An Inklings' Bibliography (31)

Volume 13 Number 4 Article 25 6-15-1987 An Inklings' Bibliography (31) Joe R. Christopher Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Christopher, Joe R. (1987) "An Inklings' Bibliography (31)," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 13 : No. 4 , Article 25. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol13/iss4/25 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Resuming after a hiatus, a series of bibliographies of primary and secondary works concerning the Inklings. This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol13/iss4/25 Page 58 MYTHLORE 50: Summer 1987 A n Inklings' Bibliography (3l) Compiled by Joe R. Christopher Bailey, Kenneth V. "Aliens for the Alienated," 197-210. Doom. Brilliant puppetry, costuming, sound effects, Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Confronts the music, black light and lasers — the goosebumps are Future. Ed. George B. Slusser, Colin Greenland, back, just from the memory. I’d love to see it again." and Eric S. Rabkin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univerisity Press (Alternatives series)', 1987. Bryant, Mark. Riddles: Ancient and Modern. New York: [Tolkien allusion, 200] Peter Bedrick Books, 1984. (Originally published An essay discussing Toynbee’s terms archaism in 1983 by Hutchinson Books, London.) [Tolkien, and futurism, as used in A Study of History and as 11, 74, 76, 78, 82, 186-187, 204] taken "to be reacting against or destructive of the Bryant writes a brief history of riddles in world contemporary ethos within which they exist" (199-200). literature (although missing altogether those • by Emily "Contemporary ’return to origins’ movements have Dickinson) and then collects 709 examples, almost all in existed in parallel with, and have often drawn sus verse or translated from verse into prose. In his his taining imaginative impetus from, a proliferation of tory of the form, he mentions the competition between Middle Earth [sic] fantasies, including regression as Bilbo Baggins and Gollum in The Hobbit, Ch. 5, quoting far back as to the Pliocene" (200). When Bailey turns "This thing all things devours" (77-78); in his collec to futurism, in his sense, he also discusses the aliens tion, Bryant quotes the seven verse riddles from The in SF and he does not return, substantially, to Hobbit but not the one in prose (186-187) and gives archaism and its dangers. their answers (204). Briney, Robert E. From an untitled editorial column. Christopher, Joe R. C.S. Lewis. Boston: Twayne Pub Contact Is Not a Verb, No. 41 (March 1987), 2-3. lishers, A Division of G.K. Hall (Twayne English "The highlight of the Fall was in another league Authors Series, No. 442), 1987. [xvi] + 150 pp. [Inklings generally, ix, xiv, 4, 6, 29, 60, 62, 64, entirely: the stage production of an adaptation of 105, 120; Barfield, xiii, 2, 3, 5, 12, 25, 30, 42, 67, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings by the Canadian Theatre Sans Fil — performed by a combination of live actors 72, 76, 103, 132 n. 8; Bennett, 29; Dyson, xiv, 5, and rod-and-cable puppets. The same group did a 6, 13, 29, 114; Fox, 76; Hardie, 25; Havard, 64; W. stage version of The Hobbit at the Olympic Arts Festi H. Lewis, xiv, 2, 5-6, 16, 25, 39, 66; Tolkien, xiii, val in Los Angeles in 1984. Advance reviews were xiv, 2, 4-6, 13, 23-24, 29-30, 37, 42, 60, 81, 909, somewhat mixed, but intriguing, so I decided to take a 977, 103, 105, 110-119; Williams, xiv, 2, 6, 20, 29, chance. The first few minutes were not promising 38, 41-42, 49, 60, 62, 64, 67, 76, 84, 87-88, 90, —Hobbits are, by their very nature, cutesy, and 100-103, 105, 108, 123-124, 129.] Bilbo’s 111th birthday party threatened to dissolve Christopher offers a study of Lewis’ book-length into Disneyness at any moment. But once the quest prose works, arranged by genre into chapters and was begun, the Fellowship prepared to spend their then chronologically within the chapters. Following the first night in the forest — and almost subliminal Twayne format, he also has a chronology of Lewis’ electronic humming filled the theater, accompanied by life, a biographical introduction (which Christopher ominous snorts and heavy breathing; then the Dark turns mainly into a discussion of Lewis’ sensibilities), Rider appeared — a cloaked figure mounted on a a conclusion on Lewis’ artistic importance, a primary gigantic, sleek black horse with a white skull for a checklist, and an annotated secondary checklist (which head, eyes glowing like red coals, clouds of vapor Christopher limits almost entirely to full-length books coming from its nostrils. I’m sure I wasn’t the only on Lewis). One of the virtues of Christopher’s book is one in the audience to turn to instant goosebumps. that he avoided the required summaries of content From that moment I was captivated, watching Tolkien’s and plots (which, for example, ate up much space in world come to life before my eyes. I was scarcely con Margaret Patterson Hannay’s C.S. Lewis in a similar scious of the black-clad puppeteers scurrying around series), turning them into plot and organization ana in the background. The puppets were real: the elves, lyses. Christopher has emphasized Lewis’ artistry and preternaturally tall and thin and beautiful and non self-revelatory aspects in his books (despite what human; Treebeard the Ent, a marvellous twenty-foot- Lewis’ The Personal Heresy says about the latter) and tall talking tree; the gigantic Shelob the spider; and seems largely unconcerned with Lewis’ Christian mes the Balrog, deserving of all the Lovecraftian adjec sage; an example of the latter is his psychological tives such as ’squamous’ and ’rugose’, entering from reading of Till We Have Faces, with only scant mention the back of the auditorium and oozing its way down of the religious level. Christopher also emphasizes the aisle, snuffling at the audience, and finally climb Dantean allusions, Lewis’ male chauvinism, his sadism, ing over the orchestra pit and onto the stage for its and his references to his friends. Some of these battle to the death with Gandalf the wizard. There was should make the book controversial in a minor way, Saruman and his minion Wormtongue, comic and evil at appropriately enough since Lewis also did controver the same time; the full-scale battle of Minas Tirith, sial things in his scholarly books. Sometimes Christo with rival war machines trundling onto the stage and pher simply seems eccentric, as in his attack on the disgorging what seemed like hordes of warriors; and lack of organization in Letters to Malcolm when he at the climax, slimy Gollum biting off Frodo’s finger could have just as easily praised its epistolary veri with the One Ring, and falling into the fires of Mount similitude; sometimes he misses the obvious, as when MYTHLORE 50: Summer 1987 Page 59 he fails to mention D.E. Myers’ brilliant reading of the After a chapter on Lewis’ literary theory, Daigle Narnian Chronicles in their order of publication, "The surveys Dantean literary devices and plot imitations in Compleat Anglican: Spiritual Style in the Chronicles of The Pilgrim’s Regress, "The Space Trilogy," The Narnia"; and sometimes he is simply wrong, as when Screwtaoe Letters, The Great Divorce, and "The Nar he complains about the lack of organization in The nian Chronicles." Daigle misses the Dantean imagery at Great Divorce — Marsha Ann Daigle in her disserta the end of Til We Have Faces, but otherwise she pro tion, "Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Fiction of C.S. vides the fullest and best treatment of Lewis’ Dantean Lewis,” has shown it is based on Dante’s Purgatorio, borrowings in his fiction which is available. The dis with George MacDonald’s discussion of free will coming cussions of both The Pilgrim’s Regress and the Ran between two groups of five Ghosts each, just as Vir som Trilogy involve extended comparisons of the jour gil’s discussion of free will occurs on the Fourth neys of Dante-the-character and John in the former Cornice of Mount Purgatory, the middle one of the and Ransom in the latter, among other matters. Paral seven. Whatever his book’s flaws and despite his bio lels are drawn between Screwtape’s Hell and the graphical emphases, Christopher’s basic concern with Inferno. The discussion of The Great Divorce is ela aesthetics and his attempted appeal to a general borate, as might be expected. In addition to the more audience are obviously intended to prove valuable in obvious parallels, daigle discusses the structure of a long-range defense of Lewis as a writer.

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