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The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
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$ 7.80
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| Item Number |
161020 |
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Item Description...
Outline Review
In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "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: 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--sanity. Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery and save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday--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 The Man Who Was Thursday proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone--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. --Kerry Fried
Product Description
Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are? Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'. In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty, when Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to outwit his enemies. But he has still to face the greatest terror that the Council has - its leader: a man named Sunday, whose true nature is worse than Syme could ever have imagined...
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Item Specifications...
Pages 192
Dimensions: Length: 0.5" Width: 5.25" Height: 8"
Weight: 0.3 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Aug 1, 1990
Publisher Penguin Classics
ISBN 0140183884
EAN 9780140183887
UPC 051488008958
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Availability 23 units.
Availability accurate as of May 25, 2012 07:39.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | The perfect spy novel Jun 6, 2008 |
| Simply the best spy novel I ever read. Furthermore is a christian allegory of the contradictions of human nature viewed from a sinful perspective, which leads us to the marvelous mistery of the good and the evil, through the eyes of an undercover agent. | | |  | Yes, I Think It IS a Nightmare Apr 28, 2008 |
I am a Chesterton fan and have read several of his books, mostly non-fiction. "The Man ...." is in my reading, definitely a nightmare and very well crafted as one. The progress of the story line has the kind of time compression and startling disconnections which are so true to a dreamm sequence. There is an exceptional, though not universally appealing, literary quality present in this book for Chesterton to be able to even pull it off, much less to hold the reader's attention through out.
Though Chesterton does deny any ultimate meaning to the story yet I doubt that he could write anything that does not have some satirical content. The sheer originality of the book, the day sequence, the gathered feast at the end with the presiding "week" at the head table could not have sprung "whole cloth" from nothing. It is the kind of story that leaves one with a sense of connection, that a bridge does exist between the themes of the story and the reality of our human circumstance.
Perhaps in making us ponder whether or not it is so, Chesterton accomplished his goal.
Four stars because it does require a disciplined reading at some points. The sheer volume of description is a bit tiresome at times though very well done. It should be required reading in a course on modern literature simply for the uniqueness of it and the craftsman level quality of the prose. | | | | Hardly a Nightmare, but a Dream Reflecting Reality Apr 3, 2008 |
This book is simply brilliant, an enjoyable and fascinating read. Chesterton possessed such a magnificent command of the English language, of irony and description and engrossing writing, that I would highly recommend the book simply to allow a reader to marvel at Chesterton's writings.
Yet the book is so much more than simply an enjoyable read. Under the guise of a fantastic and occasionally bizarre tale, Chesterton probes the depths of the human soul and the human condition.
Some have remarked that the book is almost Kafka-esque. Such is a quite accurate appraisal, but Chesterton transcends Kafka, for Chesterton writes an apologeia and theological and epistemological treatise in the guise of a bizarre and scrupulously well-written book. Kafka wrote nightmares because he had nightmares in his head. Chesterton wrote a nightmare because he realized that while the world around us may take on the guise of a nightmare, it is really only "the back of the man," and we can only really grasp the magnificence of reality if we can get around to see his face.
A brilliant book, highly recommended for repeated reading. | | | | Chesterton's vivid imagination and an allegory to ruin your life... Mar 7, 2008 |
First I'll say that this book certainly lived up to the reputation Chesterton holds as a literary genius. His subtle wit at times had me audibly laughing out loud. The descriptions he uses paint very vivid images in your mind and all the while he manages to hold an incredible level of suspense throughout the novel.
At times a chase scene will digress into an in-depth philosophical conversation among the main characters. And yet this never feels out of place or forced. I had previously only read Chesterton's non-fiction works (which I highly recommend, especially "Orthodoxy"), and wasn't sure entirely what to expect in a fictional work of his. I was not disappointed.
That is, I was not disappointed until the very end. There is a certain literary trick which I have not infrequently seen writers use to "resolve" a storyline that has gotten itself into a lot of complexity. This is particularly used when a narrative begins in the real world and ends taking some fantastical turn for the surreal. Sadly, Chesterton resorts to this trick, which I personally consider a cheap trick. Its like the author asks the reader to emotionally invest in everything that is happening in the book and then at the end, the author gives the climactic equivalent of "just kidding!" To resolve such complexity in a satisfying way and in a way consistent with the rest of the novel certainly takes more thought, more time, more pages. Probably this is why is not an uncommon trick, but, in my estimate, still a cheap one. This novel was great even with the cheap ending, but could've been colossally great had the time been invested to resolve it satisfactorily.
*** the following paragraph contains spoilers***
Only one more point to note: THIS IS NOT AN ALLEGORY. I am unsure if this edition of the book contains the same article extract that my penguin classics edition did, but in it, Chesterton explains that this book was not meant to be a theological allegory. If it were, we would all be living in a very miserable world. Chesterton states in the article: "...then the discovery that the mysterious master both of the anarchy and the order was the same sort of elemental elf who had appeared to be rather too like a pantomime ogre. This line of logic, or lunacy, led many to infer that this equivocal being was meant for a serious description of the Deity... [The book] was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was. It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date..."
When I first read the final chapter, I was truly very perplexed as to Chesterton's theological statement. After reading the article (which was placed after the story) it became much clearer. Wherever this article is placed in your edition, I suggest reading it first (or at least before reading the last 2 chapters). DO NOT SKIP IT! You will miss the whole point (most likely). Granted, there are themes that are meant to point to a greater spiritual truth, but it is in no way an "allegory" (as, for example, "the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was meant to portray an almost one-to-one correlation between characters/events and Christian theology.)
Despite the ending, it is still deserving of all 5 stars. A highly enjoyable read. | | | | The Man Who Was Thursday Feb 28, 2008 |
| Marvelous cover to cover. It's one of those novels I like to read with pen in hand, for underlining the dialog, so meaningful, important, and quotable. It's by G.K. Chesterton, which is all anyone needs to know to know it's more than worth reading. A good mystery, unpredictable, with some humor, like all Chesterton. | | | Write your own review about The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
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