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More difficult texts

One of the interesting side effects about reading books on my phone is that most are part of Project Gutenberg which preserves texts which are out of print, and for the most part, out of copyright, and so I find myself reading things which were published around 1900.

Like The Name of the Rose, I always meant to get back and read G.K. Chesterton and never did. Oh, I read Father Brown, it's short and fairly easy. But not the big stuff, even though most of my heroes (C.S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman) site Chesterton as influence and hero.

And so I found myself reading "The Man Who Was Thursday," (which incidentally explained a variety of references in Neil Gaiman's works). Like TNofTR, it too seems to be a fairly straight forward mystery...and then it goes all pear shaped.

I actually don't have that much to say because I'm still not sure what to make of it. I'd love to hear some thoughts, because I know that some people who read this have read it. It is, in some ways, the anti-thesis to TNofTR, the book that proposes knowledge and reason as a solution to the dark ages, this supposes that religion is a kind of anarchy against the stifling reason of the late 19th century. A liberation and a universe that could only be opened by that first step of faith.

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musingwoman said…
The Man Who Was Thursday is one of my all time favorite books! I've read it multiple times and have marked my used copy to bits (the annotated copy I bought new is still in pristine condition).
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