::AMAZON REVIEWS::

Mysteriious and entertaining
I liked this novel well enough, and would recommend it, but I nevertheless liked Chesterton's other masterpiece, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, better. This is a strange and mysterious story, with the battle against the anarchists being largely intellectual. I didn't understand the last chapter very well.

Days of the Week
The first thing I want to say about Chesterton is that he was the first author in a long time that has had me look through a dictionary to determine the meaning of words. By Wednesday I got the drift of the story, although the denouement held a little surprise. Chesterton is an old master and it is difficult to be surprised by someone so often imitated, but as a wordsmith, his art is difficult to imitate. Defnitely worth reading.

Philosophical Essay Wrapped in a Political Thriller
You know how tortilla chips are just the vehicle to eat salsa or queso? In much the same way, this book is a vehicle for Chesterton to present his philosophy. When I started the book, I thought it was going to be a political thriller/mystery with philosophy thrown in. Actually, it turns out the book is philosophy with a political thriller/mystery thrown in. I realized this too late so missed a lot of the symbolism. This book addresses worldview, God, politics and more and is considered to be one of the top books of the 20th Century. You may have to read it more than once to understand it. I might even recommend that you read an analysis of the novel beforehand.

Here is an analysis I found helpful:
[...]

G K Chesterton's Masterpiece in the Realm of Fiction
Many consider "The Man Who Was Thursday" to be G. K. Chesterton's masterpiece in the realm of fiction. The story of detective Gabriel Syme's struggle against the Supreme Council of bomb-throwing anarchists begins much like Chesterton's popular Father Brown short stories about a Roman Catholic priest who also solves murders. However, Thursday quickly crosses the borders of Father Brown and Sherlock Holmes and enters the world of Kafka's Metamorphisis. What begins solidly in the world of detective fiction ends mystically in the world of the surreal. The story of one detective fighting six anarchists quickly changes into the story of six philosophers chasing one man, whose name is Sunday.

The novel begins as a detective story. The hero, Gabriel Syme, is a member of a special anti-anarchist police force lead by a mysterious commander who only takes appointments in a pitch dark room. By tricking the rash anarchist poet Lucian Gregory, Syme infiltrates the Supreme Council, led by the universally feared and physically huge Sunday. The members of the council all have code names corresponding to the days of the week, and Syme takes the seat of the recently deceased Thursday. The plot thickens when Syme discovers that the men he originally thought were his arch enemies are all comrades from his own task force. The bewildered detectives return to Sunday to demand answers, and then things get really weird. Chesterton was never very secretive about what the ending of the novel meant, or who Sunday really is, but then, that is a mystery which will best be unlocked when you read the book! The Man Who Was Thursday

Another G. K. Chesterton classic!
"The Man Who Was Thursday," another G. K. Chesterton classic, manages to provide a thriller that starts like a Sherlock Holmes adventure and ends like Raiders of the Lost Ark. At the same time, Chesterton manages to offer a profound contemplation of the existence of evil in the world, the role of free will in the universe, the willingness of God to allow Man to suffer, and various other vexing metaphysical questions. Both the basic story and the religious philosophy in "The Man Who Was Thursday" are exciting. It is very much a Christian fantasy (or "Nightmare" to use Chesterton's own subtitle) but can be read with enjoyment by anyone who loves a good adventure yarn and doesn't mind being made to think. The Man Who Was Thursday