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La Taberna Errante
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.
362 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1914
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About the author
G.K. Chesterton
4,643 books5,750 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
July 30, 2011
Yep. Chesterton again. Manic-depressive bastard that I am, I love his work and Joseph Conrad’s equally. Chesterton’s thinking is very similar to mine when I’m hypomanic, while Conrad’s is similar to mine when I endure depressive and "mixed" episodes. This book is a thoroughly enjoyable, manic romp across Chesterton’s rich, ever-optimistic mental landscape.
A more mature work than The Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Flying Inn is an examination (and indictment) of authoritarianism and progressivism, and an expression of distrust for power in and of itself. Written on the eve of World War I (when the European empires’ chickens first came home to roost), …TFI proved even more prophetic than the former. Set in a UK besieged by theosophists, vegetarians, rabid xenophiles and other turn-of-the-century fruitcakes, TFI accurately presaged the modern, NuLab-dominated, post-British Britain we modern Americans have ironically (and hypocritically) come to pity.
An allegory, romance, and expression of populist defiance all at once, TFI chronicles the adventures of one Humphrey Pump (an English pub owner) and his friend, Captain Patrick Dalroy -- a truculent, red-bearded Irish giant in the service of a decaying, increasingly ridiculous and dwarfish Britain. Opposing them is a cast of silly (but sinister) villains -- villains rendered all the more sinister by their inability to perceive their own silliness.
The novel begins with one of the protagonists, Captain Patrick Dalroy (an Irishman serving in the British navy) resigning his commission at the conclusion of a ridiculous, one-sided treaty with the Turks, courtesy of his nemesis, Lord Ivywood.
Dalroy then returns to England and renews his acquaintance with his friend, Humphrey Pump. When the Ivywood-dominated government, under the influence of a Turkish mystic and pseudo-scholar (my bone of contention, incidentally: no son of the grey or red wolf –however strident -- ever influenced the UK as profoundly as even the most transparently fraudulent cow-worshipper of the Subcontinent) prohibits the sale of alcohol, Pump and Dalroy load an immense hoop of cheese and a keg of rum into a donkey cart and hit the road, dispensing good cheer (and populist defiance) the length and breadth of the country.
I won’t ruin the story, but I’ll add that Ivywood is perhaps the most sinister of Chesterton’s villains – all the more so because he’s ridiculous without being funny. Embodying the almost mechanistic irrationality of the ideological fanatic, Ivywood is Hoffer’s "true believer" – but at the opposite end of the social "food chain."
A more mature work than The Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Flying Inn is an examination (and indictment) of authoritarianism and progressivism, and an expression of distrust for power in and of itself. Written on the eve of World War I (when the European empires’ chickens first came home to roost), …TFI proved even more prophetic than the former. Set in a UK besieged by theosophists, vegetarians, rabid xenophiles and other turn-of-the-century fruitcakes, TFI accurately presaged the modern, NuLab-dominated, post-British Britain we modern Americans have ironically (and hypocritically) come to pity.
An allegory, romance, and expression of populist defiance all at once, TFI chronicles the adventures of one Humphrey Pump (an English pub owner) and his friend, Captain Patrick Dalroy -- a truculent, red-bearded Irish giant in the service of a decaying, increasingly ridiculous and dwarfish Britain. Opposing them is a cast of silly (but sinister) villains -- villains rendered all the more sinister by their inability to perceive their own silliness.
The novel begins with one of the protagonists, Captain Patrick Dalroy (an Irishman serving in the British navy) resigning his commission at the conclusion of a ridiculous, one-sided treaty with the Turks, courtesy of his nemesis, Lord Ivywood.
Dalroy then returns to England and renews his acquaintance with his friend, Humphrey Pump. When the Ivywood-dominated government, under the influence of a Turkish mystic and pseudo-scholar (my bone of contention, incidentally: no son of the grey or red wolf –however strident -- ever influenced the UK as profoundly as even the most transparently fraudulent cow-worshipper of the Subcontinent) prohibits the sale of alcohol, Pump and Dalroy load an immense hoop of cheese and a keg of rum into a donkey cart and hit the road, dispensing good cheer (and populist defiance) the length and breadth of the country.
I won’t ruin the story, but I’ll add that Ivywood is perhaps the most sinister of Chesterton’s villains – all the more so because he’s ridiculous without being funny. Embodying the almost mechanistic irrationality of the ideological fanatic, Ivywood is Hoffer’s "true believer" – but at the opposite end of the social "food chain."
January 8, 2021
Chesterton's essays are brimming with mini-parables and illustrative anecdotes, peopled by persons both historical and imagined. This story feels much as if he set out to write an essay, but the anecdotes took over: the characters broadened and clambered right out of the mini-parables and seized upon lives of their own. The result is The Flying Inn, a string of episodes into which mini-essays (and dozens of uproarious songs and poems) keep on breaking.
The tale is told with exuberance and does, finally, resolve into something like a novel. But you've got to keep with it, and resign yourself from the outset to a story rather thickly yet entertainingly mediated by a storyteller who wishes to make a number of observations and points; indeed, he has spun his yarn for no other purpose.
Once you've got to the end, and learned what the story you've been reading is, you'll be prepared to fully enjoy the book. But not before.
The tale is told with exuberance and does, finally, resolve into something like a novel. But you've got to keep with it, and resign yourself from the outset to a story rather thickly yet entertainingly mediated by a storyteller who wishes to make a number of observations and points; indeed, he has spun his yarn for no other purpose.
Once you've got to the end, and learned what the story you've been reading is, you'll be prepared to fully enjoy the book. But not before.
January 12, 2015
Definite mixed emotions on picking up this one: eager to read, but trembling a tad at the prospect.
Reading one hundred year old novels about the clash of cultures is something that will generally make your liberal leaning twenty-first century man (that’s me, by the way) quake with nerves. The world has moved so far in the last hundred years, what’s accepted in society is so different. So while reading a novel from 1914, there’s the good possibility that in amongst the plot, the characters and the themes, there will be a good bit of nose holding as offensiveness levels rise. Yet there was something so tantalising about a G.K. Chesterton novel where he examines Islam in Britain that I just couldn’t resist.
Looking back on the news of 1914, it’s hard to believe that the threat of hard-line Muslims impinging on British society was something was high up in British people’s minds. In 2015 scarcely a week (or maybe two days; or this past terrible week, one day) goes by without a comment piece or two in the press. Yet a hundred years ago, given that a huge European war was about to ignite, it doesn’t feel like it’d have been that big an issue at all. But there you go, this book somehow exists. I found myself wondering: how much of it would be pertinent and relevant today?
For all my worries of blatant intolerance just pouring off the page though, it seems like Chesterton didn’t do much research into what Islam actually meant. Basically he boils the faith down to just stopping people having a drink. Yes, it’s enforced abstinence which is the main thrust and driver of the book. Islam may be the face that’s given to it, but really it’s impossible to ignore that the Christian temperance movement was much more lively and healthy in 1914 (and would soon achieve success with prohibition in the USA). That’s the real target of this book: how wrong it is – whether the impulse comes from an Islamic preacher or a wrong-headed aristocrat – to stop an Englishman indulging his God given right to have a sip of rum or wine or beer. Rather than dealing seriously with Islam, Chesterton is just taking on puritanism and dressing it up in Arabic robes for fun. Yes there are nods towards not eating pork and polygamy at points later in the book, but it’s decoration with no willingness to engage beyond the narrowest viewpoint.
The plot, such as it is, sees an English Lord fall under the influence of an Islamic preacher and start to shut down pubs, while making a law that no alcohol can be sold unless there is a pub sign present. If there are no pubs though, there can’t be any pub signs and so no alcohol can be sold. A couple of eccentric radicals rescue a sign, a cask of rum and a wheel of cheese and travel around the country flaunting the rules. It’s a picaresque tale, one with frequent deviations which become so overwhelming that by the end Chesterton has completely lost control of his book and it splutters to a halt.
Novels are of course being written today about the relations between Islam and The West (Michel Houellebecq was on the front cover of Charlie Hedbo this week promoting his). And these books will be more challenging than ‘The Flying Inn’ as they’ll actually engage in the subject, rather than using the garb just for dressing up. Some of them, if we’re honest, will actually go out of their way to be far more offensive than this tome. As ‘The Flying Inn’ is merely an intermittently amusing book, one whose offensiveness comes from its Western imperialistic refusal to take other cultures remotely seriously. It doesn’t address, challenge or comment on anything beyond the most narrow concerns of 1914, and so has little to say for itself today. It’s a long, bawdy, drunken tale which has little of pertinence and is utterly innocuous and toothless.
In short I'm not disappointed in it because there are meaningful points in between some truly offensive and jingoistic passages which don't sit well with a 2015 audience; instead I'm disappointed with it because it never rouses itself to engage with its subject and so offends in the most blase, careless and self-righteously casual way. There's no meat, only blather.
Reading one hundred year old novels about the clash of cultures is something that will generally make your liberal leaning twenty-first century man (that’s me, by the way) quake with nerves. The world has moved so far in the last hundred years, what’s accepted in society is so different. So while reading a novel from 1914, there’s the good possibility that in amongst the plot, the characters and the themes, there will be a good bit of nose holding as offensiveness levels rise. Yet there was something so tantalising about a G.K. Chesterton novel where he examines Islam in Britain that I just couldn’t resist.
Looking back on the news of 1914, it’s hard to believe that the threat of hard-line Muslims impinging on British society was something was high up in British people’s minds. In 2015 scarcely a week (or maybe two days; or this past terrible week, one day) goes by without a comment piece or two in the press. Yet a hundred years ago, given that a huge European war was about to ignite, it doesn’t feel like it’d have been that big an issue at all. But there you go, this book somehow exists. I found myself wondering: how much of it would be pertinent and relevant today?
For all my worries of blatant intolerance just pouring off the page though, it seems like Chesterton didn’t do much research into what Islam actually meant. Basically he boils the faith down to just stopping people having a drink. Yes, it’s enforced abstinence which is the main thrust and driver of the book. Islam may be the face that’s given to it, but really it’s impossible to ignore that the Christian temperance movement was much more lively and healthy in 1914 (and would soon achieve success with prohibition in the USA). That’s the real target of this book: how wrong it is – whether the impulse comes from an Islamic preacher or a wrong-headed aristocrat – to stop an Englishman indulging his God given right to have a sip of rum or wine or beer. Rather than dealing seriously with Islam, Chesterton is just taking on puritanism and dressing it up in Arabic robes for fun. Yes there are nods towards not eating pork and polygamy at points later in the book, but it’s decoration with no willingness to engage beyond the narrowest viewpoint.
The plot, such as it is, sees an English Lord fall under the influence of an Islamic preacher and start to shut down pubs, while making a law that no alcohol can be sold unless there is a pub sign present. If there are no pubs though, there can’t be any pub signs and so no alcohol can be sold. A couple of eccentric radicals rescue a sign, a cask of rum and a wheel of cheese and travel around the country flaunting the rules. It’s a picaresque tale, one with frequent deviations which become so overwhelming that by the end Chesterton has completely lost control of his book and it splutters to a halt.
Novels are of course being written today about the relations between Islam and The West (Michel Houellebecq was on the front cover of Charlie Hedbo this week promoting his). And these books will be more challenging than ‘The Flying Inn’ as they’ll actually engage in the subject, rather than using the garb just for dressing up. Some of them, if we’re honest, will actually go out of their way to be far more offensive than this tome. As ‘The Flying Inn’ is merely an intermittently amusing book, one whose offensiveness comes from its Western imperialistic refusal to take other cultures remotely seriously. It doesn’t address, challenge or comment on anything beyond the most narrow concerns of 1914, and so has little to say for itself today. It’s a long, bawdy, drunken tale which has little of pertinence and is utterly innocuous and toothless.
In short I'm not disappointed in it because there are meaningful points in between some truly offensive and jingoistic passages which don't sit well with a 2015 audience; instead I'm disappointed with it because it never rouses itself to engage with its subject and so offends in the most blase, careless and self-righteously casual way. There's no meat, only blather.
February 12, 2022
ENGLISH: This is Chesterton at his best. In this book, one century ahead of his time, he foresees the current garrulousness about "an open and inter-religious education, rather than an exclusivist and intolerant religious indoctrination."
He also foresees correctly the attempt to introduce Islam in Europe, if not as a full-fledged religious option, at least as a weapon to attack Christianity.
But the people revolution that saves England from the post-modernist politically-correct stunt is little credible. I'm afraid I'm far less optimist than Chesterton.
ESPAÑOL: Este es el mejor Chesterton. En este libro, que se adelantó un siglo a su tiempo, prevé la locuacidad actual sobre "una educación abierta e interreligiosa, en lugar de adoctrinamiento religioso exclusivista e intolerante".
También prevé correctamente el intento de introducir el Islam en Europa, si no como opción religiosa en toda regla, al menos como arma para atacar al cristianismo.
Pero la revolución popular que salva a Inglaterra de las argucias posmodernistas políticamente correctas. Me temo que soy mucho menos optimista que Chesterton.
He also foresees correctly the attempt to introduce Islam in Europe, if not as a full-fledged religious option, at least as a weapon to attack Christianity.
But the people revolution that saves England from the post-modernist politically-correct stunt is little credible. I'm afraid I'm far less optimist than Chesterton.
ESPAÑOL: Este es el mejor Chesterton. En este libro, que se adelantó un siglo a su tiempo, prevé la locuacidad actual sobre "una educación abierta e interreligiosa, en lugar de adoctrinamiento religioso exclusivista e intolerante".
También prevé correctamente el intento de introducir el Islam en Europa, si no como opción religiosa en toda regla, al menos como arma para atacar al cristianismo.
Pero la revolución popular que salva a Inglaterra de las argucias posmodernistas políticamente correctas. Me temo que soy mucho menos optimista que Chesterton.
September 4, 2018
I miss those kind of stories-do they make it still nowadays? A satirical, humorous story that makes you curl with a soft blanket next to the fire sipping a hot chocolate and indulging yourself with earthly delights. Making fun of legalism or prohibition-Chesterton paints a picture so real. From finding loopholes in keeping a pub open-a flying inn, to the atrocious speeches "important people" give, to the conformism of the masses, you will laugh, wonder, and laugh again.
October 9, 2008
An odd book.
Chesterton's an amazing proser, and his books are pretty much always delightful from a using-the-english-language point of view. And there's a lot to like about this book, which is sort of a love letter to alcohol and the Traditional English folk who drink it. There is much silliness and romping around with a keg of rum and a giant wheel of cheese. There are many rollicking songs to sing while rolling said keg of rum down the road. But there's also a darkness to the book, a deep anxiety and shadow that seems very timely: the fear of arabs.
In this semi-sci-fi alternate britain, 'oriental' influences have banned booze, promoted (gasp) vegetarianism, sought to replace christianity with idol-worship, and in general replaced dear old england's can-do spirit with a lurking islamic/hindu voodoo. The books reveals a bit too much xenophobia for my taste.
In times less full of fear (I just got that anti-islam propaganda DVD in the mail yesterday) this would be fine and I could ignore it and enjoy the playful parts of the book. Reading it now though was fairly unpleasant, and will make it harder for me to enjoy Father Brown in the future.
Chesterton's an amazing proser, and his books are pretty much always delightful from a using-the-english-language point of view. And there's a lot to like about this book, which is sort of a love letter to alcohol and the Traditional English folk who drink it. There is much silliness and romping around with a keg of rum and a giant wheel of cheese. There are many rollicking songs to sing while rolling said keg of rum down the road. But there's also a darkness to the book, a deep anxiety and shadow that seems very timely: the fear of arabs.
In this semi-sci-fi alternate britain, 'oriental' influences have banned booze, promoted (gasp) vegetarianism, sought to replace christianity with idol-worship, and in general replaced dear old england's can-do spirit with a lurking islamic/hindu voodoo. The books reveals a bit too much xenophobia for my taste.
In times less full of fear (I just got that anti-islam propaganda DVD in the mail yesterday) this would be fine and I could ignore it and enjoy the playful parts of the book. Reading it now though was fairly unpleasant, and will make it harder for me to enjoy Father Brown in the future.
April 13, 2012
Chesterton's writing is too big for his books as he maintains an extra storyline or two and suffuses the narrative with poems, but he remains Chesterton, and such trivial flaws are quickly forgiven. This story was particularly amusing, as inns and pubs, really any place that serves alcohol, are closed down as the Muslim religion conquests ideologically through England. A wildly Chestertonian character and a common Britisher band together to exploit a loophole in the law, bringing Christian rum across the country by means of the Flying Inn. Chesterton is unafraid to view the conflict of religions through the lens of apparently trivial liberties, and rompingly makes his case by means of a silly novel. He would, of course, consider silly novels to be the most potent kind, and I for one wouldn't mind many more such efforts replacing earnest Amish fiction everywhere.
September 8, 2009
Fighting an evil regime with beer! Only Chesterton could do it, and so well.
October 25, 2024
A difficult Chesterton book to rate. On one hand, there is much to enjoy here and the novel as a whole presents a great argument against the overweening and smothering moralistic progressive state that aims to reshape the common people for their own good and ends up making them miserable. In that way it prefigures books as different as That Hideous Strength and Atlas Shrugged. On the other, it doesn't really work as a novel, being basically a picaresque series of sketches and allegorical incidents with hardly any forward momentum. Full review for Chestertober at the blog.
September 26, 2025
Una cruzada en defensa del líquido espirituoso, sátira continua de humor mordaz que combina diálogos con situaciones jocosas y sobre todo caracterizando fuerte a sus personajes, logrando caricaturizar la acción de forma perfecta. Lástima que tiende a emocionarse con cualquier tema, irse por las ramas y ya nunca volver a la trama principal, acompañando además este despliegue con canciones y poemas a destajo. Al principio partí entusiasmado pero ya por la mitad comprendí que no llegaría a ningún lado así que mejor pisé el acelerador. No me equivoqué.
February 14, 2018
Fun and prescient
In a world gone mad, two drunk friends decide to save the world with a keg and a barsign. The best way to fight the tyrrany is with a cultural revolution, or at least a drunken spin.
The reason it is so prescient is that Chesterton foresaw the queer alliance between the political left and what he calls 'the orient' but what we would understand to be Islam and Buddhism. Written before prohibition, it is eerily prophetic. Chesterton foresaw the bizarre alliance between feminism, low-Church evangelicalism, Germanic utilitarianism and the quasi-mysticism of the orient, along with a political class too far removed from the hopes, dreams and desires of the general population.
The book is full of Chesterton's folksy wisdom and belief in common-sense. And while this is generally to be expected in any Chesterton novel, in this one it sometimes becomes too dense and exaggerated. The characters are caricatures and vehicles for Chesterton's philosophical and cultural opinions. Either you like it or you don't.
"The sun was sinking: but the river of human nonsense flowed on for ever." (p.17)
"feeding on fanatical pleasure: the pleasure his strange, cold, courageous nature could not get from food or wine or women." (p.51)
"Lord Ivywood shared the mental weakness of most men who have fed on books; he ignored, not the value but the very existence of other forms of information." (p.52)
"Country folk will forget you if you speak to them, but talk about you all day if you don't." (p.53)
"There was a faint renewal of that laughter that has slept since the Middle Ages." (p.62)
"I have long been increasingly convinced that underneath a certain mask of stiffness which the Mohammedan 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" (p.78)
"He chopped and changed his original article in such a way that it was something quite beyond the most bewildering article he had written in the past; and is still prized by those highly cultured persons who collect the worst literature of the world." (p.101)
"Then there was a weak plea for Eugenics; and a warm plea against Conscription, which was not true eugenics." (p. 102)
"All that was natural in her was still alive under all that was artificial." (p.111)
"The next best thing to really loving a fellow creature is really hating him...the desire to murder him is at least an acknowledgement that he is alive." (p.192)
"There are crowds who do not care to revolt; but there are no crowds who do not like someone else to do it for them." (p.234)
"Not seeing any rational explanation of this custom of dying, so prevalent among his fellow-citizens, he concluded that it was merely tradition." (p.235)
In a world gone mad, two drunk friends decide to save the world with a keg and a barsign. The best way to fight the tyrrany is with a cultural revolution, or at least a drunken spin.
The reason it is so prescient is that Chesterton foresaw the queer alliance between the political left and what he calls 'the orient' but what we would understand to be Islam and Buddhism. Written before prohibition, it is eerily prophetic. Chesterton foresaw the bizarre alliance between feminism, low-Church evangelicalism, Germanic utilitarianism and the quasi-mysticism of the orient, along with a political class too far removed from the hopes, dreams and desires of the general population.
The book is full of Chesterton's folksy wisdom and belief in common-sense. And while this is generally to be expected in any Chesterton novel, in this one it sometimes becomes too dense and exaggerated. The characters are caricatures and vehicles for Chesterton's philosophical and cultural opinions. Either you like it or you don't.
"The sun was sinking: but the river of human nonsense flowed on for ever." (p.17)
"feeding on fanatical pleasure: the pleasure his strange, cold, courageous nature could not get from food or wine or women." (p.51)
"Lord Ivywood shared the mental weakness of most men who have fed on books; he ignored, not the value but the very existence of other forms of information." (p.52)
"Country folk will forget you if you speak to them, but talk about you all day if you don't." (p.53)
"There was a faint renewal of that laughter that has slept since the Middle Ages." (p.62)
"I have long been increasingly convinced that underneath a certain mask of stiffness which the Mohammedan 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" (p.78)
"He chopped and changed his original article in such a way that it was something quite beyond the most bewildering article he had written in the past; and is still prized by those highly cultured persons who collect the worst literature of the world." (p.101)
"Then there was a weak plea for Eugenics; and a warm plea against Conscription, which was not true eugenics." (p. 102)
"All that was natural in her was still alive under all that was artificial." (p.111)
"The next best thing to really loving a fellow creature is really hating him...the desire to murder him is at least an acknowledgement that he is alive." (p.192)
"There are crowds who do not care to revolt; but there are no crowds who do not like someone else to do it for them." (p.234)
"Not seeing any rational explanation of this custom of dying, so prevalent among his fellow-citizens, he concluded that it was merely tradition." (p.235)
Feast on wine or fast on water,
And your honour shall stand sure;
God Almighty's son and daughter,
He the valiant, she the pure.
If an angel out of heaven
Brings you other things to drink,
Thank him for his kind intentions,
Go and pour them down the sink.
Tea is like the East he grows in,
A great yellow Mandarin,
With urbanity of manner,
And unconsciousness of sin;
All the women, like a harem,
At his pig-tail troop along,
And, like all the East he grows in,
He is Poison when he's strong.
Tea, although an Oriental,
Is a gentleman at least;
Cocoa is a cad and coward,
Cocoa is a vulgar beast;
Cocoa is a dull, disloyal,
Lying, crawling cad and clown,
And may very well be grateful
To the fool that takes him down.
As for all the windy waters,
They were rained like trumpets down,
When good drink had been dishonoured
By the tipplers of the town.
When red wine had brought red ruin,
And the death-dance of our times,
Heaven sent us Soda Water
As a torment for our crimes.
July 20, 2021
Честертона ще за життя називали найвправнішим майстром англійської мови серед сучасників. Не знаю, як він звучить в оригіналі, але навіть в перекладі - дуже живо.
Писати антиутопію після Орвелла - задум доволі самовпевнений, але писати антиутопію до Орвела і навіть Замятіна - це взагалі зухвалість найвищого ґатунку. Тим паче, коли антиутопія ця сатирична.
Перші два-три розділи книги ніби налаштовують на поважний лад, але потім швидко стає ясно, що поважності там нема і сліду, а є тільки суміш грубої насмішки з пацифізму і неприхованого страху перед ісламом та Оттоманською імперією. Страх, власне, виправдався дуже скоро: перша світова війна почалася десь у той же час, як текст було закінчено.
Події у романі надзвичайно стрімкі, обставини абсурдні, а персонажі - кмітливі. Жодних сумнівів, що це зерня пізніше проросло і у Пелема Вайтгауза, і у Дуґласа Адамса. Та й навіть основна думка "1984" цілком може бути відповіддю на питання, поставлене у "Летючому шинку": хіба можна збудувати імперію, якщо казати, що 2 на 2 дорівнює 5?
Якщо відкинути розбіжності у формі, то за суттю Честертон пише про прислужливий мультикультуралізм, покірну толерантність і культуру скасування. Ну принаймні вірить в одужання пацієнта.
Сухі закони завжди призводять до появи летючих шинків, а здача національних інтересів завжди призводить до появи Патріків Делроїв.
Писати антиутопію після Орвелла - задум доволі самовпевнений, але писати антиутопію до Орвела і навіть Замятіна - це взагалі зухвалість найвищого ґатунку. Тим паче, коли антиутопія ця сатирична.
Перші два-три розділи книги ніби налаштовують на поважний лад, але потім швидко стає ясно, що поважності там нема і сліду, а є тільки суміш грубої насмішки з пацифізму і неприхованого страху перед ісламом та Оттоманською імперією. Страх, власне, виправдався дуже скоро: перша світова війна почалася десь у той же час, як текст було закінчено.
Події у романі надзвичайно стрімкі, обставини абсурдні, а персонажі - кмітливі. Жодних сумнівів, що це зерня пізніше проросло і у Пелема Вайтгауза, і у Дуґласа Адамса. Та й навіть основна думка "1984" цілком може бути відповіддю на питання, поставлене у "Летючому шинку": хіба можна збудувати імперію, якщо казати, що 2 на 2 дорівнює 5?
Якщо відкинути розбіжності у формі, то за суттю Честертон пише про прислужливий мультикультуралізм, покірну толерантність і культуру скасування. Ну принаймні вірить в одужання пацієнта.
Сухі закони завжди призводять до появи летючих шинків, а здача національних інтересів завжди призводить до появи Патріків Делроїв.
January 27, 2013
Didn't really know how to rate this. There's some fantastic Chestertonian wit (the satirical account of Hibbs However's journalistic style is hilarious and still pertinent today), some lusty, loveable, eccentric characters and, whatever I think about other ideological elements in the books, it's hard not to admire, in a general sense, Chesterton's championing of individual liberties.
But...this is probably one of the most racist books I have ever read. I know Chesterton was of another age and is hardly known for his political correctness, but, while in other of his books I can gloss over the occasional racist remark, here the entire basis of the book is Islamophobic and anti-oriental.
It also meanders on aimlessly for a bit too long. I rarely get bored reading Chesterton, but with this one I did.
There's also FAR too much poetry padding it out.
But...this is probably one of the most racist books I have ever read. I know Chesterton was of another age and is hardly known for his political correctness, but, while in other of his books I can gloss over the occasional racist remark, here the entire basis of the book is Islamophobic and anti-oriental.
It also meanders on aimlessly for a bit too long. I rarely get bored reading Chesterton, but with this one I did.
There's also FAR too much poetry padding it out.
January 24, 2013
The first half dragged rather, but once they had dealt with the man who watered the milk then the book caught fire and felt typical Chesterton. And what can be better than that? There are plenty of his wonderful descriptions of skies - no-one can make you see a sunset like him. The hero Dalroy is excellently realised, the women are more differentiated than usual, and the issues raised in the fantastical plot are as relevant today.
But, I regret to say, the charges against Chesterton of anti-Semitism are given plenty of evidence here. I'm not saying they are the views of the man himself, who apparently was tolerance personified, but I still don't like the way he writes about Jews. Which is what knocks off the last star.
But, I regret to say, the charges against Chesterton of anti-Semitism are given plenty of evidence here. I'm not saying they are the views of the man himself, who apparently was tolerance personified, but I still don't like the way he writes about Jews. Which is what knocks off the last star.
June 8, 2014
The main summary of this book fails to mention its chief feature ! It takes place in a Britain which has become part of the Ottoman Empire. As this makes it a Muslim country, it has a certain relevance today, presumably never dreamed of by the author (who was trying to make various other points through this unlikely situation).
September 21, 2025
Fine!
Dedicated to fans of no alcohol law.
In addition, Chesterton correctly indicates that the ruling "elite" of UK are traitors to Christianity.
Dedicated to fans of no alcohol law.
In addition, Chesterton correctly indicates that the ruling "elite" of UK are traitors to Christianity.
February 11, 2022
Although there were moments of highbrow humor to keep it interesting, the story was just okay.
November 30, 2025
Chesterton, as his wont, writes a deeper truth into a comedy.
"I have lived loving you, and I will die loving you." -- Patrick Dalroy
"I have lived loving you, and I will die loving you." -- Patrick Dalroy
August 15, 2022
[3.7 stars, I really liked it, but suspect it is a one-time read]
The good news is that The Flying Inn is humorous, witty, and well-written. The bad news is, Chesterton does a terrible job with endings. Further, it's not exactly fast-paced though that's in part due to the singing (or verse anyway). It was not easy for me to follow Chesterton's train of thought, but slowing down allowed me to enjoy it.
The Flying Inn pits the excesses of the temperance movement against the populace, and in general, discusses a great deal how unpopular laws can be brought to pass. It is remarkable what similarities one finds between banning alcohol and requiring masks, in terms of how the privileged ensure they are not impacted.
Favorite quote: "It is wonderful how easily one outlives someone else’s crucifixion."
The good news is that The Flying Inn is humorous, witty, and well-written. The bad news is, Chesterton does a terrible job with endings. Further, it's not exactly fast-paced though that's in part due to the singing (or verse anyway). It was not easy for me to follow Chesterton's train of thought, but slowing down allowed me to enjoy it.
The Flying Inn pits the excesses of the temperance movement against the populace, and in general, discusses a great deal how unpopular laws can be brought to pass. It is remarkable what similarities one finds between banning alcohol and requiring masks, in terms of how the privileged ensure they are not impacted.
Favorite quote: "It is wonderful how easily one outlives someone else’s crucifixion."
May 11, 2025
My first Chesterton novel. It took a minute to realize it is satire which keeps company with Adam’s and Pratchett. A chapter or two were good, a few more pages were excellent, and there were a multitude of genius sentences and phrases. This, unfortunately, didn’t add up to a good novel. It was scattered and convoluted. A screen adaptation perhaps would be able to reconcile and trim this into a good farce.
I can’t recommend it, but I have several pages dogeared for quotations.
I can’t recommend it, but I have several pages dogeared for quotations.
November 9, 2020
This is one that I’ll have to read another time or two to digest fully. That worked for me with GKC’s amazing The Man who was Thursday.
February 28, 2023
Славна і дещо меланхолійна сатира)
July 5, 2025
G. K. was a prophet... or do we continually not learn from our mistakes?
A fun read.
A fun read.
May 22, 2023
Read this book after recommendations from several friends who also happened to be literature majors. Well, maybe that should have been my first warning that this book is filled with analogies, metaphors, and such that went over my head. I should probably read some cliff notes on it to help me understand the plot. However! I LOVED his vocabulary, the way he described characters, and his creativity! Though I got lost in some of the narrative, I couldn’t stop reading because of his beautiful wording and hilarity of characters!
September 16, 2021
This one is for Chesterton purists. I would not recommend for the uninitiated. There is usual blistering eccentrism ever characteristic of Chesterton throughout the novel. The characters are otherworldly and strange, while his chief antagonist contains all the qualities Chesterton detests packaged in one, resulting in an asymmetrical caricature of: non poetic-elitism, authoritarian teetotalism, superman philosophy, globalist conspiracy, and fate worship. Thus all of Chesterton's detestations combine to compose one super nemesis, yet that nemesis appears rather boring: more tolerable than evil.
Irish Captain Dalroy, the hero, is a warrior poet who has a mind for revolt. The poems fly throughout, as he and Englishman Humphry Pump, through a loophole in the legislation, dash across the British countryside lugging a keg of rum and a wheel of cheese to those oppressed by the new prohibitionist laws. He is noncompromising, entirely devoted his ideals. They encounter various people across the island and we see further confirmation of GKC's thought fleshed out in conversational, narrative, and poetical form. Some sub-characters are very intriguing as well. I particularly enjoyed poet Wimpole's "conversion" and the very humorous character of Hibbs However. I laughed out loud several times throughout this book.
Though the story feels of a mad assortment of flavors in one ice cream cone, there is much profound insight to be gleaned. The need for boundaries in both art and society ("But perhaps the breaking of barriers might be the breaking of everything."). The need to hold and communicate substantive positions over endless nuance and couching of terms. (My favorite quote may be describing the journalist: "People who knew him had no difficulty in believing that what he had said was the right thing, the tactful thing, the thing that should save the situation; but they had great difficulty in discovering what it was.") The dangers of power and an intrusive government that believes it knows better than its people do. The ultimate destruction of self-importance and ambition; the inevitable ruin that arises a revolt against nature.
One concern many will have with Chesterton is he does have racial undertones in his writings, this one in particular. He stereotypes the Jew, the "black man", the Turk--mocking certain attributes and falling in line with many of the prejudices of the day. This is something to be aware of, and the sensitivity to racism in our day will result in a work like this not aging very well. Nevertheless I have long learned the importance of (and especially with brilliant writers) spitting out the bad and the incongruent in literature.
Reading Chesterton requires one to debate him and disagree with him--but the whole activity in the main causes you to think more deeply about things you would not have thought of before. The Flying Inn may be eccentric and scattered, the poems may rattle and run without end, the characters might seem more cartoon than real--but it will cause you to think about certain issues more than you had before, many which have only increased in relevance in our own time.
Irish Captain Dalroy, the hero, is a warrior poet who has a mind for revolt. The poems fly throughout, as he and Englishman Humphry Pump, through a loophole in the legislation, dash across the British countryside lugging a keg of rum and a wheel of cheese to those oppressed by the new prohibitionist laws. He is noncompromising, entirely devoted his ideals. They encounter various people across the island and we see further confirmation of GKC's thought fleshed out in conversational, narrative, and poetical form. Some sub-characters are very intriguing as well. I particularly enjoyed poet Wimpole's "conversion" and the very humorous character of Hibbs However. I laughed out loud several times throughout this book.
Though the story feels of a mad assortment of flavors in one ice cream cone, there is much profound insight to be gleaned. The need for boundaries in both art and society ("But perhaps the breaking of barriers might be the breaking of everything."). The need to hold and communicate substantive positions over endless nuance and couching of terms. (My favorite quote may be describing the journalist: "People who knew him had no difficulty in believing that what he had said was the right thing, the tactful thing, the thing that should save the situation; but they had great difficulty in discovering what it was.") The dangers of power and an intrusive government that believes it knows better than its people do. The ultimate destruction of self-importance and ambition; the inevitable ruin that arises a revolt against nature.
One concern many will have with Chesterton is he does have racial undertones in his writings, this one in particular. He stereotypes the Jew, the "black man", the Turk--mocking certain attributes and falling in line with many of the prejudices of the day. This is something to be aware of, and the sensitivity to racism in our day will result in a work like this not aging very well. Nevertheless I have long learned the importance of (and especially with brilliant writers) spitting out the bad and the incongruent in literature.
Reading Chesterton requires one to debate him and disagree with him--but the whole activity in the main causes you to think more deeply about things you would not have thought of before. The Flying Inn may be eccentric and scattered, the poems may rattle and run without end, the characters might seem more cartoon than real--but it will cause you to think about certain issues more than you had before, many which have only increased in relevance in our own time.
August 4, 2019
Lust for Life, Political Incorrectness, and God
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.
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.
October 18, 2017
G.K. Chesterton is one of the greatest Catholic authors, not just of the 20th century, but possibly ever. He wrote drama, poetry, mysteries, and theological works. Some of his most famous works include Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, and my personal favorite the Father Brown series. I was recently introduced to a work of his that I had never heard of before called The Flying Inn. It was originally published in 1914 and was reprinted by Ignatius Press.
The story takes place in England, but not the England you or I know. It takes place in future England, and is a political satire. In this future England, the Temperance Movement has allowed Progressive Islam to dominate England's political, cultural, and social landscape. Two laws were passed which effectively killed local bars and pubs. The first law made pub signs illegal, and the second made it illegal to serve alcohol in a place without a sign. You see the problem for local bar owners? Pub Owner, Humphrey Pump, and Captain Patrick Dalroy aim to right this wrong and travel the countryside with a cart, a cask of rum, a wheel of cheese, and of course the sign. They wheel the cart around, setting up makeshift bars long enough to serve a round of drinks and then hightail it before they are caught by Lord Ivywood. Each chapter is a mini and zany episode that eventually will lead to a final confrontation.
The book is hilarious in nature, especially the drinking songs/poems which are scattered throughout the book. However, behind this outlandish nature of the story is some political foreshadowing that could almost be described as prophetic. Prohibition did occur in the U.S. about six years after this book was published and like in the story the rich were able to skirt the law by buying their alcohol in the pharmacy. What's even more scary is how accurate Chesterton was about Islam's pervasiveness in Europe. At the time this book was written, the Ottoman Empire (with Islam as its religion) was on the brink of extinction. Now, all of Europe has been taken over by Islam with them going so far as to claim that they are the religion of Europe. Overall, I found this to be a fun and interesting read and one that I am glad I was exposed to.
This book was provided to me for free by Ignatius Press in exchange for an honest review.
The story takes place in England, but not the England you or I know. It takes place in future England, and is a political satire. In this future England, the Temperance Movement has allowed Progressive Islam to dominate England's political, cultural, and social landscape. Two laws were passed which effectively killed local bars and pubs. The first law made pub signs illegal, and the second made it illegal to serve alcohol in a place without a sign. You see the problem for local bar owners? Pub Owner, Humphrey Pump, and Captain Patrick Dalroy aim to right this wrong and travel the countryside with a cart, a cask of rum, a wheel of cheese, and of course the sign. They wheel the cart around, setting up makeshift bars long enough to serve a round of drinks and then hightail it before they are caught by Lord Ivywood. Each chapter is a mini and zany episode that eventually will lead to a final confrontation.
The book is hilarious in nature, especially the drinking songs/poems which are scattered throughout the book. However, behind this outlandish nature of the story is some political foreshadowing that could almost be described as prophetic. Prohibition did occur in the U.S. about six years after this book was published and like in the story the rich were able to skirt the law by buying their alcohol in the pharmacy. What's even more scary is how accurate Chesterton was about Islam's pervasiveness in Europe. At the time this book was written, the Ottoman Empire (with Islam as its religion) was on the brink of extinction. Now, all of Europe has been taken over by Islam with them going so far as to claim that they are the religion of Europe. Overall, I found this to be a fun and interesting read and one that I am glad I was exposed to.
This book was provided to me for free by Ignatius Press in exchange for an honest review.
July 13, 2018
The Flying Inn may well count as Britain’s first modern Islamophobic book. Of course there has been historical hostility to Muslims before G K Chesterton wrote this book, but this was of a very different nature. Chesterton’s Islamophobia contains the seeds of today’s Islamophobia.
Previous dislike of Muslim was based on a sense of otherness, and often held by people who had never met a Muslim in their life. Muslims were the hordes of barbarians over-running the holy city of Jerusalem, but this hatred of them was an abstract one since few of the writers who spoke about Muslims had ever been on a crusade.
Later on the British Empire put Britons in charge of countries containing Muslims. However while colonialist writings may have been prejudiced, the authors felt no worse about Muslims than any other religion or race. They were merely members of a lower order of people who could hopefully be civilised by Christian Europeans.
What marks a change in The Flying Inn is that Chesterton’s fears are no longer about Muslims over there, but Islam over here. In common with the English National League and other bigots, Chesterton is concerned with a threat on his own doorstep. It is no longer a matter of worrying about uncivilised foreigners in the east. It is about having those barbarians over here threatening our way of life.
There are subtle differences between Chesterton’s views and those of the modern Islamophobe. Nowadays the fear is as much about the people. In Chesterton’s day, there had been very little immigration from Muslim countries, so his fear is more about Islamic ideas taking root in England. Indeed he imagines the upper classes of Britain becoming so fascinated with Orientalism that they begin to impose their ideas on the decent ordinary people of the nation.
This is not to say that there is no racism in The Flying Inn. Chesterton frequently mocks the little Islamic prophet who mispronounces words, and who draws up all kinds of absurd ideas suggesting that the origins of most of English life lie in Islam. The prophet is from Turkey, so perhaps Chesterton did not feel confident giving an Asian character a prominent role in the book.
While the prophet’s ideas are daft, they are probably no sillier than the beliefs that Chesterton adhered to. Indeed some of Chesterton’s mockery falls flat. We are supposed to derive much mirth from the fact that the prophet thinks it makes more sense to take our feet off when entering a house than to take our hat off. Yet on this point the prophet’s arguments make sense, and Chesterton seems to think that the prophet’s views are laughable for no other reason than because we do it differently.
The real threat is not the foolish prophet, but the aristocrat, Lord Ivywood, an appropriate name for someone seeking to choke the life out of his country. Enthused with Oriental ideas, Ivywood introduces legislation to ban alcohol, and begins to move towards Islamification of the country – its police force, and perhaps eventually a shift in the direction of polygamy.
This move is opposed by the book’s heroes, tavern owner Humphrey Pump, and Irish adventurer, Captain Dalroy. Taking advantage of a loophole in the law, they carry the sign from Pump’s tavern with them and dispense alcohol to a grateful populace, while having occasional clashes with Ivywood’s men.
Dalroy and Pump are clearly intended to defend a certain idea of Britishness. I say Britishness, not Englishness, since Dalroy is Irish (he meets all the stereotypes, being fiery and romantic). This is another respect in which Chesterton differs from the average bigot of today. To ask someone today why they oppose Islam is to hear that they feel it threatens the British way of life, but they would be hard pressed to say what that meant if you asked them. They only know what it is not. It is not burkhas and Sharia law and halal meat and mosques.
By contrast Chesterton does have a genuine concept of Britishness. It is an absurd one, as any attempt to impose a monocultural view of a country has to be, but he does have one. It is based around Christianity, drinking rum, rolling English roads, eating beef and robust masculinity. There is only one prominent female character in the book, but Lady Joan’s role is only to wait patiently for Captain Dalroy to come for her.
By contrast the enemies of British freedom are opposed to all these things. They wish to ban drink and promote vegetarianism and make the world miserable. Never mind that these are not necessarily Muslim ideas. Chesterton merrily puts all his enemies together under one umbrella. As far as he is concerned, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and even atheism are all under one umbrella working together to undermine traditional Christianity.
This joining together of entirely separate ideas shows the dishonesty of Chesterton’s stance. While there are some pseudo-liberals who condone the illiberal aspects of Islam (I am not a great fan of the religion either), there is really no question of angry atheists delivering lectures on the beach or promoting temperance. Indeed when has there ever been an Islamic temperance movement in this country, for that matter? It is actually Chesterton’s fellow Christians who have most firmly banged this drum in the past.
Chesterton has no real wish to understand the motives of his enemies either. As far as he is concerned, the upper class hate alcohol and meat because the lower class love them. While it is certainly true that there is often an elitism in society that seeks to debase pleasures available to poor people, I think that Chesterton chooses to wilfully misunderstand the motives of his opponents.
To consider the temperance movement, I believe that its members were not trying to deny people pleasure. They were concerned with the damaging effects of alcohol – the violence, and the problems caused by addiction. This side does not feature in Chesterton’s work at all. Alcohol is merely a pleasurable activity and a British right.
I do not support banning alcohol either, but cannot help feeling that Chesterton would benefit from showing both sides of the argument. In any case, banning alcohol does not mean forcing everyone to drink milk. Similarly nobody is trying to impose vegetarianism on everyone, and frankly a vegetarian diet need not be as dreary as Chesterton would wish us to believe it.
The Catholic church has discussed making Chesterton into a saint, and citing his tolerant views as a reason. Frankly this surprises me, as Chesterton was anything but tolerant towards those who did share his views, as any reading of his works will show. The Flying Inn is racist, anti-semitic, Islamophobic and narrow-minded in many respects.
There is much fun to be had in reading The Flying Inn however. The antics of Pump and Dalroy are amusing, and their songs are a delight to read, actually rather better than the novel itself.
The story does often drown in purple prose, and has its tedious moments. However while I deplore many of Chesterton’s view, I find the book very diverting.
Previous dislike of Muslim was based on a sense of otherness, and often held by people who had never met a Muslim in their life. Muslims were the hordes of barbarians over-running the holy city of Jerusalem, but this hatred of them was an abstract one since few of the writers who spoke about Muslims had ever been on a crusade.
Later on the British Empire put Britons in charge of countries containing Muslims. However while colonialist writings may have been prejudiced, the authors felt no worse about Muslims than any other religion or race. They were merely members of a lower order of people who could hopefully be civilised by Christian Europeans.
What marks a change in The Flying Inn is that Chesterton’s fears are no longer about Muslims over there, but Islam over here. In common with the English National League and other bigots, Chesterton is concerned with a threat on his own doorstep. It is no longer a matter of worrying about uncivilised foreigners in the east. It is about having those barbarians over here threatening our way of life.
There are subtle differences between Chesterton’s views and those of the modern Islamophobe. Nowadays the fear is as much about the people. In Chesterton’s day, there had been very little immigration from Muslim countries, so his fear is more about Islamic ideas taking root in England. Indeed he imagines the upper classes of Britain becoming so fascinated with Orientalism that they begin to impose their ideas on the decent ordinary people of the nation.
This is not to say that there is no racism in The Flying Inn. Chesterton frequently mocks the little Islamic prophet who mispronounces words, and who draws up all kinds of absurd ideas suggesting that the origins of most of English life lie in Islam. The prophet is from Turkey, so perhaps Chesterton did not feel confident giving an Asian character a prominent role in the book.
While the prophet’s ideas are daft, they are probably no sillier than the beliefs that Chesterton adhered to. Indeed some of Chesterton’s mockery falls flat. We are supposed to derive much mirth from the fact that the prophet thinks it makes more sense to take our feet off when entering a house than to take our hat off. Yet on this point the prophet’s arguments make sense, and Chesterton seems to think that the prophet’s views are laughable for no other reason than because we do it differently.
The real threat is not the foolish prophet, but the aristocrat, Lord Ivywood, an appropriate name for someone seeking to choke the life out of his country. Enthused with Oriental ideas, Ivywood introduces legislation to ban alcohol, and begins to move towards Islamification of the country – its police force, and perhaps eventually a shift in the direction of polygamy.
This move is opposed by the book’s heroes, tavern owner Humphrey Pump, and Irish adventurer, Captain Dalroy. Taking advantage of a loophole in the law, they carry the sign from Pump’s tavern with them and dispense alcohol to a grateful populace, while having occasional clashes with Ivywood’s men.
Dalroy and Pump are clearly intended to defend a certain idea of Britishness. I say Britishness, not Englishness, since Dalroy is Irish (he meets all the stereotypes, being fiery and romantic). This is another respect in which Chesterton differs from the average bigot of today. To ask someone today why they oppose Islam is to hear that they feel it threatens the British way of life, but they would be hard pressed to say what that meant if you asked them. They only know what it is not. It is not burkhas and Sharia law and halal meat and mosques.
By contrast Chesterton does have a genuine concept of Britishness. It is an absurd one, as any attempt to impose a monocultural view of a country has to be, but he does have one. It is based around Christianity, drinking rum, rolling English roads, eating beef and robust masculinity. There is only one prominent female character in the book, but Lady Joan’s role is only to wait patiently for Captain Dalroy to come for her.
By contrast the enemies of British freedom are opposed to all these things. They wish to ban drink and promote vegetarianism and make the world miserable. Never mind that these are not necessarily Muslim ideas. Chesterton merrily puts all his enemies together under one umbrella. As far as he is concerned, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and even atheism are all under one umbrella working together to undermine traditional Christianity.
This joining together of entirely separate ideas shows the dishonesty of Chesterton’s stance. While there are some pseudo-liberals who condone the illiberal aspects of Islam (I am not a great fan of the religion either), there is really no question of angry atheists delivering lectures on the beach or promoting temperance. Indeed when has there ever been an Islamic temperance movement in this country, for that matter? It is actually Chesterton’s fellow Christians who have most firmly banged this drum in the past.
Chesterton has no real wish to understand the motives of his enemies either. As far as he is concerned, the upper class hate alcohol and meat because the lower class love them. While it is certainly true that there is often an elitism in society that seeks to debase pleasures available to poor people, I think that Chesterton chooses to wilfully misunderstand the motives of his opponents.
To consider the temperance movement, I believe that its members were not trying to deny people pleasure. They were concerned with the damaging effects of alcohol – the violence, and the problems caused by addiction. This side does not feature in Chesterton’s work at all. Alcohol is merely a pleasurable activity and a British right.
I do not support banning alcohol either, but cannot help feeling that Chesterton would benefit from showing both sides of the argument. In any case, banning alcohol does not mean forcing everyone to drink milk. Similarly nobody is trying to impose vegetarianism on everyone, and frankly a vegetarian diet need not be as dreary as Chesterton would wish us to believe it.
The Catholic church has discussed making Chesterton into a saint, and citing his tolerant views as a reason. Frankly this surprises me, as Chesterton was anything but tolerant towards those who did share his views, as any reading of his works will show. The Flying Inn is racist, anti-semitic, Islamophobic and narrow-minded in many respects.
There is much fun to be had in reading The Flying Inn however. The antics of Pump and Dalroy are amusing, and their songs are a delight to read, actually rather better than the novel itself.
The story does often drown in purple prose, and has its tedious moments. However while I deplore many of Chesterton’s view, I find the book very diverting.
July 24, 2013
"We must not ask them to make a cross on their ballot papers; for though it seems a small thing, it may offend them. So I brought in a little bill to make it optional between the old-fashioned cross and an upward curved mark that might stand for a crescent -- and as it's rather easier to make, I believe it will be generally adopted."
And so go the various projects in this rollicking and fantastical tale of Dalroy and Pump and their "flying inn," which flies against newly-legislated temperance laws and a newly-legislated merger of Islam with hitherto Christian England.
Chesterton satirizes political correctness and wages war against the calm resignation which allows good things to slip and change and disappear without a fight. Moreover, in a story of victory, he includes a grim prophecy of the destiny of Empire: "Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians."
And so go the various projects in this rollicking and fantastical tale of Dalroy and Pump and their "flying inn," which flies against newly-legislated temperance laws and a newly-legislated merger of Islam with hitherto Christian England.
Chesterton satirizes political correctness and wages war against the calm resignation which allows good things to slip and change and disappear without a fight. Moreover, in a story of victory, he includes a grim prophecy of the destiny of Empire: "Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians."
April 10, 2024
La taberna errante es una novela satírica de Chesterton. También es muy claramente un producto de su época.
En una Inglaterra no muy lejos del presente (de cuando se escribió el libro), el gobierno está obnubilado con oriente y la percibida superioridad moral de los otomanos. A tal punto, que contando con un asesor musulmán (un tipo que hasta hace poco se dedicaba a ser profeta en la calle), deciden convertir a su gobierno en puritanismo, principalmente a través de la prohibición de la venta de alcohol, el cual tiene un efecto degenerador bien conocido en la gente. Por supuesto, la trampa está en los detalles: así como están formuladas las leyes, los únicos afectados son los pobres, ya que los ricos tienen sus modos de conseguir alcohol sin problemas. Al final del día, les corresponde a dos individuos en fuga y su alcohol mantener la resistencia viva al viajar por el país con su… ‘taberna errante’.
El avance del tiempo hace difícil evaluar cómo se percibían algunas cosas antiguamente, lo que puede complicar seriamente la lectura. En este caso sería fácil sólo quejarse de que se trata de una novela reaccionaria (se burla de los abstemios, los vegetarianos, los seguidores de creencias ‘New-Age’, el exceso de correctitud política). Sin embargo, también es bueno analizar un poco de dónde vienen las posiciones en cuestión.
Para Chesterton, el verdadero problema era filosófico. El hombre es creación de Dios, está aquí porque Él quería que disfrutáramos el mundo siguiendo sus reglas y, por tanto, el hombre debería sacar provecho a lo que le da la tierra y gozar la vida, siempre dentro de los parámetros impuestos por Él. La abstinencia de alcohol, de carne y otras cosas para él eran un rechazo a la sugerencia de gozar la vida, a cambio de una percibida superioridad moral que no tenía mucho que ver con las reglas establecidas por Dios. Creían estar por encima de las otras personas y, ¿por qué? ¿Sólo porque no se emborrachan ni comen otros animales? Aquellos individuos que querían vivir más ‘en contacto con la tierra’, ascetas y opositores al materialismo (estilo Diógenes o algo así) rechazaban todo aquello por lo que valía la pena vivir la vida, a cambio de nada más que sentirse por encima de los demás. No ayudaba el que la gran mayoría de estas personas fueran hombres blancos de buena posición social, gente que en realidad no perdía ni sacrificaba mucho haciendo estas cosas. La percepción sobre este tipo de culturas para muchas personas (tanto entonces como ahora) es que para muchos de sus adherentes (sobre todo jóvenes) se trata sólo de modas, que se toman y descartan al antojo, sin mayor esfuerzo. Es una queja frecuente a lo largo de la historia: sólo por dar un ejemplo, George Orwell –un tipo que, si bien compartía algunos puntos de vista con Chesterton, su anti-religiosidad y su socialismo lo hacían completamente diferente de un punto de vista filosófico- hace la misma clase de críticas en un libro suyo, años después que éste.
¿Cambia todo eso el hecho de que la novela se siente añeja por burlarse de posturas que hoy en día son consideradas perfectamente aceptables y válidas? Para nada. Pero sí ayuda a entender que lo que hay detrás de las afirmaciones es tan o más importante que lo que se dice. Mucha gente dice sacrificar mucho para alcanzar mayor altura moral, pero en realidad no sacrifican nada de mucho peso. Cuando los protagonistas irrumpen en la farmacia de un miembro pudiente de la comunidad demuestran que los ricos tienen el problema del alcohol ya resuelto, puesto que han acaparado para su consumo personal; el político impulsor de la idea queda escandalizado de ello (ya que, a diferencia de los otros, él sí cree en todo el asunto moral de la abstinencia), pero ello no evita que se desencadene una revolución popular. La gente en el poder jamás ha prohibido cosas que ellos disfruten, siempre han prohibido cosas que hacen los demás. ¿Es acaso coincidencia que sea ilegal el robo con arma (algo que por lo general, ellos nunca harían), pero les cueste tanto apoyar que el robo financiero sea castigado del mismo modo?
El otro tema abordado en el libro es la fetichización de lo extranjero. En la historia, no sólo el gobierno se autoconvence de la superioridad del islam, sino que empiezan a adoptar muchas costumbres de oriente, desde la comida, pasando por arquitectura y arte. Al final de la novela, cuando el profeta musulmán intenta tomar el gobierno para detener la insurrección popular, resulta que el ejército está compuesto casi completamente de asiáticos. Lord Ivywood (el artífice de todas las decisiones políticas tomadas) cree completamente en todo esto, pero surge la pregunta de si en realidad se ha convencido de lo maravilloso que son los musulmanes, o si sólo ha caído en el hechizo oratorio del profeta.
La verdad es que me reí en algunas partes de la novela (la escena inicial es de todo un desfile de profetas hablando sobre abstinencia, vegetarianismo, superioridad de la cultura asiática y del islam, lo que me recordó una escena similar en La vida de Brian de Monty Python; y la discusión sobre si permitir que los votantes asiáticos marcen la papeleta con una cruz o con una media luna es ridícula y me recuerda a algunas discusiones del día de hoy), si bien no estoy seguro de que fuesen las partes que Chesterton esperaba. Y a pesar de ello, no puedo decir que haya disfrutado demasiado la novela.
¿Por qué? Supongo que porque se trata de una distopía. Éstas suelen ser demasiado presentistas, y lo que más saca en limpio uno de ellas son los miedos del autor particular del texto. Se esfuerzan mucho por enseñarte algo, cuando al final del día no tienen tanto que contar. En definitiva, hay mejores novelas de Chesterton, un tipo al que en definitiva habría sido interesante conocer en vida (aun cuando probablemente no le habría agradado mucho, dado que yo tampoco tomo alcohol…)
En una Inglaterra no muy lejos del presente (de cuando se escribió el libro), el gobierno está obnubilado con oriente y la percibida superioridad moral de los otomanos. A tal punto, que contando con un asesor musulmán (un tipo que hasta hace poco se dedicaba a ser profeta en la calle), deciden convertir a su gobierno en puritanismo, principalmente a través de la prohibición de la venta de alcohol, el cual tiene un efecto degenerador bien conocido en la gente. Por supuesto, la trampa está en los detalles: así como están formuladas las leyes, los únicos afectados son los pobres, ya que los ricos tienen sus modos de conseguir alcohol sin problemas. Al final del día, les corresponde a dos individuos en fuga y su alcohol mantener la resistencia viva al viajar por el país con su… ‘taberna errante’.
El avance del tiempo hace difícil evaluar cómo se percibían algunas cosas antiguamente, lo que puede complicar seriamente la lectura. En este caso sería fácil sólo quejarse de que se trata de una novela reaccionaria (se burla de los abstemios, los vegetarianos, los seguidores de creencias ‘New-Age’, el exceso de correctitud política). Sin embargo, también es bueno analizar un poco de dónde vienen las posiciones en cuestión.
Para Chesterton, el verdadero problema era filosófico. El hombre es creación de Dios, está aquí porque Él quería que disfrutáramos el mundo siguiendo sus reglas y, por tanto, el hombre debería sacar provecho a lo que le da la tierra y gozar la vida, siempre dentro de los parámetros impuestos por Él. La abstinencia de alcohol, de carne y otras cosas para él eran un rechazo a la sugerencia de gozar la vida, a cambio de una percibida superioridad moral que no tenía mucho que ver con las reglas establecidas por Dios. Creían estar por encima de las otras personas y, ¿por qué? ¿Sólo porque no se emborrachan ni comen otros animales? Aquellos individuos que querían vivir más ‘en contacto con la tierra’, ascetas y opositores al materialismo (estilo Diógenes o algo así) rechazaban todo aquello por lo que valía la pena vivir la vida, a cambio de nada más que sentirse por encima de los demás. No ayudaba el que la gran mayoría de estas personas fueran hombres blancos de buena posición social, gente que en realidad no perdía ni sacrificaba mucho haciendo estas cosas. La percepción sobre este tipo de culturas para muchas personas (tanto entonces como ahora) es que para muchos de sus adherentes (sobre todo jóvenes) se trata sólo de modas, que se toman y descartan al antojo, sin mayor esfuerzo. Es una queja frecuente a lo largo de la historia: sólo por dar un ejemplo, George Orwell –un tipo que, si bien compartía algunos puntos de vista con Chesterton, su anti-religiosidad y su socialismo lo hacían completamente diferente de un punto de vista filosófico- hace la misma clase de críticas en un libro suyo, años después que éste.
¿Cambia todo eso el hecho de que la novela se siente añeja por burlarse de posturas que hoy en día son consideradas perfectamente aceptables y válidas? Para nada. Pero sí ayuda a entender que lo que hay detrás de las afirmaciones es tan o más importante que lo que se dice. Mucha gente dice sacrificar mucho para alcanzar mayor altura moral, pero en realidad no sacrifican nada de mucho peso. Cuando los protagonistas irrumpen en la farmacia de un miembro pudiente de la comunidad demuestran que los ricos tienen el problema del alcohol ya resuelto, puesto que han acaparado para su consumo personal; el político impulsor de la idea queda escandalizado de ello (ya que, a diferencia de los otros, él sí cree en todo el asunto moral de la abstinencia), pero ello no evita que se desencadene una revolución popular. La gente en el poder jamás ha prohibido cosas que ellos disfruten, siempre han prohibido cosas que hacen los demás. ¿Es acaso coincidencia que sea ilegal el robo con arma (algo que por lo general, ellos nunca harían), pero les cueste tanto apoyar que el robo financiero sea castigado del mismo modo?
El otro tema abordado en el libro es la fetichización de lo extranjero. En la historia, no sólo el gobierno se autoconvence de la superioridad del islam, sino que empiezan a adoptar muchas costumbres de oriente, desde la comida, pasando por arquitectura y arte. Al final de la novela, cuando el profeta musulmán intenta tomar el gobierno para detener la insurrección popular, resulta que el ejército está compuesto casi completamente de asiáticos. Lord Ivywood (el artífice de todas las decisiones políticas tomadas) cree completamente en todo esto, pero surge la pregunta de si en realidad se ha convencido de lo maravilloso que son los musulmanes, o si sólo ha caído en el hechizo oratorio del profeta.
La verdad es que me reí en algunas partes de la novela (la escena inicial es de todo un desfile de profetas hablando sobre abstinencia, vegetarianismo, superioridad de la cultura asiática y del islam, lo que me recordó una escena similar en La vida de Brian de Monty Python; y la discusión sobre si permitir que los votantes asiáticos marcen la papeleta con una cruz o con una media luna es ridícula y me recuerda a algunas discusiones del día de hoy), si bien no estoy seguro de que fuesen las partes que Chesterton esperaba. Y a pesar de ello, no puedo decir que haya disfrutado demasiado la novela.
¿Por qué? Supongo que porque se trata de una distopía. Éstas suelen ser demasiado presentistas, y lo que más saca en limpio uno de ellas son los miedos del autor particular del texto. Se esfuerzan mucho por enseñarte algo, cuando al final del día no tienen tanto que contar. En definitiva, hay mejores novelas de Chesterton, un tipo al que en definitiva habría sido interesante conocer en vida (aun cuando probablemente no le habría agradado mucho, dado que yo tampoco tomo alcohol…)
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