joshknape 's review for:

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

4.0

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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.