AudioBookFest: Podcast for Everyone

Before he began writing his Father Brown stories, G. K. Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) had already published one book of detective fiction. In The Man Who Was Thursday, Chesterton created a detective named Gabriel Syme, who infiltrates an anarchist group in which each of the seven members is named for a different day of the week. Syme replaces the man who had been Thursday. At first, this group seems strange to Syme because he does not understand what the anarchists wish to accomplish. This paradox is resolved when Chesterton explains that all seven “anarchists” are, in fact, detectives assigned separately to investigate this nonexistent threat to society. Although The Man Who Was Thursday does demonstrate Chesterton’s ability to think clearly in order to resolve a problem, the solution to this paradox is so preposterous that many readers have wondered why Chesterton wrote this book, whose ending is so odd. It is hardly credible that all seven members of a secret organization could be police officers. Critics have not been sure how they should interpret this work. Chesterton’s own brother, Cecil, thought that it expressed an excessively optimistic view of the world, but other reviewers criticized The Man Who Was Thursday for its pessimism.