It's time for Part Seven of my latest Tale for Our Time: The Flying Inn, G K Chesterton's 1914 novel set in an England where the elites have made common cause with Islam.
Preposterous, right? Well, in tonight's episode, it falls to Lord Ivywood to say a few words before an address by the country's leading Islamic scholar. Save for the comparison to the Jews, it requires no great leap of imagination to hear these words coming out of any of today's Islamo-apologists:
"The East and the West are one. The East is no longer East nor the West West; for a small isthmus has been broken, and the Atlantic and Pacific are a single sea... I have long been increasingly convinced that underneath a certain mask of stiffness which the Mahomedan religion has worn through certain centuries, as a somewhat similar mask has been worn by the religion of the Jews, Islam has in it the potentialities of being the most progressive of all religions; so that a century or two to come we may see the cause of peace, of science and of reform everywhere supported by Islam as it is everywhere supported by Israel.
"Not in vain, I think, is the symbol of that faith the Crescent, the growing thing. While other creeds carry emblems implying more or less of finality, for this great creed of hope its very imperfection is its pride, and men shall walk fearlessly in new and wonderful paths, following the increasing curve which contains and holds up before them the eternal promises of the orb."
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can listen to me read Part Seven of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. And, if you're playing catch-up on The Flying Inn, you can start fresh with Part One and have a good old binge-listen here.
Thomas Carey, a First Day Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, appreciates the story so far:
Hi Mark,
I am really enjoying your reading and singing, what a treat. I may have missed other Tales for Our Time that had you singing, are there others or is this the first? As the unofficial A&R guy for the Mark Steyn Club I have to say "I haven't heard a single". Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Well, the singing's there, Thomas, because it's a big part of the book - which it certainly hasn't been for any other Tale. It presented a bit of a problem because I wasn't sure how we should handle it. I considered for a bit writing proper settings for the lyrics and having musical accompaniment. Then I figured that would sound odd, and not in the spirit of Mr Dalroy, who's supposed to be just bellowing boozily on the open road to tunes fished out of some recess of his brain. Not sure there's an ideal situation this side of The Flying Inn: The Musical. But at any rate thank you for your kind words.
If you'd like to join Thomas in The Mark Steyn Club, we'd love to have you along for our eighth season. So do click here for more info - and don't forget, for fellow fans of classic fiction and/or poetry, our Steyn Club Gift Membership.
