G. K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (2005, eBooksLib)
eBook
English language
Am 6. Januar 2005 von eBooksLib veröffentlicht.
The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical.
“The whole gave him a sensation, the vividness of which he could not explain, that Nature was always making quite mysterious jokes.”
Denne boka dukka opp på ei liste over klassikere, men var den eneste på lista jeg ikke en gang hadde hørt om. Så jeg kasta meg inn i den uten å lese meg noe opp først. Boka er en slags thriller, men den er tidvis absurd, satirisk og leker en del med språket. Derfor ble jeg umiddelbart minna om Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett og den typen britisk litteratur. Plottet kunne vært en episode av The Prisoner: En poet blir verva inn i en (anti-)intellektuell politistyrke som skal avdekke en anarkistkonspirasjon. Men så baller det på seg i alle retninger. Slik sett var det ei overraskende bok å finne på en klassikerliste, men fornøyelig å lese fra ende til annen (selv om den noe allegoriske slutten ikke var så spennende).
Unique. And very, very good. While some things are clearly forseeable, the book leaves you puzzling until the end, and after (if you count what Chesterton wrote about it 30 years later). The little notes that appear during the (paper?) chase are hilarious. ("What about Martin Tupper now?" What indeed.
