This is a hard book to review. It seems to me to be a bit of a personal pleasure project for Chesterton. Maybe published when he was so famous they'd publish anything of his, whether they liked or understood it or not.

The scenery descriptions are lengthy and are at times almost nonsensically poetic. This is certainly a source of pleasure for Chesterton- you can feel his enjoyment as you read them, even as you wonder a bit at why so much time and space is given over to background scenery.

The Madcap Character is introduced to the boarding house. He institutes strange rituals. He says outlandish things. He is Puck.

Everyone else begins to say and do madcap things. I began to feel that the Madcap Character was pulling their legs. Then I began to feel that several characters were pulling each others' legs. Then I began to feel the author was pulling my leg, perhaps even mocking me for reading all this nonsense and trying to make sense of it. It seems to teeter from earnest discourse to "just kidding, it's all hogwash" and back again. And back again.

Is this a philosophical treatise? Nonsensical frippery? A drunken tirade? I still can't tell. But it's different than the norm, I'll say that for it. I'm tempted to give it an extra star because I feel like the author successfully pulled something over on me, and I can respect that. I'm just not sure what.