Programming note: Tomorrow, Saturday, please join me for a Bastille Day edition of my Serenade Radio weekend music show, Mark Steyn on the Town. The fun starts at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe and 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
~Ahead of that, welcome to the seventy-second audio entertainment in our series Tales for Our Time. We are in our ninth season, and we've built a spectacular archive that runs the gamut from A to Z ...well, not quite, but certainly A to W - Jane Austen to P G Wodehouse.
The newest addition to our collection is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the Modern Library's choice for the sixty-seventh Best Novel of the Twentieth Century - though it's more of a novella and was first published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. But it has certainly lasted through the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Unless you've been distracted by Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnamisation of the tale in Apocalypse Now, even people who've never read it are aware that the darkness is Africa and its heart is a long way up the Congo River. Howver, in my introduction, I reflect on the story's opening, in which Conrad's protagonist notes that, to a Roman, the River Thames was the Congo of its day - the heart of darkness:
Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina—and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilised man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here...Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him...
That "very end of the world" emerged from the darkness, even if it is now closing in again. To hear Part One of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, prefaced by my own introduction, please click here and log-in.
~We continue to receive praise for our last Tale, Fredric Brown's Knock. Phil Beckley, a Steyn Clubber from East Anglia, says:
A real gem from the golden age of Sci Fi, very enjoyable. Thank you, Mark.
Joe Cressotti, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, agrees:
What a great little story, nearly perfect. I must say I was surprised and delighted by the ending. It explains Aldrich's ring at the door while at the same time preserving the suspense.
One more from First Month Founding Member Steve from Manhattan:
Thanks Mark. Wonderful, splendidly consistent rendition of Zanian English! Years ago I devoured hundreds of science fiction works, but 'Knock' was new to me.
~We launched The Mark Steyn Club eight years ago, and I'm immensely heartened by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Surrey to the Solomon Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio output, video content, every movie feature and Song of the Week.
That said, we have introduced a few bonuses for our members - not locking up our regular content, which will always be free, but admitting members to a few experimental features, such as this series of audio adventures. In Tales for Our Time I revisit some classic fiction I've mentioned in books and columns over the years - old stories that nevertheless speak to our own age. Our first serialisation was The Tragedy of the Korosko by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes; next came The Time Machine by H G Wells; and then The Secret Agent by the aforementioned Mr Conrad, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Two of those I've since updated in contemporary iterations. I always liked reading stories, and I did do a little of it professionally a zillion years ago. So, if it works, we may release them as audio books on CD or Audible a ways down the road. But for the moment they're an exclusive bonus for Mark Steyn Club members.
If you'd like to hear this Tale, all you need to do is join the Club - either for a full year or, if you suspect we're some fly-by-night shifty Canuck scamsters and you want to see how it goes, a mere experimental quarter. And, aside from Tales for Our Time, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, such as Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show and our other video content;
~Our video series of classic poetry;
~Advance booking for my live appearances such as our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~Customised email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget our gift membership.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this Tale for Our Time, or consider my reading of it a bust, then feel free to comment away below. I weigh in on the comment threads myself from time to time, but I regard it as principally your turf, to have at it as you so desire. And do join us tomorrow for Part Two of Heart of Darkness.
