Reviews

I feel like in order to really grasp this book, I'm going to need to read it again. It was really interesting and the writing was engaging and often clever. I was confused a time or two, but that might be the fault of my attention while listening to an audiobook. Regardless, it was an interesting drama. I genuinely didn't expect a spy novel when I picked this up. I definitely intend to read it again to attempt a better grasp of everything that went on.

amelisan's review against another edition

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adventurous funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Se me atascó un poco.

leonard_gaya's review against another edition

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5.0

Possibly the shortest way to describe Chesterton’s famous novel is to say that it is [b:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland|24213|Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass|Lewis Carroll|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327872220l/24213._SY75_.jpg|2375385] for grownups. The story of Gabriel Syme is just as bizarre as that of little Alice. It also echoes in many ways with the oppressing nightmares of [a:Kafka|5223|Franz Kafka|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1569196898p2/5223.jpg] and [a:Dostoyevsky|3137322|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1506003555p2/3137322.jpg].

Still, The Man Who Was Thursday starts like a rather typical detective novel. The protagonist comes in contact with a small group of anarchists/nihilists in a London basement who, to all appearances, are planning an attack against the tsar of Russia and the French président. Syme manages to get enrolled as one of the group, but we soon find out that he is, in fact, an undercover policeman, with a mission to stop the anarchists. This revelation is just the beginning of a series of “curiouser and curiouser” turn of events, coming thicker and faster, that will send Syme’s (and thereby the reader’s) head spinning into utter bewilderment and paranoia: “Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly upside down, that all trees were growing downwards and that all stars were under his feet”. The end of the novel strings together a carnivalesque chase around London on elephant back and hot-air balloon, and a final revelation of Dantesque proportions.

Chesterton was able to capture, with his wonderfully chiselled prose, the atmosphere of London and the zeitgeist in Europe at the turn of the 20th century: communists, nationalists and anarchists on the rise and the menace of a significant terrorist attack — indeed, a couple of years after the publication of this novel, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand tipped the world over into war.

He also managed to turn a spy mystery into an utterly dizzying reflection on religious symbolism, mysticism and the nature of reality. This way of depicting ordinary existence and then twisting and wringing it out in ways that make it almost unrecognisable, but somehow express something hidden within it, undoubtedly inspired the surrealist movement. And, later on, quite a few American authors as well, like [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1264613853p2/4764.jpg], [a:Kurt Vonnegut|2778055|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1433582280p2/2778055.jpg], [a:William Burroughs|4462369|William S. Burroughs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1459243207p2/4462369.jpg] or [a:Thomas Pynchon|235|Thomas Pynchon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1465361157p2/235.jpg], even [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]. Not forgetting some Latin-American magic-realist writers, primarily, [a:Jorge Luis Borges|500|Jorge Luis Borges|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1537559279p2/500.jpg].

michjohn50's review against another edition

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challenging lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated

3.75

lxurxnxdxvixs's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

skramer00's review against another edition

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challenging funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

joshknape's review against another edition

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4.0

I liked this novel well enough, and would recommend it, but I nevertheless liked Chesterton's other masterpiece, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, better. This is a strange and mysterious story, with the battle against the anarchists being largely intellectual. I didn't understand the last chapter very well.

Spoiler

The key to understanding the novel (beginning to, at least) is to understand that there is no anarchist cell; the threat protagonist Syme expects to face does not in fact exist. All seven members of the cell except for the leader are undercover police detectives not aware of each other's disguises--meaning the cell is a mysterious facade. Only the anarchist leader is not an undercover detective, and even his true identity is unclear. The reader is left to wonder why the cell existed in the first place.

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