Here we go with Part Four of our latest audio diversion, and our first foray into the oeuvre of Robert Hugh Benson. Lord of the World is a work of speculative fiction from 1907 about the western world in the early twenty-first century - and Mr Benson got an awful lot of things right.
Thank you for all your kind comments on the early installments of this tale. Annie, a Texas member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
I am so excited you are reading this book! I have read it twice, the second time as my selection when it was my turn to host my book club last year.
Anyway, I will be very curious as to how LOTW is received by the MSC, as it is very Catholic. I think it's a fascinating book, and its prescience is remarkable.
Well, I don't know whether it's "very" Catholic. But I'm aware that some listeners may incline towards the Earl of Grantham's view in Downton Abbey, after his daughter runs off with the Fenian chauffeur, that re Catholicism "I always feel there's a whiff of Johnny Foreigner about it".
That might have been a viable position for early twentieth-century Anglicans discerning something vaguely unEnglish in an excess of "bells and smells". However, the author's main point is that in the world of a century hence (ie, now) Catholicism would have held the line - and mainline Protestantism wouldn't. So here we are in a world where the Church of England ordains female bishops, the US Episcopal Church ordains openly gay bishops, the Lutheran Church is currently being sued for transphobia by its first transgender bishop, and the Congregational Church professes to be "open and affirming" about just about anything presently in vogue or soon to be.
So I'd say R H Benson called that one pretty accurately. Setting aside shifting tastes in sexual identity, one notes that in the broader picture, back when Benson was writing, the US Supreme Court, like most American institutions, had been dominated by WASPs for the entirety of its existence. Now there is a solitary white Protestant - and the Court, for the century to date, has been dominated by Catholics. Is "WASP" even a thing anymore?
What fills the void as a believing Christendom shrinks? In tonight's episode, Oliver's wife returns from witnessing a bloody aeroplane crash:
"Oliver, what do you say to people when they are dying?"
"Say! Why, nothing! What can I say? But I don't think I've ever seen any one die."
"Nor have I till to-day," said the girl, and shivered a little. "The euthanasia people were soon at work."
And in this Tale, as in Justin Trudeau's Canada, there's a lot of that about.
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.
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 nearly six 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 Lord of the World.
