Audiobook · read by volunteers
À House-Boat on the Styx
John Kendrick Bangs (1862–1922)
Read by Zachary Brewster-Geisz, David Federman, GerryR, Philippa, Ruth Golding, James Christopher · 12 chapters · 2 h 54
About the book
What happens after we die? In John Kendrick Bangs’s comic fantasy, the answer is a crowded and rather quarrelsome one. Everyone who has ever lived has ended up beside the river Styx, and the ferryman Charon, a man of old habits, makes a startling discovery that sets the whole affair in motion. Soon a house-boat is moored in the shadows, and an extraordinary company of the famous dead sit down to dinner, argue about who really wrote what, and offer opinions on one another with great confidence. Statesmen, poets and soldiers behave just as they might at a very awkward dinner party, and the humour comes from watching grand reputations shrink to the size of ordinary vanity. Brisk, silly and good-natured, this short book is made for a free afternoon. Twelve chapters, under three hours, and a lightness that has lasted well beyond its first readers.
Introduction
John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) was an American writer and editor who made his name with humorous fiction. A House-Boat on the Styx came out in 1895 and gave him one of his best-known successes. The idea is simple and very funny: the world of the dead, as imagined by the Greeks, is borrowed as a stage on which famous figures from every century can meet, quarrel and improve one another’s manners.
The book belongs to the tradition of fantasy that uses the afterlife to poke fun at the living. Readers will notice that Bangs is not interested in a hell of fire and judgment. His Hades is a place of society gatherings, committees and disputed reputations, and the satire lands because it is so genial. Nobody is destroyed; they are only shown to be human.
The recording is in twelve chapters, from Charon’s discovery at the opening to the later gatherings on the boat, and it lasts roughly three hours. It was read by LibriVox volunteers, which gives the dialogue a pleasing variety of voices.
It is worth a listen today for the same reason it was worth reading in 1895: an author with a light touch and a sharp eye for pomposity is always good company, and the book never outstays its welcome. Because the chapters are short and each ends on a small joke or a fresh quarrel, the book suits listening in instalments. A chapter before bed, or one on a short journey, is enough to enjoy the scene. Those who know a little Greek myth or English literature will catch more of the allusions, but no special knowledge is needed to follow the fun.
Public domain
John Kendrick Bangs died in 1922: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text