Over at my other blog, an old friend described his own experience with The Man Who Was Thursday by writing, "I don’t recall all the details but that it was a good read. I just remember the way the plot spiraled out of control steadily." I think that about sums up chapters 7, 8, and 9, in which very little happens - seemingly happens? Throw me a rope here, G.K.!
The first of these three chapters is mostly spent on a parodic chase. After Sunday handles the capture of the spy, he adjourns the meeting (while throwing off some great lines: "If you’d take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can’t say. But it might." [p. 70]), and Syme flees only to find himself effortlessly pursued by one of the other anarchists. Reflecting on the chase, I thought alternately of the rather scary scenes in Terminator 2 in which the evil morphing robot relentlessly pursues the good guys and of the over-the-top chase sequences in the various Jason Bourne movies. Chesterton pulls it off quite well, I think.
In the next chapter, the pursuer, having caught Syme, reveals his true identity, which matches up quite well with Syme's own personal history and includes a rather funny bit about how a counterfeit can be more authentic than the real thing. Besides being a nifty little plot device, is this perhaps a comment by Chesterton on how fiction can be more real than journalism or history? Or is it a hint of another layer of duplicity and false identity behind the council of anarchists, which is at least three-sevenths cops? A shot in the dark: the police chief who is recruiting the policemen is actually an anarchist, recruiting men to be anarchists who pretend to be policemen.
This fuzziness made my head hurt, but I plunged on into the last of these three chapters, #9, which features even more wildness (a finger-tapping code, another policeman-anarchist), a few more of Chesterton's increasingly funny lines (for instance, at the top of p. 103), and a cabal of cops conspiring against one of the anarchists. It ends in a cliffhanger, but I can't help thinking that the object of the conspiracy is, of course, another cop pretending to be an anarchist.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
It's Almost Thursday Again *ahem*
Almost two weeks late, and much more than a pound sterling short, I want nonetheless to offer my take on chapter four through six - not yet having read your own take on the chapters.
I wish I wasn't still dwelling sophomorically on the level of impressions and "takes" on the writing so far, but as I read these chapters, I found myself getting more comfortable with Chesterton's style, which marries a matter-of-fact one-thing-after-another narration to events that are implausible in the real world - but actually kinda likely in the book's world. I nearly rolled my eyes at the start of the big scene in chapter 4 which explains how Syme became a policeman. By the end, though, I was actually kind of impressed at this recruitment-by-accident scenario - and more interested in Syme as a character. If nothing else, he reminded me of the Americans who enlisted in the military after 9/11: having witnessed a terrorist attack (p. 40), he tries to fight back.
Then again, Chesterton is playing his cards pretty openly here, trying to argue - with the constable's talk about inner and outer rings of anarchist philosophers - that thinking is more dangerous to order than action. The anti-intellectualism here is sharp and cruel.
But as quickly as it flares, this anti-intellectualism vanishes. Or more properly, maybe, given the settings of so many scenes in the book, including one critical scene coming up, it goes underground, and we stay on the ground, and then go above the ground, on the balcony where the anarchist council is dining, right out in the open. (I wish I could find all the spots in the book where Chesterton uses this trope of hiding in plain sight; there have been at least a couple others already.) If I were reading the luncheon chapter by itself, I'd sneer at the fantasticalness of it, but since I'm not, I instead have to admire how it advances the plot. Sunday comes off as a monster, of course, and all the more so by the end of chapter 6, when he finally does something besides watching Syme/Thursday and eating. I'm eager to read chapters 7 through 9 to see how Sunday's denunciation plays out. I can't imagine it will be as simple as murder; that seems to be unlike Chesterton. But I'll see.
In the meantime, I have to risk a spoiler - or maybe just a wild-ass-guess. I hope I'm wrong in making this guess, because being right would really damage my view of Chesterton, but when I hit the paragraph in which Syme sees Sunday up on the balcony (p. 53), I immediately thought of the scene just a few pages earlier (p. 46) in which Syme meets the "chief" of the police: "Syme knew two things: first, that it [the voice of the chief] came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him." When Syme, being conducted to the anarchists' luncheon by his unnamed guide, sees Sunday, what does he see? "At the nearest end of the balcony... was the back of a great mountain of the man." G.K., say it ain't so! They can't be the SAME MAN, can they? Again, I'll see.
I wish I wasn't still dwelling sophomorically on the level of impressions and "takes" on the writing so far, but as I read these chapters, I found myself getting more comfortable with Chesterton's style, which marries a matter-of-fact one-thing-after-another narration to events that are implausible in the real world - but actually kinda likely in the book's world. I nearly rolled my eyes at the start of the big scene in chapter 4 which explains how Syme became a policeman. By the end, though, I was actually kind of impressed at this recruitment-by-accident scenario - and more interested in Syme as a character. If nothing else, he reminded me of the Americans who enlisted in the military after 9/11: having witnessed a terrorist attack (p. 40), he tries to fight back.
Then again, Chesterton is playing his cards pretty openly here, trying to argue - with the constable's talk about inner and outer rings of anarchist philosophers - that thinking is more dangerous to order than action. The anti-intellectualism here is sharp and cruel.
But as quickly as it flares, this anti-intellectualism vanishes. Or more properly, maybe, given the settings of so many scenes in the book, including one critical scene coming up, it goes underground, and we stay on the ground, and then go above the ground, on the balcony where the anarchist council is dining, right out in the open. (I wish I could find all the spots in the book where Chesterton uses this trope of hiding in plain sight; there have been at least a couple others already.) If I were reading the luncheon chapter by itself, I'd sneer at the fantasticalness of it, but since I'm not, I instead have to admire how it advances the plot. Sunday comes off as a monster, of course, and all the more so by the end of chapter 6, when he finally does something besides watching Syme/Thursday and eating. I'm eager to read chapters 7 through 9 to see how Sunday's denunciation plays out. I can't imagine it will be as simple as murder; that seems to be unlike Chesterton. But I'll see.
In the meantime, I have to risk a spoiler - or maybe just a wild-ass-guess. I hope I'm wrong in making this guess, because being right would really damage my view of Chesterton, but when I hit the paragraph in which Syme sees Sunday up on the balcony (p. 53), I immediately thought of the scene just a few pages earlier (p. 46) in which Syme meets the "chief" of the police: "Syme knew two things: first, that it [the voice of the chief] came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him." When Syme, being conducted to the anarchists' luncheon by his unnamed guide, sees Sunday, what does he see? "At the nearest end of the balcony... was the back of a great mountain of the man." G.K., say it ain't so! They can't be the SAME MAN, can they? Again, I'll see.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Is it Thursday already? *ahem* Chapters 4-6
So, nearly a week late, but a few thoughts on 4-6. I read them quickly after my last post and felt that they were flat – not nearly as exciting as the first chapters. We get some background on Syme and his philosophy, how he became a spy and then a whole lot of the anarchist council sitting around the table eating breakfast.
But my second reading of the same material unearthed some interesting nuggets. First (and I don't know if this is because I'm a genius at close reading or because it's blatantly obvious or because Adam Gopnik mentioned it in his review), I'm convinced that Sunday himself is a spy. Syme never sees the man who hires him into the police (or, rather, who condemns him to die as a martyr to the cause of law and order), but Syme can tell that he (the police boss) is "a man of massive stature". Sunday himself, when introduced later, becomes an object of fixation for Syme (and Chesterton), as he's constantly described as being nearly too big to be human. Ergo, the two men are the same, and Sunday is not just the head of the anarchists, he's the head of the secret police.
The second bit that caught my eye:
This line gave me chills – a perfect summary of extremism. Rather than try to understand each other, the two sides are ready to martyr themselves . (The quote above is about Syme, but could just as easily have described the mindset of the anarchists). Today, Bush would rather start a war then try to find common ground with a perceived enemy, while religious extremists will kill "infidels" without trying to understand their (our, really) way of life. What hope is there if two sides won't take time to acknowledge our shared humanity?
Syme ends chapter six with his hand on his revolver, afraid that he's about to be exposed as a spy. But Gogol (known as Tuesday) gets fingered instead, and now we hurtle on...
But my second reading of the same material unearthed some interesting nuggets. First (and I don't know if this is because I'm a genius at close reading or because it's blatantly obvious or because Adam Gopnik mentioned it in his review), I'm convinced that Sunday himself is a spy. Syme never sees the man who hires him into the police (or, rather, who condemns him to die as a martyr to the cause of law and order), but Syme can tell that he (the police boss) is "a man of massive stature". Sunday himself, when introduced later, becomes an object of fixation for Syme (and Chesterton), as he's constantly described as being nearly too big to be human. Ergo, the two men are the same, and Sunday is not just the head of the anarchists, he's the head of the secret police.
The second bit that caught my eye:
It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand.
This line gave me chills – a perfect summary of extremism. Rather than try to understand each other, the two sides are ready to martyr themselves . (The quote above is about Syme, but could just as easily have described the mindset of the anarchists). Today, Bush would rather start a war then try to find common ground with a perceived enemy, while religious extremists will kill "infidels" without trying to understand their (our, really) way of life. What hope is there if two sides won't take time to acknowledge our shared humanity?
Syme ends chapter six with his hand on his revolver, afraid that he's about to be exposed as a spy. But Gogol (known as Tuesday) gets fingered instead, and now we hurtle on...
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The Art of the Bomb
I really liked your post's mix of close reading (the alliteration), good old-fashioned literary knowledge (the Syme in 1984), and thoughtful reaction. I'm going to have to pay more attention to Chesterton's style; if I can pick up his little habits - like the alliteration - I might find his style less irksome. Of course, maybe I'll just plain get used to it, too.
The list of great lines in your post reminded me of that really striking statement by Gregory: "The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything." I had to put the book down, when I reached that line, and hit Google to hunt for the infamous quotes along those lines about 9/11. The prefiguring is incredible:
British visual artist Damien Hirst: "The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually."
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, talking about 9/11 five days later:
The list of great lines in your post reminded me of that really striking statement by Gregory: "The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything." I had to put the book down, when I reached that line, and hit Google to hunt for the infamous quotes along those lines about 9/11. The prefiguring is incredible:
British visual artist Damien Hirst: "The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually."
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, talking about 9/11 five days later:
Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. [Hesitantly.] And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."Amazing. I wonder how long this trope of terrorist violence as art has existed...
Friday, August 8, 2008
Chapters 1-3: Trickery Aplenty
I was impressed by the first three chapters of the book, which headed in a direction I didn't expect. I can't say I'm deeply appreciative of Chesterton's style yet, but it'll probably grow on me, especially if he can maintain such a propulsive plot. The twists and turns all seemed both natural and surprising, which seems like a good sign that he knows what he's doing.
More than anything, the chapters effectively set the scene of a waking nightmare, to borrow the book's subtitle. The twisted architecture and bizarre sunset in chapter 1, for instance, did a good job of making the upside down seem normal. And the two interlocutors, Syme and Gregory, heightened this with their slightly hostile banter about whether the normal or the rare is the truly remarkable. In this respect, I liked Syme's contention that an arriving train is another sign that "man has won a battle against chaos."
The literal descent into the anarchist's lair was a nice bit, punctuated by Gregory's great "We dig deeper and we blow you higher!" line and then by the crazy pact between the two men, with Syme - revealed to be a policeman - having the upper hand when he shows Gregory that the anarchist is now, thanks to their agreement, unable to avail himself "of the help of that law and organization which is so essential to anarchy." Reading that, I was reminded of some post-9/11 reporting on al-Qaeda, which seemed mystified that such tight organization could exist solely to sow chaos. Apparently they'd never heard of the army.
Syme's brutal ability to take advantage of his partner's weakness in the election was stunning. I'm not used to reading speech-driven literature like this, but Syme's speechifying was amazing - and all the more for knowing that he was pulling a fast one on everyone else. Or so we should believe, right? I'm eager to find out in the next few chapters.
Thinking about the big anarchist meeting after reading that section, a few oddities came to mind. For one, the anarchists seemed to be - as far as we could tell - entirely of middle- or upper-class backgrounds. For another, they are - of course - all good Englishmen. In both these respects, they're unlike actual anarchists, who were usually Eastern Europeans and working class. I'm looking forward to seeing how Chesterton picks up these historical facts and plays with them - if he does.
More than anything, the chapters effectively set the scene of a waking nightmare, to borrow the book's subtitle. The twisted architecture and bizarre sunset in chapter 1, for instance, did a good job of making the upside down seem normal. And the two interlocutors, Syme and Gregory, heightened this with their slightly hostile banter about whether the normal or the rare is the truly remarkable. In this respect, I liked Syme's contention that an arriving train is another sign that "man has won a battle against chaos."
The literal descent into the anarchist's lair was a nice bit, punctuated by Gregory's great "We dig deeper and we blow you higher!" line and then by the crazy pact between the two men, with Syme - revealed to be a policeman - having the upper hand when he shows Gregory that the anarchist is now, thanks to their agreement, unable to avail himself "of the help of that law and organization which is so essential to anarchy." Reading that, I was reminded of some post-9/11 reporting on al-Qaeda, which seemed mystified that such tight organization could exist solely to sow chaos. Apparently they'd never heard of the army.
Syme's brutal ability to take advantage of his partner's weakness in the election was stunning. I'm not used to reading speech-driven literature like this, but Syme's speechifying was amazing - and all the more for knowing that he was pulling a fast one on everyone else. Or so we should believe, right? I'm eager to find out in the next few chapters.
Thinking about the big anarchist meeting after reading that section, a few oddities came to mind. For one, the anarchists seemed to be - as far as we could tell - entirely of middle- or upper-class backgrounds. For another, they are - of course - all good Englishmen. In both these respects, they're unlike actual anarchists, who were usually Eastern Europeans and working class. I'm looking forward to seeing how Chesterton picks up these historical facts and plays with them - if he does.
Matt: Initial thoughts, chapters 1-3
I'm hooked. These first three chapters read like a script treatment for a comic-book movie adaptation: two Victorian dandies (or fantastics, in Chesterton's terminology) take turns debating, surprising, and betraying each other — all the while living up to the value of their word as gentlemen.
The first few pages dragged for me, but once the two poets started their debate, things get interesting (if a bit pedantic; the characters are more talking-points of view than real people). Without recapping their anarchy vs. order debate in too much detail, allow me to repeat the "money quotes" that best capture their POVs.
Gregory, anarchist poet: "The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything."
Syme, law and order man: "The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it."
When Syme finds Gregory waiting outside the garden for him, I worried that we were just in for more debating. Good heavens! Syme has "irritated" Gregory — things must be serious now!
But Chapter 2 brings us some action. After some lobster and a cigar (the lighting of which, by Syme, manages to further infuriate Gregory), the story takes a surreal and Pynchonian turn (pun intended) as their table screws into the ground and deposits them in a series of tunnels that harbor Gregory's anarchist arsenal. (This last is my shout out to Chesterton's love of alliteration. The man's unstoppable, and once I noticed his favorite poetic device, I found it littering nearly every page: "red and ragged," "angel and the ape," "reigned without rival," "clouds and creul colors," "broken past batteries of besiegers," and on and on.)
At the end of Chapter 3, Syme declares, "Perhaps what we are both doing what we think right. But what we think is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession." But in fact, it's only the fact that both Syme and Gregory are bound to a code of gentlemanly conduct that makes their etanglement, and this story, possible at all. Syme says, earlier, when invited to accopmany Gregory on his "very entertaining evening" that "I hope at least that [the poet] is always a sportsman. Permit me, here and now, to swear as a Christian, and promise as a good comrade and a fellow-artist, that I will not report anything of this..."
I'm struck by the quaint archaism of their kept promises; it's hard to imagine a present-day extremist keeping their word to a police/military officer when given the chance to overwhelm him in a well-hidden location. (And vice versa, try to imagine a federal agent not reaching for his gun — or his waterboard — when surrounded by "terrists" in their underground bunker.) While they both avow to have nothing in common and diametrically opposed goals, they understand each other so well that Syme can impersonate one of Sunday's minions and get himself elected to the Central European Council. Our own world is full of extremists of many stripes, from Al-Qaeda Islamists to anti-abortion Christianists, and I'm guessing that there aren't many on the side of "law and order" who could infiltrate their ranks so quickly and convincingly.
Quick note on Syme: surely he's the inspiration (progenitor?) for Orwell's Syme in Nineteen Eighty-Four — the hyper-orderly lexicographer, the one whose goal is to remove all but the word "Ingsoc" from people's vocabulary. For now, though, Syme seems to be our hero, turning up the inconsistencies in Gregory's philosophy and outwitting his foe in the Thursday election. I hope the story has a few more twists and turns in store for us.
Onward!
The first few pages dragged for me, but once the two poets started their debate, things get interesting (if a bit pedantic; the characters are more talking-points of view than real people). Without recapping their anarchy vs. order debate in too much detail, allow me to repeat the "money quotes" that best capture their POVs.
Gregory, anarchist poet: "The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything."
Syme, law and order man: "The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it."
When Syme finds Gregory waiting outside the garden for him, I worried that we were just in for more debating. Good heavens! Syme has "irritated" Gregory — things must be serious now!
But Chapter 2 brings us some action. After some lobster and a cigar (the lighting of which, by Syme, manages to further infuriate Gregory), the story takes a surreal and Pynchonian turn (pun intended) as their table screws into the ground and deposits them in a series of tunnels that harbor Gregory's anarchist arsenal. (This last is my shout out to Chesterton's love of alliteration. The man's unstoppable, and once I noticed his favorite poetic device, I found it littering nearly every page: "red and ragged," "angel and the ape," "reigned without rival," "clouds and creul colors," "broken past batteries of besiegers," and on and on.)
At the end of Chapter 3, Syme declares, "Perhaps what we are both doing what we think right. But what we think is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession." But in fact, it's only the fact that both Syme and Gregory are bound to a code of gentlemanly conduct that makes their etanglement, and this story, possible at all. Syme says, earlier, when invited to accopmany Gregory on his "very entertaining evening" that "I hope at least that [the poet] is always a sportsman. Permit me, here and now, to swear as a Christian, and promise as a good comrade and a fellow-artist, that I will not report anything of this..."
I'm struck by the quaint archaism of their kept promises; it's hard to imagine a present-day extremist keeping their word to a police/military officer when given the chance to overwhelm him in a well-hidden location. (And vice versa, try to imagine a federal agent not reaching for his gun — or his waterboard — when surrounded by "terrists" in their underground bunker.) While they both avow to have nothing in common and diametrically opposed goals, they understand each other so well that Syme can impersonate one of Sunday's minions and get himself elected to the Central European Council. Our own world is full of extremists of many stripes, from Al-Qaeda Islamists to anti-abortion Christianists, and I'm guessing that there aren't many on the side of "law and order" who could infiltrate their ranks so quickly and convincingly.
Quick note on Syme: surely he's the inspiration (progenitor?) for Orwell's Syme in Nineteen Eighty-Four — the hyper-orderly lexicographer, the one whose goal is to remove all but the word "Ingsoc" from people's vocabulary. For now, though, Syme seems to be our hero, turning up the inconsistencies in Gregory's philosophy and outwitting his foe in the Thursday election. I hope the story has a few more twists and turns in store for us.
Onward!
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Month That Was Thursday
This blog is a joint production of Matt and Christopher, who decided to "co-read" G.K. Chesterton's "metaphysical thriller" about anarchist plotters, the 1908 novel, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. Our interest in the book and in Chesterton was spurred by Adam Gopnik's recent profile of the writer in the New Yorker. Though a century old, the book is apparnetly quite a searching - and entertaining - exploration of terrorism, among other subjects. If you are so inclined, you can read The Man Who Was Thursday through Google Books.
Our "co-reading" plan entails making separate posts on five consecutive Thursdays, starting on August 7, in which we offer our thoughts on three chapters in the novel. We'll then reply to each other via additional posts over the following week; blog readers are welcome to post comments about how we're bad readers, writers, anarchists, and Christians. We won't mind - but we might put your name on the blacklist we're keeping for the day we take over.
Our "co-reading" plan entails making separate posts on five consecutive Thursdays, starting on August 7, in which we offer our thoughts on three chapters in the novel. We'll then reply to each other via additional posts over the following week; blog readers are welcome to post comments about how we're bad readers, writers, anarchists, and Christians. We won't mind - but we might put your name on the blacklist we're keeping for the day we take over.
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