The Man who was Thursday

Description

The Man Who Was Thursday is one of G.K. Chesterton’s most well-known novels, a metaphysical thriller full of mystery, disguised identities and suspense.

The protagonist of the novel is Gabriel Syme, a young man recruited for an anti-anarchist division of the Scotland Yard and charged with the task of getting infiltrated into an anarchist group in London. Syme meets an anarchist poet at a party and they engage into a heated debate about the essence of poetry. The poet takes Syme to a place used by anarchist for meetings and reveals that he is in fact expecting to be elected as one of the council members of an influential European anarchist grouping. Syme reveals his identity and then makes a speech in front of the council that gets the position the poet was after. He is then sent to the central council where he meets the other members who turn out to be all undercover police agents, just like himself, fighting against each other as it has been intended by the mastermind behind it all, the president of the council. A lot of unexpected twists and strange discoveries follow and the ending is not less disturbing.

The plot of the novel is certainly challenging and so are the philosophical and religious subtexts it comes enriched with. The story is full of planned anarchist and terrorist attacks against a major city in Europe, full of surrealistic elements and full of lengthy discussions about philosophy and morals. To level out the gloom, the book also comes with humorous elements, making the reader laugh out loud on more than one occasion. The story is complex and thrilling, the style will take you in like only a Chesterton novel can, and the book will give you a lot of food for thought, so The Man Who Was Thursday is just perfect.
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