Ballantine Adult Fantasy discussion

It's time to discuss this month's book. What did everyone think? Spoilers are OK, since we've reached the finish date.

I liked this book a lot. It really built from chapter to chapter as Syme becomes Thursday and meets each of the other days of the week culminating with the final meeting with Sunday.

Considering the meetings with each of the other days have similar outcomes (the reveal that each one is an undercover anti-anarchists police officer) Chesterton manages to make each revelation unique, so it doesn't get boring. It also allows you to believe each time that Syme is up against a real anarchist. Chesterton set us up to believe there has to be an anarchist in the group.

My brain needs a recharge. I'm in the middle of talking about a contemporary novel, a science book, and whatever pops up. I'm taking a break today from thinking. Know any good dead baby jokes? LOL.

Maybe Sunday was a bit of an anarchist himself. He took 6 police officers and kept them occupied with each other, rather than real crimes.

Or maybe it was to justify the cost of the program because there weren't any anarchist groups to infiltrate, or perhaps the best way to stop the anarchists was to replace all the higher ups in the organization with police officers.

I know what happened in the 60's with non-violent subversive groups who were infiltrated by FBI operatives who sometimes provided guns and the philosophy to use violence has been compared to this book.

I'm not sure why the names of days were used other than Chesterton used Biblical references and symbolism a lot in his books. Sunday is the day of rest, the sabbath, the day Christians honor God, the day you do nothing.

Sunday controlled the whole rest of the week (police officers). Because of what Sunday did, the others accomplished nothing. I'm just typing out loud here and not really sure where I'm going with this.

I'm not sure we have a man like Sunday to get them into Al Qaeda

What did everyone think of the ending? My thought is that Sunday had to be either Jesus or God, particularly given the give away line at the end, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" By the end of the book, each officer has walked in the shoes of the anarchist. Was the purpose of having them all chase each other around simply to make them stop judging each other? Also, Sunday is the day of rest. The other days of the week represent God's work.

I'll be honest,my first reaction is I'm not even sure what an out-of-genre horror novel is. I'd probably just call it slipstream and call it a day. Since The Man Who Was Thursday was published before the horror genre even existed, it's hard to even know how to argue a point here. I'm not even sure if mystery was a considered genre back in 1908. For me it always comes down to the fact that genre is a way of shelving, marketing and selling books. If horror becomes big enough that it sells better than fantasy, you'll find The Man Who Was Thursday on the horror shelf because it has some supernatural elements in it, is a bit dystopian and with the right cover will sell there. And then someone will argue it's an out-of-genre fantasy novel. But then I like to drive people nuts by telling them Science Fiction is just a sub-genre of Fantasy.

Are there horror elements in The Man Who Was Thursday? I think so. That last scene was pretty scary. But I think another question comes up here. Was it written as a horror novel? And the answer has to be no. Was it written as a fantasy novel? I'd have to say no again. I think it's more likely it was written as a mystery novel of sorts (since Chesterton is known for the Father Brown mysteries) with some spiritual elements and a really cool twist.

I know when I start writing something (I'm working on two novels) I don't really know what genre it will fall into when I start and I don't really care. When enough is written and the characters show me where we're going, I can start looking at the characteristics and see, well this one is fantasy with some dark elements, so it's probably dark fantasy. And then some people will say, no that's horror and others will look at it and say it takes place in the future so it's got to be science fiction even if there's hardly any science in it and what's there is bogus.

I guess you can tell how I feel about genre labels. LOL I like it when they're all mixed together the best, I think.

It's more fun to blame it all on Clearchannel,