I'll be on the telly with Tucker in an hour or so - 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. Ahead of that, it's time for Part Seven of our serialization of The Island of Dr Moreau by H G Wells. Fran Lavery, a First-Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Rochester, New York on my tour with Dennis Miller a few weeks back, has been enjoying this one:
Half the enjoyment of these tales is hearing the change of accents and voices Mark uses. He sure does nail the voice of the old drunken captain. That is one thunderous-sounding drunk whose voice shakes me to the core. I remember seeing an old B & W film based on this tale but hearing the language in the opening scenes has set the stage much better for what emotionally disturbing things are yet to unfold.
What was once merely about to unfold is now doing so, Fran. In tonight's episode Edward Prendick has escaped the House of Pain and found himself among those on the receiving end of Dr Moreau's science:
The little pink sloth-creature stood in the aperture of the hut, and something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over its shoulder.
"Hey!" came out of the lump of mystery opposite. "It is a man."
"It is a man," gabbled my conductor, "a man, a man, a five-man, like me."
"Shut up!" said the voice from the dark, and grunted. I gnawed my cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness.
I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing.
"It is a man," the voice repeated. "He comes to live with us?"
It was a thick voice, with something in it—a kind of whistling overtone—that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent was strangely good.
The Ape-man looked at me as though he expected something. I perceived the pause was interrogative. "He comes to live with you," I said.
"It is a man. He must learn the Law."
"The Law"? Yes. Because when you play God, it is necessary to create your own Ten Commandments. Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear Part Seven of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in.
If you'd like to know more about The Mark Steyn Club, well, we're days away from our second birthday and would love to have you along for our third year. So please click here for more info - and don't forget, for fellow fans of classic fiction and/or poetry, our Steyn Club Gift Membership.
See you on the TV at 8pm Eastern - and do join me back here tomorrow for Part Eight of The Island of Dr Moreau.
