The Man Who Was Thursday

By: G. K. Chesterton

Narrated by: Simon Vance

This is quite possibly Chesterton's most famous novel. All that G. K. Chesterton's critics labeled him- devotional, impious, confounding, intelligent, humorous, bombastic - he wove into The Man Who Was Thursday. This page-turner sends characters bobbing around a delightfully confusing plot of mythic proportions.

The story begins when two poets meet. Gabriel Syme is a poet of law. Lucian Gregory is a poetic anarchist. As the poets protest their respective philosophies, they strike a challenge. In the ruckus that ensues, the Central European Council of Anarchists elects Syme to the post of Thursday, one of their seven chief council positions. Undercover. On the run, Syme meets with Sunday, the head of the council, a man so outrageously mysterious that his antics confound both the law-abiding and the anarchist.

Who is lawful? Who is immoral? Such questions are strangely in the presence of Sunday. He is wholly other. He is above the timeless questions of humanity and also somehow behind them.

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Exciting

This story and performance was exciting! From the beginning I was hooked. The language and well put together story was engaging as well as entertaining.

My First Chesterton book...I will be back for more

A wonderful morality play of a thriller of a story. in the traditional tone you would expect of a classical tale much like Indiana Jones, where the telling of the tale is very melodious, almost prose. The story can be quite quick, and quickly twisting as the main plot begins to reach a crecendo. The conclusion also requires the reader to twist their presumptions of the entire story...again very much like an Indiana Jones or Sherlock Holmes type story. My first Chesterton read...and I think well worth it.

Timeless allegory In the caliber of C. S Lewis.

Well written as it draws you deeper into the story. Time we'll spent and worth hearing.

Great classic read!!

I wasn't familiar with GK Chesterton, so I was skeptical whether I would enjoy the novel. How wrong I was - highly recommend!

Chesterton is brilliant as usual!

Engaging and thought provoking, yet still entertaining to stick with till the end. This work can be appreciated by all, but it's communication seems aimed at those with a theological worldview. Brilliant nonetheless.

CHESTERTON NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE !

amazing story!!!
this book has so many layers I could read it more than 10 times ,every time getting something out of it. Beautifully written. it amazes me every time to think that Chesterton thought up each point of view, each retort for each character and how brilliantly they are presented in this amazing version of story.

Excellent actor. Excellent author.

The voice acting is top notch. The writing is great and had me laughing unexpectedly. The story got a little trippy at the end, but I wouldn't say it was bad. Otherwise, it's suspenseful for a nonstandard detective story. Fair warning: I've read GK Chesterton before, so I kinda knew what I was getting into.

Love G.K.

Always thoughtfully entertained and amazed by anything written by GK Chesterton. This recording is Very well read!

More to the World than Meets the Eye

G K Chesterton's metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday reads a little like a cross between Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, and Franz Kafka, melding the pointed nonsense of the first, the witty aphorisms and descriptions and conversations of the second, and the nightmarishly entangling mysteries of the third. It's a thought-provoking, humorous, frightening, and ultimately hopeful story about the nature of good and evil and order and chaos in the world. It makes you confront the possibility that we are watching the world from behind rather than from in front, or that nothing and no one is what it seems to be, or that there is something outside our perception that is bigger than us. As an atheist, I cannot accept some of the implications and symbols in the d??nouement of the book, but the decent humanity and struggle to understand of the protagonist are deeply moving.

As for the reader, Simon Vance does a masterful job of reading the story, making Chesterton's aesthetically vivid and refined style and outrageous and human characters come fully alive and please the ear.

Great Writing

G.K. Chesterton is a master of dialogue, intellect, and spirituality.