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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Flying Inn, 19 Sep 2003
It doesn't really amaze me that so few people have read much of Chesterton's works. In the UK especially, trying to find them is a thankless task in itself - unless you 're looking to read the adventures of Father Brown.I'd heard of 'The Flying Inn' for years before I got hold of a copy and having read 'The Man Who Was Thursday' and 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' I'd imagined a literal rendition of the title: this bar would really fly. It doesn't. But the prose does. It's a wonderfully presented farce that explores - well, you judge for yourselves - the effects of liberty and censure upon the everyday man. Or the dangers and the delights of fashionable views and opinions becoming doctrine and dictate. Or just how much a good drink would be badly missed. This is what happens: political machination results in prohibition in the United Kingdom. That this is due to the influence of a man claiming to extoll the benefits of Islam should not be regarded as blasphemous simply because the man is not all he seems, his theories outlandish in order to peddle to the pandered attitudes of the elite. Common sense soon prevails and our heroes find a loophole in the law: pubs and ale houses are banned, their signs are pulled down ... only beneath these disappeared signs is the sale of alcohol permitted. Our two heroes: an inkeeper and a gallant ex-soldier wend their way across Britain, pursued by the law, armed with their own pub sign, some rum and a round of fine cheese. Wherever this sign is planted, they are able to sell drink until their pursuerrs draw near. Valiantly, they crusade to make a mockery of the law that has brought the drinking man to his knees, causing chaos and hilarity to follow in their wake. Even when he ridicules his characters, Chesterton does it with grace and sympathy. It isn't all lightness and disgrace either: like all truly great comedy, pathos waits in the wings and tragedy is a very real possibility. I laughed a LOT ... and as a Bill Hicks fan, I'm not the easiest of people to please. I was sad the inn didn't really fly, but with this sly little farce, Chesterton is every bit as daring and imaginative as I found him to be with those books of his I so admired. So will you.
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by G. K. Chesterton
by G.K. Chesterton
by G.K. Chesterton
by G. K. Chesterton
by G.K. Chesterton
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