The Man Who Was Thursday

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The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare is a novel by G. K. Chesterton, first published in 1907. Although it deals with anarchists the novel is not an exploration or rebuttal of Anarchist Philosophy. The anarchists in the novel are used in an allegorical fashion to explore the question of free will and the existence of evil. It also touches on the themes of nihilism and political manipulation. The book has also been referred to as a metaphysical thriller.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In a surreal turn-of-the-century London, Gabriel Syme, a poet, is recruited to a secret counter-terrorist taskforce at Scotland Yard. Syme persuades Lucian Gregory, an anarchist, to lead him to the local terrorist cell, where he is elected as the cell's representative—Thursday—to the worldwide council of anarchists, consisting of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a code name. In his efforts to thwart the council's intentions, however, he discovers that six of the seven members are also undercover detectives; each just as mysteriously employed and assigned to defeat the Council of Days. In a dizzying and beautifully surreal conclusion, the six champions of order and former anarchist ring-leaders chase down the disturbing and whimsical Sunday, the man who calls himself "The Peace of God".

Like most of Chesterton's fiction, the story is heavy in Christian allegory. Chesterton, who was a devout Catholic convert, suffered from depression for much of his life, and claimed afterwards that he wrote this book as an unusual affirmation that goodness and right were at the heart of every aspect of the world. He had hoped the book would serve as an encouragement to himself and to other members of his family who also had the tendency to become melancholy. The book contains no explicit in endorsement of Christian belief, and the philosophy expressed in the book at first glance could be interpreted as being, in some ways, dualistic in nature. Chesterton's beliefs, however, make an undeniable mark on the book, especially in the final chapters.

On an interesting note the costumes that the anarchists/detectives don towards the end of the book represent what was created on their respective day. Sunday, 'the sabbath and the peace of God', sits upon a throne in front of them. His last words, 'can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?', is the question that Jesus asks James and John in The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, vs 38-39, to challenge their commitment in becoming his disciples. The name of the girl Symes loves, Rosamund, is derived from 'Rosa Mundi', meaning 'Rose of the World' in Latin, and a title given to Christ. Chesterton, being a Roman Catholic, would have meant this as a deliberate allusion.

The character of Gabriel Syme, a man who wants to destroy Sunday because he is afraid of him and a 'man should leave nothing in the universe standing that he is afraid of', eventually finds that he embodies everything that he was fighting for. What Symes details about his upbringing is very much Chesterton's own upbringing, making him perhaps the most autobiographical of all of Chesterton's fictional characters.

Martin Gardner also edited The Annotated Thursday which gives a lot of biographical and contextual information along with the entire text of book. Originally published by Ignatius Press, the book is currently out of print.

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Mercury Theatre adaptation

On September 5th 1938 the Mercury Theatre on the Air staged a somewhat abridged radio-play adaptation written by Orson Welles who was a great admirer of Chesterton. This was almost two months before the more famous War of the Worlds broadcast.

Although it remained true to the book and is admired by most fans of Chesterton, its abridgements render it somewhat harder to understand, mostly because it omits some of the metaphysical and theological discussions and treats much of the whimsical and comedic asides rather too dramatically. Almost all of Chapter 14: The Six Philosophers is left out, in which the majority of the metaphysical speculation is found. Those who have not read the book might find the play somewhat baffling.

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Appearances in popular culture

The computer game Deus Ex features several excerpts from the book, that can be found at various points in the game; the excerpt usually relates somewhat to the player's situation. Additionally, a man found in a free clinic in New York comments to another that he is making a sculpture, that he will call "The Man Who Was Thursday".

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