The Walrus was Jack

[selenak]

So here I am, sitting in a train, idly reading the "Literary Review" from November, when lo and behold, I come across an article opening with the following lines:

"If Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were the Lennon and McCartney of the Inklings, then Charles Williams was the George Harrison. (And their Ringo? Possibly Owen Barfield. Another story.)"My

Comments

[selenak]

It does feel right, either way, but in this case, it's helped by the fact that video is a parody of the original Imagine vid, which was shot at Tittenhurst Park, John and Yoko's last English home before they moved to New York, which they sold to Ringo later. Whether or not John (who could be extremely self mocking) was conscious of the irony of singing "Imagine no possessions" while strolling around in his lordly estate is debatable.

Lewis and Tolkien collaborating over the Edda sounds much more promising than trying to write a completely invented fantasy together.

Yes, that's why I picked the idea. Tolkien's standards for world building being so high. But the Edda, no matter how you interpret it, already sets out certain parameters, and they really loved that mythology to bits.

Which monologue in Narnia is full of Ulsterior motive?

Oh, I wasn't thinking of any one in particular, more about Tolkien's dislike of blatant allegory and ongoing digs at Lewis the Protestant Ulsterman (which were however mostly due to his disappointment that Lewis didn't become a Catholic once he'd left atheism behind), as in this famous quote after Lewis' death:

“[C.S. Lewis] …of course had some oddities and could sometimes be irritating. He was after all and remained an Irishman of Ulster. But he did nothing for effect; he was not a professional clown, but a natural one, when a clown at all. He was generous-minded, on guard against all prejudices, though a few were too deep-rooted in his native background to be observed by him.”

re: religion in Narnia, never mind being twenty, I was 24 or 25 when I read the Narnia novels, and didn't twig the Alsan = Jesus bit until the third book or so (and yes, I read them in the order as originally published).