The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

By Gilbert K. Chesterton

In The Man Who Was Thursday we are transported to a surreal turn-of-the-century London, Gabriel Syme, a poet, is recruited to a secret anti-anarchist taskforce at Scotland Yard. Lucian Gregory, an anarchist poet, is the only poet in Saffron Park, until he loses his temper in an argument over the purpose of poetry with Gabriel Syme, who takes the opposite view. After some time, the frustrated Gregory finds Syme and leads him to a local anarchist meeting-place to prove that he is a true anarchist. Instead of the anarchist Gregory getting elected, the officer Syme uses his wits and is elected as the local representative to the worldwide Central Council of Anarchists. The Council consists of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a code name; Syme is given the name of Thursday. In his efforts to thwart the council's intentions, however, he discovers that five of the other six members are also undercover detectives; each was just as mysteriously employed and assigned to defeat the Council of Days. They all soon find out that they are fighting each other and not a real anarchists; such was the mastermind plan of the genius Sunday. In a dizzying and surreal conclusion, the six champions of order and former anarchist ring-leaders must chase down the disturbing and whimsical Sunday, the man who calls himself "The Peace of God."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781627557894

Reviews for The Man Who Was Thursday

[ericcostello-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A strange and startling book. At one level, a spoof of anarchism. At another level, a spoof of police efforts to infiltrate gangs and expose them. At still a deeper level, a metaphysical dream novel. The last point comes to sneak up on you, and hits you hard in the last few chapters of the book. It does well to remember the subtitle of the book, as Chesterton himself pointed out very shortly before he died.

[jonfaith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I suspect that this dream will linger within me for years to come. The philosophical and political currents pale compared to the intrinsic visions within, the idea that the six all saw their childhood in the penultimate geography is a telling terror.

[electrascaife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A poet who is converted by Scotland Yard into an undercover policeman trying to take down a group of elite anarchists finds himself thick in their midst, elected to their top council of seven leaders, each going by the name of a different day of the week. As his adventure unfolds, Syme (aka Thursday) begins to question not only his own role in the drama, but the very fabric of the world.Whoa, this was one crazy ride. I'm not certain that I completely understand what's going on in here, but I do know that it's a complete hoot. Think The Prisoner meets a darker, more urbane Narnia.

[pastorbob_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first, I was a little unsure of what I was reading. I'd missed the subtitle 'A Nightmare'. But in a short time the tone of the book, and its brilliant humour become, more clear. In the moment comes the delight. The recruitment of those who become what they think they're supposed to oppose, in order to stop it, only to discover they all share in that task, that none of them are who they thought, and that even the real opponent is not who they assumed; the impossibility of appearances at telling the truth, and our own personal vulnerability at seeing what is true; the experience of being pursued as something you are, or might not be, when the truth of a situation is lost to opinions and perspectives and conjecture: all these are the foundation of the nightmare. There is a role we're to play in the world: what if someone confused and scuttled it, or rendered the task impossible to really discern? What if reality and God Himself were somehow disguised beyond our description, and we had no bearings among our peers left? A clever depiction, perhaps, of the horror the secular world has brought. Some spectacular quotes lie within for whomever is willing to see the truth ;-p

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I simply didn’t understand this novel. From the beginning to the very end, there was almost no logic in this novel, and the ending was completely nonsensical. For starters, the character of Syme is more concerned about his Word that he gave to an anarchist than saving lives. Six different characters in this novel all think they’re working for the police against the anarchists solely on the basis of a conversation with a shadowy man that they can’t see and who has no identification. If they were truly working for the police, wouldn’t they have some official training, documents to sign, etc. Not to mention, if they were on an undercover assignment, wouldn’t they be alerted to other police that are operating on the same exact undercover assignment? Not to mention, why would you need so many police officers operating undercover to take down the same organization?The ending was a complete headscratcher. I couldn’t make heads or tails of not only the ending, but what actually happened in the novel. If you could make some sense of it, then more power to you. For me, this was a waste of my time reading it, and based on the reviews, a very overrated novel that I would recommend skipping.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul

[meredy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A note in the front of my paperback copy of this 1908 novel says 2/16/1967. That's when I bought it, and soon afterward I enjoyed a first reading. A few years later I reread it with the same pleasure. And then it sat in the hidden second tier of a shelf among hundreds of other books for at least four decades, until something sent me looking for it about a month ago. Amazingly, I was able to go right to it. Hurray: I haven't yet lost that store-and-retrieve connection. I'll be in trouble when I do, because there's nothing overtly systematic about my system. I usually find things by snapshot visual memory.But as to the story, all I recalled was the main setup of the plot, namely, that a man named Syme infiltrates an anarchists' cell whose members have as code names the days of the week. The anarchists set off on a mission to prevent the prevention of a planned bombing incident. Our main character plays along while trying to think of ways to foil it himself.Then, 7/8 of the way through this short (194-page) novel, it suddenly turns metaphysical. In fact, we begin to see that it has been allegorical all along, even though the fantastic element had seemed well anchored in a recognizable terrestrial reality. It has been so long since I last read this that it surprised me; so I guess what was memorable about it was less its own particulars than the fact that I enjoyed it so long ago.Now it seems to me a bit manipulative, although not crudely so, and treats of themes that I am well tired of meeting as if by ambush around shadowy corners.But this is not the fault of the book, which is unchanged--indeed, demonstrably so, for I am reading the selfsame edition that I purchased more than 40 years ago. This is one way that a book or movie or memento or landmark can be a mirror to us: if we know that it is a constant, then our altered perception of or response to it denotes a change in ourselves. In the case of this novel, I felt as if I had been conned, and yet at the same time it's hard not to feel elevated as well, even from the point in the story where the balloon goes aloft. Chesterton achieves his transformation competently and respectably, and the element of mystery still enchants.I just don't think I'll be going along with it again. There's too much left that I've never read at all.A sampling of passages that I liked:Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. (page 89)[Syme speaking] "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front..." (page 176)The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon. (page 183)When I first listed this book in my library, I rated it five stars based on the old memory. Now I find it very hard to rate, never mind classify; but I settled on three and a half stars just to hold as consistently as possible to my own ratings values. I would still recommend this book, though, to any reader who likes to think about things from different angles.

[lindoula-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Once the story was established, it was quite predictable, but nonetheless enjoyable. The last chapter was perplexing to me, though. Not sure how I feel about it.

[june6bug · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Expect the unexpected.

[albertgoldfain · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved the symbolism, disorientation, and potent dose of philosophy at the end. A goldmine of ideas in a dream narrative, but not really a thriller by today's standards.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The author's vivid descriptions of scenery and settings, as well as certain philosophy, make for memorable reading.The plot moves along with intriguing mystery and excitement, then becomes redundant and thoroughly improbable, but worse, boring.

[herrrau-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Unique. And very, very good. While some things are clearly forseeable, the book leaves you puzzling until the end, and after (if you count what Chesterton wrote about it 30 years later). The little notes that appear during the (paper?) chase are hilarious. ("What about Martin Tupper now?" What indeed.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't know why this book is listed as crime. There is no actual crime involved. Just a lot of hysterical policemen running around trying to arrest each other when they are all undercover. If you want to read this book start by expecting Alice in wonderland. It make about as much sense. It even references Alice a few times. It then devolves even further to some sort of religious allegory that even the author says he was pulling out if a hat. ( last couple of pages on the penguin edition I read ) In short, if you want a story that has no logic, reason or intelligent characters but is heavy on religious symbolism this is the one for you. Personally it just made my brain itch. And not in a good way.

[fiddleback_ · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A brilliant book?

[slmr4242 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good. Reminds me of a whole lot more contemporary humor on the level of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A long time ago I read several of the Father Brown mysteries. This is a less-conventional bird, but didn't live up to its billing as an unpredictable ride. This novel's genre is heralded as difficult to pin down, but it's easily categorized as Christian allegory. There's plenty of meant-to-be-fun nonsense about police versus anarchists that becomes a slog if you see the emerging pattern. Much of this tale rings less farcical in today's world. Anarchists are anything but comic when anyone with an extreme viewpoint seems abundantly prepared to inflict massive casualities to make their point. Modern perspective's wounding of this story comes to a head with the conclusion. Read as giving answer to terrorists, it's a terribly poor one. I'm not convinced it was a great answer by the allegory interpretation either, but at least more palatable.

[stacy_chambers-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Allegories aren't my favorite kind of stories, but this one really stands out.

[sprite_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a heck of a book. Do not shelve it next to The Iron Dragon's Daughter because I think they would annihilate each other or something.

[tloeffler_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I do love Chesterton's writing, but this one got away from me a little bit. I had difficulty following the characters (could have been a personal problem).Gabriel Syme, poet & undercover detective, meets a man on the street, and after challenging him about his supposed anarchism, follows him to a meeting of anarchists. Somehow, Gabriel ends up being voted to the "grand council" of anarchists, all of whom are named after the days of the week. Gabriel becomes Thursday, and finds himself caught between planning a bombing and, of course, the fact that he is a policeman. The story gets more and more bizarre and convoluted, often hilarious, until towards the end, when I found it a mess.But it wasn't long, and I'm glad I read it.

[ludiegrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed reading this startling, at times riotously funny, often gorgeously written book. The ending perplexed me, however, and that's why I ultimately dropped my rating to 4 stars. I wouldn't recommend this as anyone's first foray into Chesterton, but if you've enjoyed Orthodoxy, this is likely a good place to start with his fiction. He's a marvelous writer.

[femme_letale · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first half of this book is amazing, wonderful and very tightly conceived but I think it loses itself a little in the second half, when they go after Sunday. It is still memorable, though, and scenes have stayed with me. The ending is odd, as I was warned, but not uncharacteristic and I think it leaves a lovely taste in the mouth.

[noah_schumacher-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With amazing suspense and continual anticipation, Chesterton positions the reader to the edge of their seats on a wild ride with twists, turns, and delightful encounters. It was a joy to read this work of genius. It was a shorter book. However, with the style and prose of Chesterton, it takes longer than usual. It was well worth the time and investment.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are so many reviews which comment on the religious allegory of this book so I will refrain from doing that, except to say I enjoyed the "dueling with the devil" scene the most. There are also many reviews that mention how weird the story gets. Agreed. Completely. This is one of those situations in a story where purpose overshadows plot because the whole thing is really quite ridiculous. In a nutshell, Gabriel Symes is an undercover detective who infiltrates an anarchist group (Council of the Seven Days) only to find that the entire membership, with the exception of its leader, is made up of undercover New Detective Corps members. Each member goes by a day of the week for an alias, hence the Council of the Seven Days. Symes has just been nominated as "Thursday". As a collective week they are all trying to get at the elusive leader, "Sunday". Except, they are all in the dark as to each others true identities. What I find curious is that when Sunday sniffs out a spy his fears are confirmed when the undercover policeman reveals he is carrying his membership card to the anti-anarchist constabulary. Wouldn't you remove that piece of evidence, especially if you bother to go through the trouble of wearing an elaborate disguise? Gogol posed as a hairy Pole, accent and all. The Professor posed as an invalid old man with a huge nose. Turns out, all six policemen are carrying the tell-tale blue identification card. Not one of them thought to leave it at home. But, I digress. For most of the story it is a cat and mouse game with the good guys chasing the bad guys (until one by one, they find out they are all good guys). The theme of "who can you trust" is ongoing.

[nemoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Warning, spoilers. I have been wanting to read this book for some time, primarily because it is universally admired. The book deserves its reputation. Chesterton is an apologist for christianity, albeit a very cogent and intelligent one. This work of fiction functions on its surface as an intriguing detective story, but ultimately is an allegory on free will. I will have to reread it several times to fully plumb its depths. Put simply, the protagonist Symes is a police detective who infiltrates an anarchist group, which ruling members are code-named after days of the week. Symes becomes Thursday. The group's leader is Sunday. A bomb-throwing assasination plot is launched in France, and in the course of attempting to thwart it, Symes discovers that all members except Sunday are in fact policemen who have infiltrated a group composed essentially of themselves. The unsolved mystery at the novel's conclusion is: Who is Sunday? The book is short, and contains some fantastical, almost Bond-like, elements: a spinning table that screws itself into a subterranean chamber; chases by motorcar and horseback; Sunday's flight mounted atop an elephant; and, Sunday's attempted escape in a hot air balloon. The images of London are almost psychedelic in their imagery. The book is a page turner and I finished it in a Saturday morning.

[dazzyj_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At once lapidary, rich with ideas and a farcical romp.

[ohernaes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Both policemen and anarchists go undercover as anarchists. If there were a central message, it escaped me, but the novel contains many entaining parts.

[koanmi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Der Abenteuerroman datiert aus dem Jahr 1907 und ist vom Stil her doch etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig. Inhaltlich geht es um eine Anarchisten-Elitevereinigung, deren sieben Mitglieder die Wochentage als Decknamen tragen. Die erste Hälfte gestaltet sich relativ spannend, spätestens dann aber zeichnet sich der Ausgang der Geschichte zu deutlich ab und mindestens das letzte Drittel gestaltet sich sehr langatmig. Zudem finden sich doch einige krasse Handlungsbrüche und Ungereimtheiten im Handlungsaufbau. Da hilft es auch nur bedingt, dass dem Leser letztendlich offenbart wird, dass es sich bei dem Erlebten der Protagonisten nur um einen Traum handelt. Allerdings: Einem Autor, dem folgendes, wunderbares Zitat zugeschrieben wird, verzeiht man so einiges: "Märchen erzählen Kindern nicht, dass Drachen existieren. Kinder wissen um deren Existenz. Märchen erzählen Kinder, dass man Drachen töten kann."

[karin7-11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is an allegorical novel that on the surface is about a group of anarchists, but questions many other things along the way. Being a nightmare, it has nightmarish qualities throughout, and the descriptions of scenery, weather and people reflect this. Had I liked this better, I’d reread it to really dig into more of that, and if this is your sort of novel it is worth reading more than once.
This novel is an allegory dressed as a nightmare, and the only thing that saved it from being a total nightmare or a read for me were some of the amazingly brilliant lines and prose. Had I not realized it was written as a nightmare, I’d have never made it through during this second attempt at reading this novel. I realize it has many fans. This review is based purely as my take on it as a literary novel, and not on any theological underpinnings or references to the book of Job, since discussing Chesterton’s theology is fodder for an entirely different kind of forum

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bizarre but interesting story. At first, this seems to be a straightforward suspense thriller of police versus anarchists, but as the story progresses, it gets stranger and stranger.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Chesterton is best known for the Fr. Brown mysteries. This is a very different stand-alone allegorical mystery featuring poet-detective Gabriel Syme and a circle of anarchists bent on destroying the world.

There are some interesting philosophical / theological arguments between characters, but the work is dated. It was first published in 1908, and it shows its age. There were parts that reminded me of the McCarthyism communist “witch hunts” of the 1950s-1960s.

QUOTE: “The work of the philosophical policeman,” replied the man in blue, “is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses and arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. 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. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime.”

[praj05_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

‘Humanity crushed once again’. ‘50 dead, 120 injured’. ‘Grave face of terror strikes again’. Familiar headlines scream through the pages of the newspapers each time a bomb goes off annihilating blameless lives. Through teeth gritting resilience, public outcry resonates through the deafened ears of failed intelligence and faith in the state’s law and order hangs by a thin string. As the weeks pass by rapid sketches of the alleged bombers, email links, forensic reports, collected evidence from the attacked ground and pictures of rehabilitating victims are splashed across the dailies. If by any chance the investigation comes through, anonymous visages covered with black rags are photographed outside the courtroom, readied for trial procedures, which may go on for months, maybe even years. As the days go by, life returns to normalcy (yes! It is a tricky word); everything is forgotten and the news fade until once again “humanity is crushed” by another dastardly attack. The analytical carnival starts once again. This is the time I dearly wish we had ‘philosophical policemen’ just like Chesterton describes in his book. Policemen- (officers of law), who would discover the book of sonnets and verses from where the crimes will be committed; those that recognize the intricate web of intellectual crimes. The derivation of dreadful thoughts- the human mind, so malicious and calculating camouflaged within an affluent, composed and erudite exterior. It is that very egocentric brainpower which churns out sadistic alterations from harmless verses and then picks vulnerable actors to craft that design into realism.

“Evil philosopher is not trying to alter things but to annihilate them”.

This book is more than a mere plot of undercover detectives and their clandestine exploration of the Secret anarchist Councilmen. Chesterton pens that a small time criminal is more of a good person. His aim is to eradicated only a certain obstacle and not annihilate the edifice. What caught my eye in one of the chapters was the elucidation of stereotyping poverty to rebellious festering.

“You’ve got that eternal idiotic ides that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats are always anarchists; as you can see from the baron’s wars”.

When a bomber or an active terrorist is caught, he mostly turns out to be from an impoverished background, where his ravenous mind and mislaid faith is manipulated to find refuge in an illusionary godly abode. These are mere actors for crying out loud, chosen by the scheming selfish elements who are coward enough to remain behind the backstage curtains. The affluent as elucidated in this narration are the ones to be feared. They have an abundance of monetary resources, have sheltering capacity in far away lands, if need be and have a mind that concocts the unexpected. Where do you think the enormous funds come for fertilizing terror? I do not want elucidate detailed reports of various pathways of monetary funds wired to definite cults or “charitable” institutions that ultimately fund the immoral actions. But, the currency sure is not a bequest from the poor or some excise complements from our paychecks. The respective courtesy comes from those societal fundamentals that remain unscathed or unfazed by decree. Who do you suppose manages the advanced scientific technologies in various bombing devices? The knowledgeable elite, isn’t it? The erudite or should I say the crème de la crème of religious preachers who instead of spreading peace and equality manipulates vulnerable populace digging their raw wounds every time through words that revolt in their bleeding wounds? I could go on and on, as it angers me to see such naivety among the elements of law and order or purposefully turning a blind eye on the so-called modernists who may be responsible in concocting the ongoing mayhem of lawlessness. Why couldn’t there be some ‘philosophical policemen’ here in India or any place that incessantly plays the role of a powerless victim?

Chapter 4- The Tale of the Detective is the deciding chapter that outlines infinitesimal details of who Gabriel Syme really is. Syme sneaks his way into a clandestine council of seven men, each named after a day of the week. Syme becomes the inevitable Thursday though a pact he made with Lucian Gregory ,a poet and a true anarchist. Fear catches with Syme as his path deepens into the sinister world of the other six council men; the President being the most feared of all. Chesterton throws a light on various aspects of fear that thrives within and outside us. We rebel against the only side that corrupts us. What makes a mutineer and destroy the very notion of survival? We try and run from fear and pain, until one eventually catches up and makes us susceptible to uncouth rudiments that shelter our mental nakedness. It is the most treacherous survival, if every time we need proof of familiarity to feel safe. When fear caught up with Syme suffocating his senses, he would feel protected only if a blue card ( a source of identification given to every policemen in England) was shown to him. How vulnerable was Syme to live in a world of treachery and deceit? Makes me think of all the trepidation we feel every time we walk outside our homes or travel; the security checks, the sense of familiarity that we seek in bloodcurdling situations, the proof of safety that we search or reveal; spins a web of utter vulnerability that looms within the safest corners of our thoughts. The Man Who Was Thursday is a treasure that needs to be dug up by reading between the lines of a puzzling narrative to know what Chesterton is really saying.

“Revolt in its abstract can be revolting. It is like vomiting.”

Lastly, if everything leads to God and when nature if dissected reveals the face of God, then should I assume that evil is illusionary? Is malevolence the creation of couple menacing minds? If God means endurance then why is such mutinous extermination carried in God’s name after all?