Sometimes described as thrilling, sometimes as comic, and sometimes as metaphysical or spiritual, The Man Who Was Thursday is perhaps a little of each. The tale begins when an undercover policeman infiltrates a mysterious Anarchist group. As the novel progresses, things become more comic and improbable, and eventually settle in to as sort of abstract, dreamlike state. Filled with Christian allegory, Thursday is a glittering, fascinating exploration of good versus evil and theology through the lens of adventure, wit, and the surreal.
He had a new impulse to tear out the secret of this dancing, jumping and pursuing paralytic; and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the Circus he turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer.
Will you swear that! If you will take upon yourself this awful abnegation if you will consent to burden your soul with a vow that you should never make and a knowledge you should never dream about, I will promise you in return—”
The moon was so strong and full that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight.
It is brilliant example of sophisticated approach to tell story about trivial plot by language and adjective saturated palette that forge page by page hidden bundle of extra meanings and references to history of human thinking.