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The Flying Inn |
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Author:
G. K. Chesterton
By Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $12.95
Our Price: $7.00
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Product Description
Armed with a donkey cart filled with rum, cheese and a tavern signpost, pub owner Humphrey Hump and a companion take to the road in this rollicking, madcap adventure, extending good cheer to a cast of memorable characters. A hilarious, satirical romp in which Chesterton inveighs against Prohibition, vegetarianism, theosophy, and other oppressive forms of modernity.
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Exquisite, wise, snug and somewhat hilarious, 2008-12-31
Don't let an absurd plot to frighten you. As is his custom, Chesterton knows to sharpen the message of his fiction by a generous touch of absurd and paradox.The result is a book wise,light and full of poetry (both in literal and figurative sence). It's my favorite Chesterton's novel and the first I've read. It was in my childhood after multiple nice Father Brown stories and the book produced a strange effect: without understanding the plot or the idea, I got a very definite and deep sensation that I did love it. This feeling made me pick it up in the University Library years after my first experience, and so my adult aquaintance with Chesterton began. I keep loving it ever since, even if I know it to well to be surprised by wise paradoxes, snug romantics of home and subtle observations.
 Outrageous comedy, non-outrageous philosophy, 2006-12-25
"The Flying Inn" is neither Chesterton's best novel nor his worst. It is not his funniest novel, but it may be the one that hits the widest variety of topics. One might summarize the plot of "The Flying Inn" (two lovable rogues run around with a keg of rum after alcohol is outlawed in England), but that would be like saying that "The Odyssey" is about a guy on a boat. The best I can do is to say that "The Flying Inn" is a travelogue. For a certainty, Captain Dalroy and Humphrey Pump are involved in a real battle against England's enemies, both external (Islam) and internal (rich people). But on their march to war, they have plenty of time to sit back with a cup of ale, sing a drinking song or two, and enjoy life. And also to take some swipes at the irksome facets of modernity, such as timid newspapers and non-rhyming poetry.
"The Flying Inn" sells itself. Anyone who's read and loved Chesterton will have to pick it up, and anyone who reads the first few chapters will be hooked. There's nothing more I can say to encourage you to read it. I will say that Chesterton's fiction supports his non-fiction, and vice versa. Read his essays and you'll better understand the themes of his novels. Read the novels and you'll see the ideas behind the eassys presented in all their glory. You really can't get enough of this guy, but "The Flying Inn" comes close.
a complete waste of time, 2006-12-01
"The Flying Inn," first published in 1914, is a toned-down science-fiction novel by Chesterton in which (a then-future) England is taken over by an aggressive form of Islam, and Christians are pretty much on the run. The story centers around the hijinks of the screwball duo, Humphrey Pump and Captain Dalroy, as they make their way around England trying to avoid the new Prohibition.
I know what you're thinking: What a great idea! I think I'll read it, since that's kinda sorta what's happening today, right? Should be engrossing!
Alas! The whole thing is a dreary waste of time. Chesterton, despite his reputation, knows precious little about Islam (other than that in it you're not supposed to drink and sing songs, and you can marry more than one woman).
For example, all the women in the now supposedly-Muslim England don't have to veil (there is no mention whatsoever of the veil), not to mention prayer call, Sharia, dhimmitude, jihad, Jew-hatred, or sectarian strife. If Chesterton had done a little research (or traveled much in Muslim countries), he would certainly have explored these possibilities in a much more relevant and informed way.
Unfortunately, in the author's mind, Islam appears (!) to have been an almost perfect substitute for Christianity, with the exception that there is to be no beer or songs. Hence most of the novel centers around the efforts of his main characters to reassert their Englishness by drinking and singing for pages on end. Like I said, a total waste of your time.
As if that wasn't enough, it's not a very good novel, even on its own terms. The characters are not sketched memorably, an elliptical treatment of the backstory severs your emotional connection to the plot, and the whole thing is far too stiff and wordy.
In all, the thing has nowhere near the relevance, humor, and power that its premise might suggest to the modern reader.
Don't believe those other reviews: anybody who had actually read it wouldn't recommend it. The book is deservedly obscure.
(A cracking good read by Chesterton is "The Man Who Was Thursday," although that has nothing to do with Islam.)
Song of Quoodle, 2006-08-16
Even fans of Chesterton's fiction like Martin Gardner have reservations about this story. It's not subtitled "a nightmare" as is The Man Who Was Thursday, but in some ways it is, moreso than Thursday. Written as a serial, it's full of short bits, laced with slapstick and undisguisedly attacks GKC's favorite hobby horses.
But there's method to his madness, and by the end it almost seems like a different book. Along the way, parts of it are almost non-fiction. For instance, the text is sprinkled with light-hearted poems, such as Song of Quoodle, ostensibly about a dog, but likely about something else. There's also a line "cocoa is a cad" which GKC reveals in his autobiography referred to Cadbury's chocolate, GKC at once expressing his preference for beer and making a political point.
The beginning of this book seemed to me so odd that I just kept reading without trying to figure it out. Some ninety years after he wrote it (1914) this story seems prescient. One asks oneself what about Victorian England could inspire a tale that so resonates with the changing world of today.
The plot initially seemed to me rather thin, but, as I ought to have known, it was merely a tributary of the real plot. "Flying" in the title means "moving", and the Inn consists solely of a wheel of cheese and a keg of beer. From that Chesterton not only weaves a light-hearted and entrancing story, but also makes salient points about what is really important. All of which made me want to fly into the local inn and raise a toast to GKC.
Comic and Tragic Masterpiece, 2006-07-14
The Flying Inn defied many of my expectations of the book, but is imbued with Chesteron and his many unique prophetic touches. Throughout, the story is a meandering dash of unlikely heroes, pitted against all the forces of "modern" society. In this respect, the book is a clear precursor to CS Lewis' "That Hideous Strength", and bears a great deal of similarity to Chesterton's "The Ball & The Cross". From the standpoint of the characters and the plot, "The Flying Inn" is hilarious. I read it on the airplane and caught myself laughing out loud.
But then there is the tragic component of the story, which is that the prophetic vein has proven all too true. Certainly the west never embraced and incorporated Islam to the extent that Chesterton portrays - the temperance movement is quiescent for the moment, and although everything from fast food to meat is under assault from the nanny state, the attack doesn't bear the hallmarks of a crypto-islamic ethic.
But, Chesterton accurately portrays the weakness of the West as it abandons its underlying moral strength as it abandons Christianity, leaving it at the mercy of societies in which self-hatred and tolerance are not treated as virtues. There is a strong Chesterbelloc tone to the book - Hillaire Belloc's catalog of the enemies of the Church are well represented. Indeed, "The Flying Inn" demonstrates Chesteron's gift at immortalizing concepts, where Belloc's more lucid expositions are dated and flat.
Where Chesteron's "The Ball & The Cross" illustrates a dystopia of modernism and apathy, "The Flying Inn" illustrates a dystopia of oligarchic cultural relativism. And it is just such an assault that has rendered the West so vulnerable to the current assault by Islam - an assault not by violence and conquest (despite the activities of terrorists), but an assault of belief and energy. Muslim immigration has transformed Europe, and outside of England and Poland, there is little resistance left in the weak old secular dominions. Chesterton's world is coming to pass - the green banners of "the prophet" fly ever more freely in Europe.
And yet, despite the enormity of both the portrayal and realization of the death of a great civilization, Chesterton's romping tale leaves you hopeful and cheerful. Ultimately, Merrie England and its children will have the final laugh - precisely because we CAN laugh, and our enemies cannot.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780486419107
ISBN: 048641910X
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2001-12-10
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications |
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