G.K.Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday

I really enjoyed this book’s wonderfully light, frolicking, playful language. It drew me into the narrative and I thought the tone and pace were spot on for a novella of this type where the author is continually playing with the nature of reality and its perception. There were some very atmospheric scenes in the anarchists’ lair and I really loved the part where they enter through the tunnel for the first time. Equally well drawn were the descriptions of London, especially Leicester Square, which I had never thought of in the terms the author describes but it immediately struck me as true. The prose was generally of a high quality and out shone the narrative.


The whole book had an otherworldly feel and many aspects of it felt inverted or topsy turvy, which lead me to question what was going on. For example, time passes very quickly and mercurially during the course of the narrative. At night they go to the pub, then suddenly it is morning after only a quick meeting, then breakfast turns to lunch almost immediately. By the same token, it snows in London, meaning winter, but the night seems so short. The plot had an ethereal quality like a dream or the experience of taking hallucinogens and this was pleasing. In some senses, this topsy turvy-ness extends to the characters as well: the anarchy hating policeman gives the best and most impassioned anarchist speech, the anarchist obeys his oath and doesn’t shoot the policeman when oaths should have no sway over an anarchist. The paradoxical nature of so much the author shows us had me questioning everything. I began to think that the two poets could be a fantasy or different versions of the same fundamental character or idea because both are intoxicated by hate, absorbed by secret orders and disguised as poets.


Perhaps it was because of the perpetual paradoxes and inversions that I felt especially alert to plot twists or sudden changes of course. For this reason, around p72 when the Professor turns out to be a policeman too, I got the impression all the anarchists would eventually be revealed to be policeman as this would be the last thing you’d expect! I also felt like either Sunday or the man who would have been Thursday would be the policeman in the dark room or vice versa. Owing to this, I felt like the book’s major plot twist was telegraphed by the nature of the preceding content and this was a bit disappointing.

All told, this was a fun novella with great prose and some memorable scenes and atmospheres that was a bit let down by the narrative.