Welcome to the conclusion of a wintry Tale for Our Time for this January: first published in 1899, this is Jack London's account of the awesome powers of The White Silence. A First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, Josh Passell, writes:
To paraphrase the fellow you quote in the introduction, I'd rather have The White Silence than any New Yorker short story since Salinger. The snowshoeing passage alone is compelling reading. Thank you for choosing this tale and reading it so compellingly.
Thank you, Josh. I'm not sure my late New Hampshire neighbor, Mr Salinger, wouldn't have agreed with you. In tonight's concluding episode, "the pitiable thing that was once a man" faces the reality of the situation:
'I'm a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You've got to go on. You must go on! Remember, it's my wife, it's my boy--O God! I hope it's a boy! You can't stay by me--and I charge you, a dying man, to pull on.'
'Give me three days,' pleaded Malemute Kid. 'You may change for the better; something may turn up.'
'No... And, Kid, don't--don't leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You understand.'
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read the conclusion of The White Silence simply by clicking here and logging-in. Our first episode can be accessed in video here, and in audio only here.
If you enjoyed this foray into the oeuvre of Jack London, don't miss my reading of what I regard as not only his very best short story but one of the greatest short stories of all time: To Build a Fire.
Tales for Our Time started as an experimental feature we introduced as a bonus for Mark Steyn Club members, and, as you know, I said if it was a total stinkeroo, we'd eighty-six the thing and speak no more of it. But I'm thrilled to say it's proved very popular, and and we now have quite an archive. If you're a Club member and you incline more to the stinkeroo side of things, give it your best in the Comments Section below.
We launched The Mark Steyn Club over two years ago, and I'm truly grateful to all those members across the globe who've signed up to be a part of it - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Cook County to the Cook Islands, West Virginia to the West Midlands. If you've enjoyed our monthly Steyn Club audio adventures and you're looking for a present for a fellow fan of classic fiction, I hope you'll consider our special Club Gift Membership. Aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, Mark's Mailbox, and our other video content;
~My video series of classic poetry;
~Booking for special members-only events such as last month's Christmas show;
~Priority booking for the Annual Mark Steyn Cruise - which this year sails from Rome to Gibraltar, Barcelona and Monte Carlo with Michele Bachmann, Conrad Black and my other guests;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the opportunity to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here.
If you enjoyed our weekend with Jack London, I hope you'll join me very soon for a brand new and very different Tale for Our Time. And, if you've yet to hear any of our Tales, you can enjoy the first two-plus years' worth of audio adventures - by Conan Doyle, Kafka, Conrad, Gogol, Dickens, Baroness Orczy, John Buchan, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson and more - by joining our Club - and, if you're seeking the perfect present for a fellow fan of classic fiction, don't forget our Steyn Club Gift Membership.
Before we part, please allow me a quick plug for our Tales of Our Time home page in its handy Netflix-style tile format. It's super-easy to pick out whatever tickles your fancy of an evening - sci-fi, thriller, historical romance - and Timely Talers from around the world seem to like it.