Only Chesterton could end a suspense novel filled with anarchists and secret societies in a mystical English garden party. (Only Chesterton, for that matter, could find anything mystical about an English garden party.)The novel—subtitled "A Nightmare" by the author—is a metaphysical reflection on anarchy, not against law or government, but against God.
Chesterton was especially fond of the mistaken or unknown identity device, employing it most memorably in Manalive, but perhaps most extensively in The Man Who Was Thursday. Who are the anarchists known only by the seven days of the week? Who is Thursday in particular? a poet? a cop? a poor Englishman in over his head? Most importantly, who is Sunday?
While retaining the charms of Chesterton's other novels—sword fights, hilarity, incongruous juxtapositions—The Man Who Was Thursdayis a few shades darker than most of the others. In the concluding scenes he introduces the problem of theodicy (how can a good God and evil coexist?), though he certainly provides a superior answer than most have been able to conjure.
Which is the real irony—despite Chesterton's magic, he never conjures. His answers are the flesh-and-blood kind that don't simply manipulate our thoughts, they affect our behavior. And answering the theodicy question he roots down the bottom of things and finds that it isn't that good is everywhere tainted by evil, but that evil is always in danger of being overrun by good.
Discussions on the nature of poetry, the universal order, and the Apocalypse are not simply bonus features of a more simplistic story, they are integral to Chesterton's eminently philosophical novel, written before philosophical novels were altogether popular. Highly entertaining and exquisitely thought-provoking, this is a good introduction to one of the great Christian writers of all time.
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