Tolkien 102 : Fantasy and Fellowship

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“Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien”[1]

wrote C.S. Lewis in the preface to his concluding book of the Space (or Ransom) Trilogy, That Hideous Strength (THS) in 1943.  After Lewis had portrayed his indictment of a Western culture which had forgotten its values and theological moorings – his Abolition of Man argument illustrated in the fiction of THS – he pointed towards Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series as heralding the mythos of a West fully invested with those values.

[1]     C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (New York: Scribner, 2003), 8.

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Lewis 101 / Tolkien 101: I’ve Seen Trees from Both Sides Now …

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You look at trees and label them just so …
He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath the ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jeweled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother’s womb whence all have birth.

– JRR Tolkien Mythopoeia: To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though “breathed through silver” PHILOMYTHUS TO MISOMYTHUS

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We read to know we’re not alone (aka An Experiment in Using an Experiment in Criticism)

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Author Ryan “Smokey” Grube and Friends: The Architect, James “Buzz” Aldrich of Near NASA-Houston, Emperor Douglas Maximus Smokey Robinson the Orthodox, Gandalf the Chalky, Luke Mr. Walrus and The Egg Man* J.S. Myers

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoCaaxgHUw

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. … in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.[1] – C.S. Lewis, Experiment in Criticism Continue reading →

Lewis 103: The Weight of Glory

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I’ve always heard zippy CS Lewis quotes, but when I tried to pick up one of his important sounding books like Mere Christianity,  The Abolition of Man or even the fictional Space Trilogy, it always seemed like a struggle.  One Master’s degree in Christian Thought and Cultural Apologetics later … and it can still be a struggle. But struggle through his stuff, and others, we did. Hence this site … Continue reading →