Wow. If I were to list everything that's wrong with this article, it would be so long as to give the impression that I thought it totally off-base. But it isn't, so I won't. A lot of it is empty air, and much of it sort of sets my teeth on edge, but much of the general thrust is entirely reasonable, and it's impressively well-researched. The most surprising thing was the statement at the end that it's condensed from an upcoming book, and I hope that the condensation is the source of most of the difficulties.
One wonders about its intended audience. Is it undergraduates--in which case, sweeping generalizations are more appropriate? Or is it meant for those remaining literary scholars who dismiss the mode of the fantastic, in which case the argument needs bolstering? Or maybe it's designed for scholars of religion (Carol Zaleski's field), who might not be familiar with the Inklings. I don't know the prejudices of that field: is there disdain for Lewis because he was a self-taught theologian and too popular?
It reads to me as if it's addressed to general readers (more general than you'd expect from the CHE: maybe academics in other fields whose knowledge of English literary study is of only passing curiosity) who might have been taken in by modernist hostility towards the Inklings. It is manifestly not equipped to convert the actively hostile.
The problems with the article are less sweeping generalizations than puffery, blowing up the Inklings to twice their size, in the manner of a blowfish or a cat bristling its fur, to make it look more impressive than it really is.
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The problems with the article are less sweeping generalizations than puffery, blowing up the Inklings to twice their size, in the manner of a blowfish or a cat bristling its fur, to make it look more impressive than it really is.
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I'll take a look.
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