viktor_haag | Recently read: "The Man Who Was Thursday"

The great holiday book drive, 2007, has begun! This time of year is where I buckle down and spend my vacation days relaxing, festivating, playing boardgames, and, mostly, reading books. Mostly, it's just an excuse to clear out my queue of partially read books. First on the list this year was "The Man Who Was Thursday", by G.K. Chesterton.

Although well-written, this one was a bit hard to get through. The further I got, the more frustrated I got, as the quirkiness piled up; silly coincidences, stilted action scenes, ridiculous dialog. But for all that, well written, and still I got drawn forward (although the code of the book drive, "thou shalt finish", was at least partly at play there).

I won't say too much more about this book, only summarize with this: the book purports to be a sort of a spy thriller; the book is not entirely what it seems; the post-script at the end of my edition (Penguin Red Classic) should most definitely not be read before the book, and should most probably be read afterwards; it pays to remember that Chesterton was a reknowned and respected theologian; it pays to remember that the book was written in 1907, before either World War, and well before any post-war fascination with crime noir.

Chesterton was, to a certain degree, prescient I think. One might almost call this particular book post-modern, but that would put me well in the frame of reading the book through an anachronistic lens.

Worth it if you pick it up from the library, or in an inexpensive little pocket edition like the handsome new retro-Penguin.