Commentary/review

A fun classic book for someone in a mood for weirdness. It was first published in 1908. Michaił Bułhakow started writing “Master and Margarita” in 1928. These books feel quite similar, although where “Master and Margarita” is grim, “The Man Who Was Thursday” is funny. In parts, it is a little too long and has no female characters to speak of. It features long dialogues, skeleton descriptions of London and French countryside, and an odd pursuit scene. It probably also shows how structured, even rigid, was the life of an upper-class English man at the time. The metaphysics are obscure and seem irrelevant. If it is a lively book about the nature of evil, there is not much to take away from it. Yet despite being out-of-date, the book is fun, witty and worth your time.

This absurd cover which has nothing to do with the book must be one of my favorites. It is rather ugly but too funny to ignore.

Cover Photo by Léon McGregor on Unsplash