Anarchy is a very interesting subject and is used to denote very different things. It may be something that puts a bullet through a king with the insane hope of ending the monarchy; it may be an act of a God-fearing Protestant clergyman when he attempts to harry the Catholics by denying that the crucifix is the proper symbol of the Christian religion; it may be the act of God when a village is destroyed by an earthquake or an island created by a seaquake.
'The Man who was Thursday' is about an anarchist, and we are not sure whether Chesterton is not pulling our respectable legs and laughing that we really believed the party of desperadoes were real anarchists. The fact is, the book starts in a highly respectable suburb that might be anywhere near London and could not be far from it.
There are two poets strolling about under the canopy of a lovely sky; one believes in anarchy, the other doesn't—the one who does invites the one who does not to come with him and see what anarchy is. This he does, and, after a good supper of lobster mayonnaise, the two get down to a subterranean cavern where are assembled half the anarchists of the world, precisely six; they call themselves by the names of the week, with a leader, who is met with later, Sunday.
Syme, the visitor, is appointed as a member, and becomes, Thursday; he has a great many adventures, including breakfast, overlooking Leicester Square, and gradually discovers that the said anarchists, unknown at first to each other, are really Scotland Yard detectives.
The only real anarchist is the poet who believed in it, whose name is Gregory. He has the pious wish to destroy the world; he may be Satan, if that person could ever pretend to be a poet.
What does Chesterton mean by this strange weird tale that is almost like a romance of Oppenheim and is yet like an old-world allegory? Is he laughing at anarchists that they are but policemen in disguise? Is he saying that policemen are really only anarchists? Or does he mean that the Devil masquerades as the spirit of the Holy Day of the week 'Sunday,' or is 'Sunday' really Christ?
Chesterton calls this novel a nightmare; a nightmare is usually a muddled kind of thing with no connections at all; it is a dream turned into a blasphemy. The book may mean several things; it is quite possible that it may mean nothing; there is no need for a novel to mean anything so long as it is readable. 'The Man who was Thursday' certainly is that, but it leaves us with an uneasy suspicion that it is a very serious book and at the same time it may be merely a farce.
Space does not permit us to more than mention Chesterton's two detective books, 'The Innocence of Father Brown' and 'The Wisdom of Father Brown.' They are a highly original series of detective tales. 'The Club of Queer Trades' is a volume of quaint short stories full of Chesterton's genius.
Since Chesterton wrote these books an event has occurred to him which may have a considerable effect on his writings. His novels have always shown a Catholic tendency when they have touched at all on religion. They have not, of course, the propagandist setting of the works of Father R.H. Benson, nor do they have a contempt for other Churches that so often blackens the writings of Roman Catholic apologists.