The Man Who Was Thursday

G K Chesterton

I read this book mostly for its title, however I finished this book because of the plot. Chesterton weaves a story which at times seems blatantly see-through, but does it with such panache that even those aspects which you thought you saw coming from miles away turn out to be things he had every intention of you seeing much earlier. As you read Thursday you may be inclined to believe you have seen where all this can go...you would be wrong.
The story seems to want to be a thriller almost akin to the terrorist filled excitement of our day, but is at the same time full of something much deeper. Chesterton loads the story with spiritual allegory and it becomes something more fantastical than dramatic.
However, there still was something about the book which didn't settle well with me. I cannot tell if it was the ending which undoubtedly feels a little forced, if inevitable or if the allegorical nature of the book did not lie well with me. Assuredly it is out of the modern mode and something many readers today would find odd or even childish. It is strange to think that this last would likely have leased Mr. Chesterton quite a bit.
As a side note, I couldn't help but remark the curious similarity between the villains of Chesterton's day and the present targets for ire; we speak of terrorists and our drama is full of their evil cunning, even if we dress it up a bit with some false sense of fairness--Chesterton had his anarchists who were terrifying and easily stereotypical. I wonder however if anyone in our current day could have written something quite so revolutionary about terrorists.

Chaucer

G K Chesterton

A certain break or sharp change in history can hardly be sketched more sharply, than by saying that up to a certain time life was conceived of as a Dance, and after that time life was conceived as a Race.

If it is superstition to venerate the bones of a great man killed by a tyrant, is it anymore intelligent that millions of clerks should go down and merely gape at the Sea, without having even the sense to worship Neptune?

For those who are more than not familiar with Chesterton, it will come as no surprise that he was an admirer of Chaucer. It will also not startle you that he should write an entire book about the man, nor that such a book be more about how modern society has misunderstood its past than Chaucer's biography. Despite Chesterton's over-willingness to diverge from his topic and speak in broad, often critical terms, of his world and the world around him, there are actually quite a few insights into Chaucer in Chaucer.
If you are a person who feels a vagueness when others mention the 14th century, if you find that your ability to conceive of this amazing period of history often involves taking everything you know about life now, primitivising it and putting it in clothes of some goofy looking court jester, I would recommend a perusal of this easy-to-read tome. Chesterton will give you a much more respectful insight into these misunderstood times and perhaps suggest to your mind the possibility that people were wiser, maybe even happier in those days. It is also a possibility that Chesterton will enlighten you to some of the ridiculous conceits we have about ourselves as the highest yet reached rung on this mighty ladder which is civilization.
As a problem with the book it cannot be denied that Chesterton over-indulges in his often paradoxical and rhetorical mastery. There are times when the reader would like it if he would stop playing such fanciful word games for a moment and get down to the business of saying things outright. There is a bit too much of the bending back on itself in Chaucer.
But it is not to such an extent it will keep you from reaching the end or understanding his meaning.
Read Chesterton on Chaucer and you might just end up becoming a medievalist. 6/10

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

George Saunders

"What you need to do," said someone with great authority from over by the Cafe, "is tax them."

George Saunders should be commended for his incredible elan when it comes to explanations. If he chooses to say that his characters were strange amalgamations of metal brackets and livers he is allowed to do so blissfully and without descending into any of the nitty gritty of just how this might come to pass. His Reign of Phil startles you by the ease with which you can accept its outrageousness. When presented with the strange and very thinly veiled allegories of Inner and Outer Horner, I notably did not stop and wonder how the hell the Former President of Outer Horner came to have 18 mustaches and three legs. This is part of the beauty of Saunders's writing as I have discovered it thus far.
But when we turn to the allegorical aspect of the novel, I am not as sure that I can compliment Mr. Saunders. While I myself enjoy a good solid ideological tour de force, I could not help but feel that the idea was the only thing driving this book and that Saunders used a good bit of absurdity to hide what is otherwise an absence of depth. It was a fast read.
If you are someone who enjoys the more flippant conversational tone of modern fiction, this may be a book for you, otherwise it is something to put further down the reading list. 6/10