man really was a bit wackadoodle. I don’t think I can actually describe what the book was about, except that you could imagine a mixture of Kafka, Conrad, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It tells the story, or perhaps the nightmare, of a detective in the philosophical branch of Scotland Yard ("The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed"). But in his surreal journey to uncover the head of the Anarchist show more Conspiracy, he discovers that the conspiracy is far, far wider than he thought - perhaps in the very fabric of humanity. Or perhaps it doesn't exist at all, except in his head, and in his own slightly inverted philosophical outlook on life. There's no way of knowing, and the ending of the book is such an eschatological absurdity that it doesn't help very much either. Chesterton's political Catholicism and antisemitism comes across very nicely, thank you very much, but I'd still recommend the book for two reasons. Firstly, the hysterical paranoid fear of the "anarchists" in the early 20th century is put into very clear relief, even absurdity. The underground bunkers lined with weapons, the secret anarchists just waiting to jump out and burn society - it all strikes a very resounding parallel with today's hysterical fear of the spread of Islam and the impending end of Western civilisation. Secondly, it's just a very singular piece of literature - you're not likely to read anything like it for a long time, and as a storyteller, Chesterton is very engaging. show less

This is a highly unorthodox story, which is quite ironic concerning how orthodox it truly is. It is a detective story written by a poet, an adventure story written by a philosopher. It is a tale of mad chases and mad escapes, a world where criminals chase the police, and police become criminals. It depicts a mad world in the throes of sanity. It is Chestertonian as only Chesterton can do.

Even after coming to the last line of it, I feel a storm in my mind. As if somebody was about to tell me the truth, but then smiled and winked instead. It's a nightmare of revelations that you do not even comprehend. You wake up from it not in relief but in hunger. And you find the skies outside still rumbling.

Eklektikus elegy: egyszerre eseménydús kalandregény, halványan Dumas (és még inkább Eugene Sue) modorában (illetve annak paródiája), ugyanakkor erkölcsi példázat is rend és rendetlenség, konvenciók és káosz kozmikus harcáról. (Mindez Tettamanti Béla illusztrációival, akinek a neve garancia arra, hogy a könyv, melyet kézbe veszünk, semmiképp sem egy klasszikus ívű nyárspolgári irodalom.) Syme, a detektív-költő beépül az anarchisták* közé, hogy megbirkózzon Minden Anarchisták Atyamesterével, a rejtélyes óriással, kinek neve Vasárnap. A küldetés lehetetlennek látszik, és az író sem könnyíti meg teremtménye dolgát: úgy csavargatja a cselekményt, mintha fizetnék érte (fizetik is… show more amúgy), következésképpen van itt rohangálás hegyen, völgyön, hadd lobogjon. Nem hibátlan szöveg – Chesterton túlzásba viszi a lírai betéteket, amelyek kilógnak a szövegből, mint tehénből a gatya - öhm, így szokták ezt mondani? -, és ami azt illeti, a szerző modernizmus-fóbiája is számomra néha több volt, mint amit kesernyés szájíz nélkül el tudok viselni. Ezzel együtt fenemód szórakoztatónak találtam a könyvet, a figurák is rendben vannak, és ami külön öröm: Chesterton nemcsak a szájmozgató izmaimat dolgoztatta meg (mosolygás útján), hanem az agyamat is. Ami nem azt jelenti, hogy következtetéseivel vagy vélelmezett sugalmazásaival mélyen egyetértenék (mert nem), de azért hálás vagyok a gondolkodtatásért.

Meg hát az is micsoda szerencse, hogy itt vannak nekünk Syme és harcostársai, akik ügyesen megvédenek minket, a társadalom apró fogaskerekeit attól, hogy megdöntse valaki kormányainkat, mert akkor a káoszba zuhannánk. Remélem, magától a kormánytól is ilyen ügyesen védenek meg minket, ha arra lesz szükség.

* Amely anarchistákat olyan túlkarikírozva ábrázolja a szerző, mintha egyenesen a Cion bölcseinek jegyzőkönyvéből ugrottak volna elő… aminek következtében én ösztönösen el is kezdtem nekik drukkolni. show less

from Todd:

Ostensibly this is an Edwardian tale of international intrigue, or a police detective's determination to penetrate a cell of anarchists out for violent revolution, and in fact the overthrow of European society. But the main character, Gabriel Syme, working for Scotland Yard, finds himself not dealing with one level plain of reality, but layers of half­truths and outright misdirection in a great big diabolical onion of conspiracy and counter­conspiracy. The plot moves along like an energetic game of backgammon, with traps and escapes, false steps and unexpected breakthroughs. In the meantime the vying characters engage in a philosophical repartee that exhilarates the reader as much as the chases and duels between the agents show more of sedition and their foil. Assessment of motive keeps changing as the stakes dramatically change and grow more mystical in nature. A political mastermind lies behind it all as he plays his foes against each other, though they are long unwitting to the fact. The author, Chesterton, subtitled this book, “A Nightmare”, and while it is not a horrific story, it is weirdly wonderful in tone and at times intellectually unsettling, in a Socratic way. More accurately, it has a dreamlike quality in the way things quickly take shape and dissolve. Also enjoy the London setting and steampunk attitude! show less