The Flying Inn

Rating:
Summary: Weird and Wonderful
Review: A fantastical rollercoaster of a book presenting the deranged but life-loving forces of Merry England holding back the tide of dreary and oppressive modernity in the form of Prohibition, Vegetarianism and Theosophy. The plot involves a pre-1914 alliance between the teetotal Ottoman Empire and 'progressive' British killjoys, keen to introduce Europe to the spiritual benefits of Islamic culture. Only a singing Irish Captain and a pub landlord with a keg of rum and a giant cheese stand in their way. As their 'flying inn' evades prohibition on a rollicking journey round England, Chesterton makes swipes at the various forms of 'advanced thought' prevalent in his day, satirised in drinking songs, and in the absurd meetings of the Simple Souls, a society devoted to progress. Even 'Post-Futurist' art gets a hammering, until the Falstaffian culture of old England is restored to the sound of many a drunken song.

A loopy book, to be sure, and one which manages to be gloriously politically incorrect. Some of the targets of Chesterton's attacks will seem obscure to modern readers, but the fun is irresistible. A major precursor to Magic Realism, well before its time. The Post-Futurists are far less Post-modern than this. And we should all drink to that.

Rating:
Summary: Lust for Life, Political Incorrectness, and God
Review: G. K. Chesterton is a hugely powerful voice, both intellectually and spiritually. I resonate to him as I do to few others (a few examples of my personal favorites, going in different directions, would be Leo Tolstoy, Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, James Branch Cabell). "The Flying Inn", published in England in 1914, is a tale of a man who is confronted by modern cultural trends -- and, oddly enough, this focus on all things "modern" (in 1914) is no less relevant today than it was a hundred years ago. Chesterton saw England as being a culture in transition and in conflict with itself, and the struggles he saw play out dramatically in this novel: The individual versus the collective; common sense versus political correctness; right and wrong versus legal and illegal; a healthy soul versus a healthy body. But to state these themes makes the book sound like a lecture, and it's not that (although it does freely meander into occasional philosophical discourses, some of which didn't hold my interest); this story is, more than anything else, an adventure and an odyssey, which begins when Mr. Humphrey Pump wants to visit the local pub in pursuit of a pleasant hour, but he finds it is being shut down by lawmakers who have decreed the neighborhood bar to be an unhealthy anachronism. Thus begins a tale of flight and civil disobedience (hence the title, "The Flying Inn"). We meet a curious collection of characters that are driving, hindering, observing, and contemplating this safe, regulated, soulless, terrifying world of the near future.

The descriptions of multicultural mandates are prescient. For example, one of the major characters, an English lawmaker, is enamored with Islam, and he becomes an agent of social progress, having decided it's necessary to make England less offensive to its Muslim friends -- thus England is to be purged of pubs, not to mention, for example, ending the offensive Christian habit of marking ballots with a cross (they should be marked instead with a crescent). A lot of the details of this enlightened "tolerance" ring disturbingly true when juxtaposed against the excesses of the present day.

Like "Gulliver's Travels", "The Flying Inn" is both a serious social comment and a lot of fun. There's a reason it's still in print after all these years.

Rating:
Summary: Superlative
Review: The Flying Inn is a delightful treasury of wit, poetry, and commentary, wrapped together in a story written in the positive spirit of early 20th-century adventure books. Some of the specifics might at first appear to be dated, but the theme is more relevant than ever.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: They say that Chesterton was at his best when he was at his lightest, that it was when his insights and prophecies came forth most abundantly. Having read The Flying Inn, all I can say to the above is INDEED. The Flying Inn is so hilarious, rollicking, and downright politically incorrect. But not politically incorrect as some left-wing liberals try to be today. Their attempts at satire utterly lack life and they have a snarl and sneer that gives their satire impotence. Here though, in The Flying Inn, G.K. Chesterton weaves a satire that is at once innocent and jolly as much as his other writing, yet inflicting, cutting, and merciless as the satire of Waugh. In fact, it seems the more jolly and innocent G.K. gets, the more he is able to make capacity for the cutting satire. In this book they go hand in hand, and bubble over with the exuberance and notion that the book is also realizing its own joke. This is G.K.C. laughing at his best.

Rating:
Summary: Superlative
Review: This novel, written just before the outbreak of World War I, belongs to my absolute favourite books. It is quintessential England in a nutshell, and foresees in a remarkable way, how the world seems to develop now, ninety years later. The attempts at amalgamation of different cultures, and the clashes - alas worse in reality in so many parts of our globe - are wrapped in a story with lively action, humour, and interlarded with some pieces of the most delightful poetry. Any student of political and ideological phenomena, as well as psychological warfare, would find this book inspiring. Yet, it is as good an entertainment as you would wish for. The various personalities are to the point, and you might recognize quite a few characters from among your own acquaintances. Just as an example: Only a genius can give a name to a fictitious and politically opportunist and obsequious journalist, such as "Mr. Hibbs However"! Warmly recommended!