Here we go with Part Four of our latest audio diversion, which is especially beneficial during a week otherwise devoted to badly staged pseudo-electoral vaudeville.
This month's book is The Flying Inn - G K Chesterton's 1914 caper set in an England in which the elites make common cause with Islam. Imagine that! Thank you for all your kind comments on the early installments. Steve, a First Month Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes from Manhattan:
The Flying Inn is off to a, well, flying start. The modern parallels are popping up all the time. Mark's voicing of GKC's characters is inspired, and it is a great help in understanding a complex tale. Bravo!
As to those "modern parallels", in tonight's episode even the Irishman finds what's happening hard to credit:
"But hwhat I do want—" and he suddenly dashed his big fist on the little table so that one of its legs leapt and nearly snapped—"hwhat I do want is some sort of account of what's happening in this England of yours that shan't be just obviously rubbish."
"Ah," said Pump, fingering the two letters thoughtfully. "And what do you mean by rubbish?"
"I carl it rubbish" cried Patrick Dalroy, "when ye put the Koran into the Bible and not the Apocrypha; and I carl it rubbish when a mad parson's allowed to propose to put a crescent on St. Paul's Cathedral. I know the Turks are our allies now, but they often were before, and I never heard that Palmerston or Colin Campbell had any truck with such trash."
"Lord Ivywood is very enthusiastic, I know," said Pump, with a restrained amusement. "He was saying only the other day at the Flower Show here that the time had come for a full unity between Christianity and Islam."
"Something called Chrislam perhaps," said the Irishman, with a moody eye.
Captain Dalroy is being absurdly optimistic if he thinks Christianity will get top billing in that merger. The Church of England has decided to drop the word "church" just in case it should give the misleading impression they've got something to do with religion.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Four of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
Veronica, the doyenne of Kiwi Steyn Clubbers, writes from Auckland to point out a curious omission by the Islamic mystic in the red fez and the Savile Row tailoring:
There is a mystical figure in Islamic tradition called Al-Khidr popularly known as either 'The Teacher of the Prophets' OR 'The Green Man'. He is commonly depicted clad all in green, Mohammed's favourite colour, skimming along the water on the back of a fish (In addition to being a top mystic, Al Khidr was also the Guardian of the Seas).
Amazed that the 'Prophet of the Moon' did not cite Al Khidr as the original 'Green Man' whose identity generations of misguided innkeepers have tried so shamefully to apply an English gloss to - would've impressed his mostly female audience mightily I suspect. An opportunity missed :)
Also can't believe that he hasn't pointed out yet that St George, the patron saint of England after whom many an inn was named, was in fact a fellow Turk!
But perhaps he's warming up to that :)
PS. Note how the 'Prophet of the Moon', in a very clever move, has managed to attract a well-off, female, English patron and how important patronage networks in general are, both in Chesterton's time and ours. Right wingers have forgotten this key lesson of history it seems to me.
Hmm, said Steyn, as visions of cockwombles danced in his head.
Tales for Our Time is now in its eighth year. So, if you've a friend who might be partial to our classic fiction outings, we have a special Gift Membership that, aside from over five dozen audio yarns, also includes video poetry, live music, our weekly Clubland Q&A and more.
Please join me tomorrow evening for Part Five of The Flying Inn.
