NarniaFans Staff Member, Jonathon D. Svendsen, is going to be featured in the second issue of  Silver Leaves, which is put out by the White Tree Fund, a Tolkien-related publication. The theme for this issue is dedicated to the Inklings. Fans of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien know that the Inklings was the name of the informal literary group that consisted of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and many others.

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Prince Caspian. The Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Heroes. Battlestar Galactica. Science fiction and fantasy comprise some of today’s top entertainment.

In recognition of the best work within this genre, Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, recently announced the nominees for this year’s highly coveted Hugo Award —the most prestigious award in the science fiction field. Diana Glyer, a Tolkien/Lewis expert and Azusa Pacific University professor, has secured a spot in the Best Related Book category.

“It is so rare for a book about Tolkien or Lewis to gain this kind of recognition,” said Glyer. “But this is about their interaction. I think there is a renewed interest in creative collaboration, even in business, science, and technology. We are in the age of Wikinomics: it’s not so much about being a solitary genius as it is about teamwork, relationships, and context.”

A book that has captured the attention of creative writers, Lewis and Tolkien scholars, and science fiction fans, Glyer’s The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community (Kent State University Press, 2007) explores:

The Inklings
Small-group dynamics
Transformation
The creative process

Glyer’s book describes writers in community, and her home life illustrates it. “My husband and I are both writers,” she said. “Our desks stand side by side in our converted garage. We constantly turn to one another for encouragement, and feedback.” Her husband, Mike Glyer, edits File 770, a science fiction news magazine. He is an eight-time Hugo winner, and File 770 has been nominated again this year for Best Fanzine.

The Hugo Awards, given for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, have been awarded since 1953. Final awards will be announced at Denvention’s Hugo Awards Ceremony on Sat., Aug. 9. For more information on the nomination, visit www.devention.org or www.thehugoawards.org. For information on Glyer and her book, visit www.theplaceofthelion.com.

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There is magic in the last line of The Lord of the Rings. To recap: the stolidly courageous Sam Gamgee, having watched his best friend, Frodo Baggins, sail towards the Grey Havens and into a kind of death, is left to walk back to the Shire where he finds his wife and children waiting with the promise of a quiet life far from the slaughter of the War of the Ring. J. R. R. Tolkien finishes with the sentence: “‘Well, I’m back,’ he said”. It is a touchingly understated conclusion which returns the prose to the homely simplicity of the inaugural chapters after the archaic epic mode of The Return of the King.

However, as Diana Pavlac Glyer tells us in her scholarly and perceptive study The Company They Keep, this is not how Tolkien originally intended to finish his trilogy. He had in mind a further epilogue, set sixteen years after the events of the rest of the book, which would have provided another, superfluous glimpse into Gamgee’s domesticity. In this ultimately excised version, a grey-haired Sam reads stories of his adventures to his children, spinning them tales of wizards and orcs and walking trees. There is even the faint suggestion that Sam has been narrating the story of The Lord of the Rings itself, before, at last, we depart the Shire for good, leaving Sam and Rose in a state of connubial bliss, tale-telling by the fireside.

What stopped Tolkien from publishing this ending was his membership of the Inklings – that renowned circle of Oxford writers and academics who met for seventeen years from 1932 and which counted C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and E. R. Edison, the author of The Worm Ouroboros, among their number. It was they who pointed out the glutinous sentimentality of the scene, marshalling their forces to argue that it added nothing of substance to a narrative which had already swollen far beyond the “second Hobbit” requested by his publishers. Glyer suggests that this incident typifies the way in which the Inklings affected one another’s work, despite the fact that in later years its members were frequently to insist that their meetings acted more as a social club than a writers’ circle, brushing aside any suggestion of real influence.

Down the pub with Tolkien and C. S. Lewis

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David J. Theroux, the Founder and President of the C. S. Lewis Society of California has e-mailed us with the latest updates on many upcoming events that you’re all invited to attend! Please note the following in this issue of the C.S. Lewis Society Update (8/29/07):

1. More on Harry Potter and Christianity
2. Film News
3. New Publications
4. Next meeting of C.S. Lewis Society’s Bay Area Book Club: Studies in Words
5. Other Events

1. More on Harry Potter and Christianity:

In agreement with a recent Wall Street Journal review by Mechan Cox Gurdon of the new book, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, Newsday columnist Raymond Keating discusses the Christian imagery in J.K. Rowling’s new and final book in her Potter series.

“Harry Potter and the Christian allegory,” by Raymond Keating

2. Film News:

A. A number of the fantasy novels by novelist, playwright, poet, biographer, and theologian Charles Williams, starting with his ALL HALLOW’S EVE, will be made into major films by renowned producer Ralph Winter. Mr. Winter is also producing the film version of C.S. Lewis’s best-selling book, THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, which is scheduled for release in late 2008. Among his many other film credits are the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Star Trek III-VI films as well as “Planet of the Apes,” “Mighty Joe Young,” and “Flight of the Intruder,” as well as the ABC TV series, “Lost.”

Charles Williams was a member of The Inklings literary circle at Oxford, which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lewis’s acclaimed dystopian novel of a scientistic totalitarianism, THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, was heavily influenced by the work of Williams.

Web site for The Charles Williams Society

B. At the recent German Games Convention, Disney Interactive featured portions of a new video game based on Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia book, PRINCE CASPIAN, which will be released in conjunction with the forthcoming film in May 2008. Here incidentally is the official web site for the Narnia films:
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/

3. New Publications:

A. BOOK: For those interested in using Lewis’s books in schools and colleges, study groups, book clubs, churches, and seminars, the following new book is recommended. The book provides summaries, questions, references, and insights into how to teach Lewis’s books.

TEACHING C.S. LEWIS: A Handbook for Professors, Church Leaders, and Lewis Enthusiasts, by Richard A. Hill and Lyle Smith (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)

B. JOURNAL: The Arizona C.S. Lewis Society has recently launched SEHNSUCHT: The C. S. Lewis Journal, with the first issue featuring articles by Walter Hooper, Victor Reppert, and others. (”Sehnsucht” means longing.)

4. Next meetings of the C.S. Lewis Society’s Bay Area Book Club:

Book for Discussion:

STUDIES IN WORDS, by C.S. Lewis:

Wednesday, September 5th, 7:30 p.m.;
Meeting moderator/leader: Andrew Dosa

Wednesday, September 12th, 7:30 p.m.;
Meeting moderator/leader: Andrew Dosa

Man is unique among all creatures in his use of words, and words affect us directly in most every aspect of our lives. In this absorbing, breathtaking and entertaining book, Lewis examines eleven selected words and teases out their connotations from a vast range of English literature in which their meaning has changed through the centuries. The selected words are Nature, Sad, Wit, Free, Sense, Simple, Conscience and Conscious, World, and Life, plus the phrase, “I dare say!” Lewis reveals the “dangerous sense” of assuming a word’s current meaning in reading earlier literature, which can produce a complete misunderstanding of an author’s intent.

In STUDIES IN WORDS, Lewis invokes the mysteries of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, quotes the deepest yearnings expressed by such writers as Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Lucretius, Seneca, and Coleridge, and traces shadows upon the Hellenic cave while juggling Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. He does this without a trace of the pointless and contradictory “deconstructionism” which, in the hands of contemporary writers more interested in condemnation than description, has cast an affliction upon modern literature. Far from leaving readers gasping for air, Lewis opens the layers of linguistics, “driving words from different languages abreast” in order to bring out the wonderful meanings of words.

“Rarely is so much learning displayed with so much grace and charm. My only regret is that the book was not twice as long.” –New York Times Book Review

“…a brilliant book addresses to students and lay people alike, unbaffling, deeply informative, and timelessly persuasive.” –Robert Burchfield, Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary

The meetings will be held at:

11990 Skyline Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94619 (atop the Oakland hills)
510-482-2906 phone
wine, soft drinks and other refreshments served

Here also are a couple short articles that discuss STUDIES IN WORDS and related issues:

“Studies in Words,” review by Michael Jose

“Studies in Words,” by Wikipedia

STUDIES IN WORDS in available in paperback

Here also is the schedule of future Lewis Society book club meetings.

Here also is information on C.S. Lewis

We hope that you and/or others you know will be joining with us! (Please feel free to forward this update to others.)

5. Other Events:

“The Crisis of the University: Freedom, Tolerance and the Pursuit of Truth”
Sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Foundation
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
October 5-6, 2007
http://www.cslewis.org/programs/ff/2007/index.html

“C.S. Lewis: Man and His Work: A 21st Century Legacy”
Sponsored by L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC
October 26-27, 2007
http://www.sebts.edu/CSLewis/

“C.S. Lewis Conference”
Sponsored by Hope Lutheran Church
Atascadero, CA
January 25-27, 2008
(More details to follow)

“Sixth Frances Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends”
Sponsored by Taylor University, Upland, IN
May 29-June 1, 2008
http://www.taylor.edu/academics/supportservices/cslewis/colloquium/

“Charles Williams and His Contemporaries”
Sponsored by The Charles Williams Society
Sr. Hilda’s College, Oxford, England
July 4-6, 2007
http://www.geocities.com/charles_wms_soc/events.html

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Inspired by the forthcoming Walden Media/ Disney Film of the classic Narnia story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, this conference celebrates C. S. Lewis’ contribution to literature, theology, apologetics, scholarship, popular culture, myth, and imagination.

‘Past Watchful Dragons’ will also consider the work of the constellation of writers associated with Lewis such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Dorothy Sayers.

Belmont University invites scholars, students, church and community members to attend this exciting event featuring Doug Gresham (stepson of C. S. Lewis and Consultant to the film); Christopher Mitchell (Director of the Marion E. Wade Center and Assistant Professor of Theology, Wheaton College); Bruce Edwards (Noted Lewis Scholar, Associate Dean, and Professor of English at Bowling Green State University); David Payne (British actor and President of Rising Image Productions, specializing in dramatizations of the works of C. S. Lewis); and Glass Hammer (literary progressive rock band specializing in original music based on the writings of C. S. Lewis).

Conference to be held November 3-5, 2005 on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Scholars working on C.S. Lewis and the Inklings are invited to present paper proposals on the following suggested topics:

1. Fantasy and Film: Lewis and The Inklings.
2. Archetypes in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
3. The Image of the Messiah and the Works of C. S. Lewis and the Inklings
4. Overcoming Evil with Good: The Theology of Lewis
5. Fairy Stories: Worlds of Imagination in the Writings of Lewis and Tolkien
6. Surprised by Words: ‘Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms’ and the Aesthetic Experience
7. Lewis and the Integration of Faith and Learning
8. The Appeal of C. S. Lewis: Exploring the Mystery

Papers on other topics considering the work of C. S. Lewis and suggested panel discussion topics are also welcomed. Please limit proposals to a 300 word abstract. Papers should be 20-25 minutes long.

All paper submissions due by May 1, 2005

Click here to submit a paper proposal

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