On Tuesday I was ravenous for some Edwardian fiction, and plumped for G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, which intrigued me in that it’s an ever-so-slightly meta thriller revolving around an anarchic poet who enlists his more law-abiding counterpart into a secret anarchist cult. In the opening to the novel, Chesterton observes a careful structure, introducing his setting, followed by his protagonist, followed by the appearance of the unknown element which disrupts this system – each of these distinct sections is beautifully handled, beginning with the effective depiction of the suburb of Saffron Park, ‘as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset’, ‘not only pleasant, but perfect’. The setting is superbly linked to the book’s rather meta theme of the purpose of writing fiction, by way of an extended metaphor characterising this idyll as ‘a frail but finished work of art’ where ‘if the people were not "artists," the whole was nonetheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face… was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem'. It becomes immediately clear that The Man Who Was Thursday actively celebrates artistic expression, seeing it as something prevalent and prominent and living – this is a novel whose setting is clearly artificial, both a product and a hub of vibrant artistic creation, an ‘attractive unreality’ surrounded by an ‘impossible sky’, whose ‘social atmosphere’ is ‘a written comedy’ (and Chesterton confessed that ‘The book… was not intended to describe the real world as it was’). The uniqueness of this setting – its unreality and its impossibility – is rendered explicit by ‘all the heaven’ being ‘covered with a quite vivid and palpable plumage… the whole was so close about the earth’ – Saffron Park is evidently a unique place, tightly cut off from everything else, and thus the perfect backdrop for the debates about art which form the spine of this first chapter.
Chesterton ties the Saffron Park setting into his theme of relations; the suburb is a tight-knit community, the names of none of whose members we learn, instead being presented with a suburb that feels like a single gestalt that lives and moves as one, rather than a conglomeration of different people unified simply by where they live – if Saffron Park’s ‘social atmosphere’ is ‘a written comedy’, then they are its cast of characters. The author relates ‘many nights of local festivity’, describes ‘one particular evening, still vaguely remembered in the locality’ and how ‘all the Saffron Parkers looked at [Syme] as if he had that moment fallen out of that impossible sky’ – the determiner ‘all’ and lack of individual names reveal that these people all share the same thoughts and memories. So intensely does Chesterton construct an almost tangible atmosphere of harmony that the discord created by the antagonistic interplay between resident poet Gregory and new arrival Syme becomes even more heightened than it would if the book had begun with it (instead of the introduction of the setting). In turn, this hostile atmosphere is so effectively created that when Gregory draws Syme into his world later on, this is all the more shocking; one can’t help but admire G. K. Chesterton’s skill in so vividly establishing a back and forth ebb and flow within the piece, even contained within a single chapter.
Possessing dichotomous opinions and exhibiting wildly personalities, Lucian Gregory and Gabriel Syme are united by their outsider status, the latter as a new arrival in Saffron Park and the former as somebody who doesn’t seem to fit with the others. Gregory has an ‘impudent freshness’ and his appearance an ‘arresting oddity’; beyond even conventional androgyny, the juxtaposition of his ‘dark red hair… like a woman’s’ and ‘his face projecting suddenly broad and brutal’ implies him to be like a Frankenstein’s monster made up of different parts – indeed, he is likened to ‘a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape’, a delicious simile which shows him to be the kind of odd societal reject ripe for the anarchic lifestyle. On the other hand, Syme is ‘a very mild-looking mortal, with a fair, pointed beard and faint, yellow hair’ – nothing about him is particularly noteworthy, everything contained, repressed, ‘faint’, ‘mild’, humble and respectable. The reader can sense the building tension for the moment when these two forces clash – Chesterton’s description of how ‘an impression grew that [Syme] was less meek than he looked’ is the key that turns in the lock and throws open the door for a confrontation.
The two poets’ conflict revolves around the nature and purpose of poetry, allowing for the metaphysical debate which distinguishes this novel from others of its time and genre (though what that genre is isn’t exactly clear at this stage), and allows the novel to comfortably assume the ‘highbrow’ label at a time when the distinction was beginning to be drawn between popular and highbrow fiction. The anarchist Gregory’s argument, far more vehement and visceral than Syme’s, is that ‘the man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything… the poet delights in disorder’ whilst the cool, collected Syme argues that ‘the rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it’. Between them, they represent diametrically-opposed viewpoints, and each has convincing points that really do stimulate some discussion – is chaos dull and man a magician, as Syme argues? Or, as Gregory opines, is anarchy ‘rich, living, reproducing itself?’ Certainly, Chesterton gives both arguments time to develop, and treats both sides equally – whilst the denigration of ‘your precious order’ (by comparing it to ‘that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren’ seems full of the author’s fervour as well as Gregory) seems to favour the anarchist’s side, Syme’s reasoning that ‘revolt in the abstract is revolting’ is equally developed and convincing, and he bests Gregory by using sickening examples about vomiting in his reasoning – Gregory reacts with indignation, only for Syme to remark ‘“I beg your pardon… I forgot we had abolished all conventions”’. Put some ice on that burn! Whilst Gregory’s views come straight from the heart, raw and unfiltered, leading him to bash up lampposts and the like, Syme is more considered and logical in his discussions – the two men are undoubtedly wholly different in character, and ultimately, perhaps it’s up to us who we favour. In the end, anyway, the whole thing dissolves into farce (Syme exclaims ‘let me read a time table, with tears of pride’), because when all is said and done – as Syme points out – there are better things to do than debate the purpose of poetry; Syme is right to ‘“think very little of a man who didn’t keep something in the background of his lie that was more serious than all this talking’”.
All literary texts can be considered on different levels – whilst I’ve been trying to highlight and appraise the technical aspects of Chesterton’s craftsmanship, evaluating his use of themes, devices, etc., it bears repeating that a book cannot merely be a thing to study, it has to be a thing to love as well. In terms of sheer enjoy-ability – surely the best indicator of a work’s success – The Man Who Was Thursday ticks the boxes as well. As was The Faerie Queene, it is brimming with little touches that make the prose coruscate and dazzle, such as the contrast between Gregory’s ‘knotted fists’ and Syme’s cool condescension, or the description of ‘big Chinese lanterns [glowing] in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit’. In terms of the Edwardian-ness of it all, the book sits comfortably into the period’s writing style, which can be said to be a bridge point between verbose antiquity and punchy contemporary prose, and references the suffrage movement in the kind of way that suggests Chesterton doesn’t think it’ll go far – in Saffron Park (itself based on the trendy new Bedford Park suburb), ‘most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking’. Maybe the other texts this week might be a bit more positive towards women – we’ll have to wait and see. The fact remains that The Man Who Was Thursday’s opening is a triumph melding uniquely crafted descriptive work with two engaging characters who quickly spring to life on the page – I can’t wait to find out what they get up to.
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