Tolkien, Lewis, the Inklings and Audiobooks

(0:00 - 3:10) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today I'm joined by my friend from Australia, Andrew Head, and we're going to continue our discussion about audiobooks and in this episode we are taking our attention over to the Barbara Fears of Lewis, Tolkien and the Inklings, so welcome Andrew. Hello, it's lovely to be here, thank you Julia. And those who listen regularly to our podcast will know that Andrew is also, I think you're, are you completely blind Andrew or partially sighted? Yes, totally blind now, yes. The accessibility of audiobooks is absolutely key, not only just out of your interest but also you're a smashing writer, so it helps you also in your writing, so I look forward to talking about these biographies with you. We're now going to turn our attention to audio versions of biographies of Tolkien and Lewis and the two we're thinking about, the first one is to start with the biography of J.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter, so this is actually quite an old book now, but it's read by, the version that you can get easily on sort of Audible or equivalent is read by Roger May and I just had a little listen and I thought it sounded great, so tell me what you found in listening to this biography? Oh, in terms of the narration first? Yeah, tell us about the production and about the book itself. Well, yeah, so it's a standard one narrator read. No sound effects, you know, 1920s cars. Yeah, no sound effects and, you know, the narrator does all the voices. Yeah, I think he did a very good job as a narrator, definitely. So yeah, it goes, you know, being a biography of Tolkien, it goes through his life. One of my favourite parts of the book is the prologue because in the prologue, you know, Humphrey Carpenter recounts his first meeting with Tolkien and I'm sure you were probably the same, Julia, when you read it. I was sitting there in awe going, you lucky, lucky, lucky bastards. But yeah, just to have been in Tolkien's presence, I'm like, wow, that must be amazing. So yeah, that's, you know, it's very enjoyable to listen to and I think he did the smart choice putting that as the prologue. Yes, it's written in a way where it evokes the meeting. It's very sort of, he's got a great style, Humphrey Carpenter, because he not only tells you the facts around someone, but he evokes a moment and he does that for his own meeting with Tolkien. (3:10 - 4:56) Yeah, I wished he'd, because he mentioned, you know, Tolkien proceeded to talk about some problems he was having with Lord of the Rings and rewriting parts or something and I wished he'd elaborated on exactly what that was. Yeah, and he does, you know, goes through Tolkien's, straight from his early life growing up in South Africa and coming back to England and yeah, all through his life and does a very good job. And one of the other things he does very well is he, at one point he painted, went through and painted a picture, if you will, of, in describing of, you know, a typical day in Tolkien's life. It wasn't an exact recount, it was a, you know, putting together of what all the events that most likely would have happened on a given day. And I remember he recounted in, you know, he said when he, in the book, you know, he said, oh, some people might find the details boring. I can't, I can't quite remember, but that's the gist. No, not me. I really enjoyed, that was one of my other favourite parts. It was really enjoyable to sort of hear, you know, okay, well, what was a typical day for Tolkien like, you know? It was, yeah, really, really interesting. Yes, because the big events for Tolkien happen really at the beginning of his life, with the South Africa phase, the being an orphan. This is all, you know, biographical material galore, the First World War. But once he reaches Oxford, it's a fairly, except for the Second World War, his life is pretty much rinse and repeat. (4:56 - 7:17) It's family life, it's lecturing, it's, you know, struggling to make ends meet. And so I think that way he chose to do it is a good way of saying, I haven't got lots of different separate incidents to tell you, but I can give you a flavour of this man's life in this period of his life. The Humphrey Carpenter biography, which is still probably the authoritative one, though there are some others. I have heard from contemporary scholars like Holly Ordway and others that there is an element of editing the life for his own taste that goes on with Humphrey Carpenter. So certain letters are only put in a certain way. I remember when I read it that Mrs. Tolkien, Edith, doesn't particularly come out very well. It's not a very sympathetic portrait of her. Did you get that impression? Yes. Yeah, he did. I'm interested to, obviously, to hear what you noticed and what Holly Ordway notices. But from what I can remember, yeah, I mean, he sort of, a couple of times, he definitely sort of said, you know, Tolkien and Edith had, you know, marital problems and, you know, she, Edith was very stubborn and, you know, for a while wouldn't, you know, do what Tolkien asked in terms of coming to church and practicing her religion more. And sometimes you got the impression that it wasn't a very happy marriage. But, I mean, it's clear that they loved each other very much. And I do think, I think that, you know, whilst those things probably were issues at times, you know, nothing's perfect, but he did sort of paint a bit of a picture that, you know, the marriage was quite difficult between them. And I like to think that, well, it had its, you know, probably had some difficult moments and, you know, they came from, they were both orphans, etc. But it, I think on the whole, it was a lovelier marriage than he paints in the biography, if that makes sense. Yeah. So, I think each biography comes with the lens that the biographer puts on it. (7:17 - 8:34) And I think Humphrey Carpenter wasn't great about women, to be honest. And remember that Tolkien's last word on Edith is to put on her gravestone that she's Luthien. Yes. And he, I think he misses out the romance that is on. But I should say there's a long life, there is elements, both of them didn't enjoy perfect health. He had some issues with her health and sort of her nerves, you know, what these days is a mental illness, I suppose, of sorts. And Tolkien was often ill and also had sort of like stress related work issues. But that is a long life. And don't we all at some point in our lives have all those things? I think that where I would say the biography is, the strength of the biography is you get to know Tolkien as he is known by his male friends. The weakness of the biography is you don't really get to know him as he is known by his family and in his innermost being. I don't know that we get there. Yes, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of those things, definitely. (8:34 - 9:16) Maybe they're out of our reach. I don't know. But I think it is a very good place to start the biography, but also it's not the place to stop. And one of the reasons why you don't get much evidence about the relationship with Edith is that he's living with her. So he's not sending letters to her saying, oh, my darling Edith or anything. So there's a big difference in the material. It was Edith's choice to go to Bournemouth and Tolkien went. He didn't like Bournemouth particularly, but he went because he thought, well, she's been my faithful wife all these years putting up with me going to Oxford dinners. It's about time she could play bridge down in Bournemouth. (9:16 - 10:01) That is a give and take of a marriage, serious, every marriage has its own workings. So that's what I remember from the biography. But I think if you're looking for a listen, I think it's done very well. And it is a place definitely to start with the caveat that it's not the whole story. There are some shortcomings in the biographer. Okay, so let's move to the C.S. Lewis, A Life by Alastair McGrath. I've met Alastair McGrath. I haven't met Humphrey Carpenter. Yeah, yeah. He's well known in Oxford. Tell us about. So jealous. (10:02 - 10:25) It's read by Robin Sacks. I was wondering if Alastair might have read it. I discovered it's not read by him. He's a lovely man. Yeah, Oxford is full of people like Philip Pullman and Alison. They probably go to the same dinners together. And I wonder what their conversations are like. Probably very, very informed. Anyway, tell us about this biography. (10:26 - 13:51) Well, speaking of the author of the biography, at the start, there's, I think it's the narrator actually interviews Alastair McGrath, which is exciting. So yeah, that was very enjoyable to listen to. And he sort of gave an overview in the interview of what the biography, an overview of how he came to write, be interested and write the biography, which is written for the 50-year anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death. And he sort of talks about, that gives you a bit of a spoiler warning that there's a bit of, he draws on multiple sources, like C.S. Lewis's own letters and other letters and accounts from other people. So he draws from lots of different places to tell the story. And he also highlights at various points how, you know, one account or one person's perspective of an event was ABC and another person's perspective is DEF. And he sort of, you know, puts it together and sort of says, well, you know, this is probably what happened. So he gives you both, you know, all the accounts and then sort of says, well, overall, you know, it's probably looking like that this event and this event happened like this. And it's, yeah, it's throughout the biography. And I think it's done very well, but it's a bit more, I'd say it's a bit more analytical sometimes than story. In fact, they sort of deviate from the story to discuss, well, this is, you know, did it happen like this or did it happen like this? And it's a little bit jarring when you, I've never read a biography like that before. So I found it a bit jarring, but at the same time, it was interesting and enjoyable. What I find interesting, what you've described is it sounds as though he's being, he's analysing what you can know as a biographer. So he's being his own sort of audacity to say this is C.S. Lewis's life. Because the, I haven't, I haven't read the Alstomograph one, but I did a long time ago read the A. N. Wilson one, which A. N. Wilson, he doesn't, he didn't come across as actually liking the subject of his biography. I found myself, I think he's been on a journey himself since then. So whether or not it's been revised since. There's some problems in getting to grips with C.S. Lewis. So for example, he has this odd relationship with a lady called Mrs. Moore, which a lot of biographers aren't quite sure what to do with. He also has, C.S. Lewis has his own biography, autobiography, Surprised by Joy. So that's a kind of authoritative version of his early life already. So it's a challenge for a biographer. And he was a copious letter writer. So there's a lot of other material, but this is more incident. You need to sort of put a frame around it that whatever was, because A. N. Wilson decides it was an affair. So he takes firmly that way. But the time when that possibly was the case was also the time when C.S. Lewis was an atheist. (13:52 - 14:07) And it does also then move on to, he's definitely her carer in a non-sexualized way. In later life, she's much more like a mother figure. So who knows what really happened in the 1920s. (14:07 - 14:17) She was the mother of someone he served alongside in the war and he promised to look after her. So he did, and her daughter in his household. So that's the back story to that. (14:18 - 15:12) Do you want to know what I think about it? Okay. Tell us, Andrew. I like to think, and this is me having, particularly being single for so long myself and a bit of a romantic at heart. I like to think that, and I think a lot of the evidence points to that I think they were lovers, especially in the early days. And if they were, well, then if they were in the early days, well, maybe it never stopped. But I think you're right in terms of that, yes, the relationship did change later on until he was more of a carer for Mrs. Moore. And there was certainly a lot of, because his mother died, she was a bit of a mother figure as well. But yeah, I do think the evidence points to the lover thing. And especially as one of C.S. Lewis's friends, Arthur Greaves, burnt letters at some stage that C.S. Lewis wrote to him. (15:12 - 15:20) Okay. Why are you burning letters? Yeah. And also I think what I would say about that is that we shouldn't clutch our pearls. (15:21 - 15:56) So it's C.S. Lewis, is it the fact that she's older than him that people find? So if it's an affair in a time when his personal morality as an atheist would have made that not a problem, and he changed his opinion on those things and changed his behaviour afterwards, surely that's just all part of the story. But because of the age in which he was writing, it wasn't a helpful thing to admit. Whereas now you could probably talk about that, and people would understand that, gosh, we're complicated and we have truth in our life. (15:57 - 20:52) And we may regret some of our behaviours for different reasons because our personal morality has changed. I wouldn't change my opinion of C.S. Lewis one jot to go either way on that. But also, I also feel it's really not my business. You can speculate. Yeah, no, I see it as a, yeah, if he was romantically involved with her, I'm very happy for him. Where it would be a problem for me would be if there is a hypocrisy involved. So if the affair carries on, he becomes a Christian and preaches morality and doesn't admit to, when there's the difference between the public self and the private self, anybody, any writer, politician, whatever, that's where the problem is. I don't think the 1920s Lewis presents us with that gap. It doesn't worry me. So I think I'm gonna go and probably download that. I would like to listen to that. I think it'd be a biography I'd actually really enjoy. So thank you for bringing that to my attention. Oh, no worries. And I'd love to know what your thoughts when you finish reading it. Yeah, yeah. So moving on from the C.S. Lewis's life, we're now going to look at the Inklings book. Is this the one by our friend Humphrey Carpenter that you've been listening to? It is. Yes. So we're circling back. This is the book that deals with both Tolkien and Lewis. How did you enjoy the Inklings biography? Because it's an unusual thing to do a biography of a group as opposed to an individual. Yes, I really liked it. I thought it was done very well. It was interesting because this is in a very summarized version. It's pretty much most of it is Humphrey Carpenter's, in one sense, Humphrey Carpenter's biography of C.S. Lewis because a lot of it centers around C.S. Lewis and he explains his rationale for doing it that way is because Lewis was the founder and the driving force behind the Inklings. He does say that there's not too much about Tolkien because I've written a whole other biography about Tolkien, but he does include little bits and pieces. Then he goes on to discuss Charles Williams, quite a bit on Charles Williams as well, which I don't know too much about Charles Williams and I confess I haven't yet read any of his books. I think I'd like to at some stage get around to it, but I do know they're a bit out there and they're a bit different. Definitely a bit out there. I wanted to talk about that actually. We'll do that at the end, but going back to the Inklings biography, it is the source for the famous conversation. If ever you see that reference, it's this biography that reconstructs what that conversation was about. It's a conversation that took place in about 1931, 1930. I can't remember the exact date. I think it's 1931. Between C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and I think it's Hugo Dyson. Walking around Addison's Walk. Now Addison's Walk, if anyone's been to Magdalen College in Oxford, you go over the Jarwell River and it's all within college grounds. It's a walk, quite a stretch of the legs, but all within the college grounds. It's a post-prandial walk that you could do for about half an hour. It's a lovely walk. It's in the college grounds and you're basically walking around some of the fields where they keep the herd of deer. It's so Oxford, isn't it? Imagine you've got a herd of deer grazing in the middle and you walk around it in this big circular walk. It's great for academic conversations because you're not crossing any roads or anything like that. You can just have a sustained conversation. It's a lovely walk. You can do it. If you come visit the college, you can go and do that walk yourself. It's on this walk that they have the conversation which moves C.S. Lewis to understanding that God can communicate to us through myths. The difference between Jesus coming and dying, a God that dies, and the myths of dying gods is that one is a true myth and the others are a way of God communicating the story idea, preparing the ground. (20:53 - 21:05) That's a poor summary of that conversation, but it's summarised much better in the Inklings biography. That's where it comes from. If you want to find out about that conversation, you need to read this biography. (21:05 - 21:29) Yes. It was very interesting to hear about all of that and get a deeper understanding of how Tolkien and Dyson were able to show C.S. Lewis and bring him to fully embrace Christianity. And then, of course, if it wasn't for that conversation, we wouldn't have Narnia and so many other enjoyable writing apologetics on Christianity. (21:32 - 21:57) There was a definite inflection point. I think he said that he was a deist after that and then it took a while to become a Christian. Wasn't it Ian? He was on a bus. There's some funny comment where he says, I started at one end of the bus as not a Christian. By the time I got off, I was a Christian. That sounds like we recommend all of those as a listen. (21:59 - 24:51) People love listening whilst going out and about and walking these days. So, these are all good points to take with you. The other thing that I will say about that, the Inklings biography, is me, as well, loving history, being a bit of a historian. Humphrey Carpenter does the same thing he did in the Tolkien biography, where he gives a detailed outline, like he did in Tolkien's life. He does a detailed reconstruction of what an Inklings meeting would have been like. He goes on into conversations, not the exact conversations, but a detail of some of the most likely topics they would have talked about. I was particularly interested in those conversations, but also having joined writing groups and stuff as well, knowing what time did they start, what time did they finish, what did they eat or drink, etc. I really enjoyed those reconstructions. So, just thinking about the Inklings biography, obviously, we've got other people who have now tackled the Inklings, like Diana Glyer, for example. I think Carpenter was first in the field. What do you think is not in there? Where else would you have wanted to know more about the Inklings? Well, he sticks to, obviously, the main three, Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams, which is fine. But he doesn't really say, he gives a very brief overview of Hugo Dyson's life. I think there was a couple of other Inklings, I can't remember. There was a few other names, people that joined the Inklings, that I think he said even less about. I would have liked to know a bit more, considering it was covering all the Inklings, but I suppose you have to stop somewhere, because it would have been a very long book otherwise. Then the other thing was, he didn't really say too much. He spoke a lot about C.S. Lewis's death, but I was, again, interested to know, okay, when and how did Hugo Dyson pass away? He talks a bit about C.S. Lewis's brother, Warney Lewis, as well. But again, yes, some of the other Inklings, he didn't really say too much. Another positive thing I liked about the Inklings was talking in detail a bit about C.S. Lewis's walking holidays that he and the Inklings went on. Tolkien didn't always attend, but he attended a couple of them. So, yes, I thought that was very interesting and enjoyable to know about that aspect of their friendship as well. (24:51 - 26:07) Yeah, sorry to think of them walking, because particularly for Tolkien, so much of his books are about walking. I think he's going on a walking holiday with the Inklings. Right, so just to round us off, I wanted to make some recommendations and you have cued me perfectly for one of them, which is that I was digging around before even coming to talk to you about what was available on other Inklings writers. There are a couple of audiobooks of Charles Williams's work, voiced by David Pickering. The two that I saw, there may be more, but the two I saw were The Greater Trumps, which is one of the most fascinating of his books. It's a good place to start. And also All Hallows' Eve, which is like a ghost story. They're both read by David Pickering and he has a lovely voice. They've been out since 2021, so I'm a bit late to the party on this, but I think I'm going to, I haven't yet listened to them, I've listened to the sample. I've read both of them, long form, but I'm going to definitely download those. So there you are, Andrew. If you want to find out just how out there Charles Williams is, the audiobooks are now coming through so that you can access them. (26:08 - 26:22) Oh, good. I'd love to talk about what you think of them when you've had a listen. Yes, I'm pretty sure Charles Williams read samples of All Hallows' Eve to the Inklings. (26:23 - 27:09) Yes, he would have done. Yeah. So thank you so much, Andrew. Thank you for joining us and it's great fun always to talk to you. And I look forward to talking again when we've done a bit more listening. Sounds good. And as always, thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast, brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.