Chesterton IS Innocent Smith. Even after his death he's firing life and laughter into people who've forgotten what it looks like. He's a breath of fresh air in a post-post-modern world. The chapter where Smith threatens his university professor into admitting his preference for life over death will stick with me - it's such a perfect summary of how easily our intellectual rhetoric can deceive us, and how obvious the truth becomes when the lie is backed up against the wall.

I am a big fan of GK Chesterton, so it pains me to give him such a low rating on one of his novels. But this novel just didn't work as far as I was concerned. It was the story of a naif, a college professor named Innocent Smith who was accused of a murder when visiting a household of people who do not really appreciate his personality. The first half of the story is the bickering between Smith and the various characters who inhabit the house where the story takes place. The second half of the story is a "Law & Order" style legal proceeding in which Smith makes his case for innocence. In some ways this is a crime novel, but it's not really that. There's plenty of Chesterton style humor in the story, and of course Chesterton's own style of social criticism. But my experience here is that it's hard to follow this story, and you lose attention quickly. While a great lover of Chesterton may appreciate "Manalive", most others would not. Therefore, I render it a verdict of only 3 stars....

Epically boring. It started off good, but then got really confusing toward the end, and I couldn't understand what was happening. It took me a week to read.

Simply put: The best book of all the bloody time.

The world needs priest to remind men that they will die; but it needs the poet sometimes to remind them that they LIVE. Paraphrased.

Manalive is perhaps my favourite of all time. Oy, that's all.

It's a bit of an antidote, as well as a rollicking good mystery intermingled with philosophical fun.

The story of innocent Smith. Whose youth and innocence are infectious and divisive.