Welcome to Part Two of Heart of Darkness, our summer audio adventure in Tales for Our Time. I thank you for all your kind words about this choice for our seventy-second yarn. John Wilson, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, particularly appreciated the exquisite timing:
Oh, no way! I just listened to this book 3 days ago on Audible. Well, I'm definitely going to listen to Mark's version.
In tonight's episode of Joseph Conrad's tale, our protagonist is in mainland Europe to prepare for his visit to Africa - because, in those days, one continent owned another continent, and the map was colour-coded to reflect their respective sovereigns:
I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a large shining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red—good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a snake. Ough!
To hear me read the second episode of Heart of Darkness, please click here and log-in. If you missed part one, you'll find that here. If you've yet to hear our first Conrad serialisation, The Secret Agent, that can be found here.
Tales for Our Time started as an experimental feature we introduced as a bonus for Mark Steyn Club members, and, as you know, I said if it was a total stinkeroo, we'd eighty-six the thing and speak no more of it. But I'm thrilled to say it's proved very popular, and and we now have quite an archive. If you're a Club member and you incline more to the stinkeroo side of things, give it your best in the Comments Section below.
We launched The Mark Steyn Club eight years ago, and I'm truly grateful to all those members across the globe who've signed up to be a part of it - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Cook County to the Cook Islands, West Virginia to the West Midlands. If you've enjoyed our monthly Steyn Club audio adventures and you're looking for a present for a fellow fan of classic fiction, I hope you'll consider our special Club Gift Membership. That said, 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 this Wednesday's;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, SteynPosts, and our other video content;
~My video series of classic poetry;
~Priority booking for the next Mark Steyn Club Cruise: we'll be sailing aboard the Queen Mary 2 from Quebec City to New York via the beautiful Saguenay Fjord;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, assuming I'm ever again healthy enough to make any;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the opportunity 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 that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to Heart of Darkness but to all our other audio adventures.
One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, whether you like my reading of this seventy-second Tale for Our Time or are minded to toss it overboard, then feel free to comment away below. And do join us tomorrow for Part Three of Heart of Darkness.