Review: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book took me a while to finish.  I read a few pages at a time at my son's baseball games only on weekends.  I took it on vacation this past week and I was determined to finish it and I'm glad to be done.  If it hadn't been for the reading challenge to read a book with a day of the week in the title I don't think I would have marked DNF.  On the bright side I only paid 50 cents for it at the library used book sale.  While I did not like this, many people enjoyed this book.  If you like philosophy, symbolism, poetic writing, historical fiction, etc I'd give it a try, I just did not enjoy it at all.

I think I missed the plot along the way. Chesterton writes in a very poetic way that I didn't connect with. I also had a hard time relating to the time period that the characters were in, which played into the style of the language the characters were speaking in and the actions they took.  They walked around with dueling swords and wore cloaks and strange hats.  All things that I just didn't understand, and as someone who doesn't read alot of symbolic literature, philosophy, or historic works just i just didn't get it.  I went into this book expecting a physiological thriller, because that's what the synopsis on the back of the book promised.  I expected a murder mystery or a Silence of the Lambs type book, but that isn't what this is at all.  There is more to this book, I just don't know what it is and I'm not afraid to admit it.

What I took away from it was that a detective named Gabriel Syme infiltrates a secret society of anarchists on behalf of Scotland Yard and runs around England and France trying to break up a terrorist act. Each of the anarchists are named after days of the week, Syme works his way into the group of anarchists and becomes the new Thursday. As the story continues it just become more and more ridiculous and fantastical. I know this book had a much deeper meaning with reference to Christian symbolism and philosophy but I missed it and if I did see it I didn't get it. I felt completely lost throughout the entire reading experience.