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.