Programming note: Join Steyn tomorrow, Saturday, for a another edition of his Serenade Radio show, On the Town. This week's broadcast features waltzes, questions, Swedes and mammy songs. The fun starts at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe/12 midday North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Welcome to the sixty-fifth audio adventure in our series Tales for Our Time - and our second venture into G K Chesterton, following our popular serialisation of The Man Who Was Thursday.
The Flying Inn was published in 1914, on the eve of the Great War. As I recall in my introduction, I return to this one every couple of decades - the Eighties, Oughts ...and now:
When I first read the book forty years ago, it was exotic: an England in which modernity – the progressives – makes common cause with Islam? Funny!
In the wake of 9/11, it seemed whimsical: at a time when the Muslims are flying jets into glittering Manhattan skyscrapers and blowing up nightclubs in Bali and Tube passengers in London, Chesterton wants us to believe that the Mohammedans triumph by merely persuading the west to live with Islam's most absurd strictures? Ridiculous!
And now, another twenty years on ...and it has, for the most part, happened. And, even more striking, the central animating principle of Lord Ivywood's England – the determination to stick it to the English working class and their culture – is the exact same animating principle of contemporary Uniparty England. If Chesterton had set out to write predictive fiction, he would have succeeded brilliantly.
And so we begin in an English seaside town where an absurd Muslim scholar is explaining that all the local pub names are Islamic in origin:
It is obvious, let us say, that the 'Saracen's Head' is a corruption of the historic truth 'The Saracen is Ahead'—I am far from saying it is equally obvious that the 'Green Dragon' was originally 'the Agreeing Dragoman'; though I hope to prove in my book that it is so. I will only say here that it is su-urely more probable that one poo-ooting himself forward to attract the wayfarer in the desert, would compare himself to a friendly and persuadable guide or courier, rather than to a voracious monster. Sometimes the true origin is very hard to trace; as in the inn that commemorates our great Moslem Warrior, Amir Ali Ben Bhoze, whom you have so quaintly abbreviated into Admiral Benbow. Sometimes it is even more difficult for the seeker after truth. There is a place of drink near to here called 'The Old Ship'—
And thus a great adventure is underway...
To hear me read the first part of The Flying Inn, Mark Steyn Club members should please click here and log-in.
~Thank you for all your kind comments our last Tale for Our Time - Bulldog Drummond by Sapper. Larry Durham, a Steyn Clubber from South Carolina, says:
What a rip roaring good tale. In this season of loss and change (I too lost a treasured feline companion two weeks ago - and now an even more heartbreaking illness of a human compatriot is transpiring) your splendid reading of Bulldog Drummond is a bright spot in a dark season. Thank you.
Leo, my fellow Ontarian, writes:
Another boffo story. Thanks so much for this Tale for our Time. Your creation of of each character strictly through vocalisation was terrific. We enjoyed it immensely, listening nightly to the latest cliffhanger episode.
We tried to just enjoy the story, without trying to analyze the politics of it too much. However, (this is where the 'yeah, but' comes in) it became apparent that some things never change. The bit of philosophizing Bulldog did in the denouement sums up human nature quite nicely. Today's problem is that the political class in the west is now joined at the hip with the socialist dreamers and the greedy, power hungry business tycoons. Plus ca change.
Thank you for that, Leo. We have all kinds of tales in our archives, from the leisurely comedy of Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat to P G Wodehouse with a social conscience in Psmith, Journalist - oh, and some fusty notions of honor and duty in a certain other fellow's The Prisoner of Windsor. Tales for Our Time in all its variety is both highly relevant and a welcome detox from the madness of the hour: over seven years' worth of my audio adaptations of classic fiction starting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's cracking tale of an early conflict between jihadists and westerners in The Tragedy of the Korosko. To access them all, please see our easy-to-navigate Netflix-style Tales for Our Time home page. We've introduced a similar tile format for my Sunday Poems and also for our Hundred Years Ago Show.
We launched The Mark Steyn Club nearly seven years ago, and I'm overwhelmed by 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. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that the bulk of our content remains available for everyone.
That said, we are offering our Club members a few extras, including our monthly audio adventures by Dickens, Conrad, Kafka, Gogol, Jane Austen, H G Wells, Louisa May Alcott, George Orwell, Baroness Orczy, Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Louis Stevenson - plus a couple of pieces of non-classic fiction by yours truly. You can find them all here. We're very pleased by the response to our Tales - and we even do them live occasionally, and sometimes with special guests.
I'm truly thrilled that one of the most popular of our Steyn Club extras these last seven years has been our nightly radio serials. If you've enjoyed them 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 chance to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as this coming Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show and our other video content;
~My video series of classic poetry;
~Booking for special members-only events, such as The Mark Steyn Christmas Show, assuming I'm ever again up to such demanding events;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, assuming likewise;
~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 - and don't forget that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to The Flying Inn but to all the other yarns gathered together at the Tales for Our Time home page.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you think The Flying Inn is a bust, feel free to have at it.
And do join us tomorrow evening for Part Two of our Chestertonian caper, and every night circa 7pm North American Eastern/midnight British Summer Time thereafter.
