Chapter 4 deals with the war years; both Tolkien and Lewis served in the war. Jacobs tells us that Lewis arrived at the front lines in France on his 19th birthday (69); within just a couple of months he was suffering from "trench fever," which Tolkien also contracted.
I looked this up. It's a bacterial infection spread by body lice, and here's a description:
"trench fever was characterized by the abrupt onset of fever, malaise, myalgias, headache, transient macular rash of the torso, pain in the long bones of the leg (shins), and splenomegaly. Typical periodic cycles of fever, chills, and sweats occurred at 5-day intervals, resulting in prolonged disability that lasted 3 months or longer in young soldiers." (from eMedicine by WebMD)
Lewis was in hospital only about a month and then returned to the front lines, where he was soon wounded and out of the fighting for good.
Jacobs discusses Lewis's inclusion of battles in the Narnia stories, where, though he spares his young readers the intensity of the battles he saw in World War I, Lewis doesn't shield them from encounters with frightening dangers in fighting against evil armies nor from experiencing the pain of fallen comrades. Jacobs says, "I suspect he risked the forthrightness [in The Last Battle] because in just a few pages he would have Aslan call all the humans and other creatures into the New Narnia, his everlasting kingdom" (74).
However, when Lewis was in the war, and then returned home with his injuries, he wasn't yet a believer; he didn't yet have a hope of an everlasting kingdom, and he must have suffered greatly. Jacobs notes that letters to several people briefly note this though Lewis doesn't dwell on the after-effects. He did apparently suffer from recurring nightmares (75), which was common. I remember as a young girl being startled from sleep by my father's tortured screams in the darkness; then my thumping heart would slowly regain its rhythm while I listened to my mother's soothing whispers comforting him till his sobbing stopped. It occurs to me that perhaps this element of comfort may have had something to do with Lewis's rather strange relationship with Mrs. Moore. I'll have to think about that.
After returning home, Lewis learned that his friend Paddy Moore had been killed in the war. He had made a commitment to care for Paddy's mother and sister should this happen, and we know that he kept his commitment; Jacobs will probably talk more about this later. One thing that I really admire about Lewis is that he seems to have been a man of his word--both before and following his conversion. I wonder if his love of Norse mythology and Spencer, etc. had helped to instill this code of honor in him. We see it in the "Lewis" character in That Hideous Strength who plods on to Ransom's house through a barrage of evil influence because he doesn't want to let down his friend.
Jacobs brings us up to the publication of Lewis's first book, the poems in Spirits in Bondage. He notes that these poems contain contradictory elements: "the metaphysical pessimism" of Housman and Kirk, as well as the fantastic elements of Morris and Yeats (77). He sees these poems as evidence that the 2 halves of Lewis's brain ("the analytical and the imaginative")have divided completely and that the "imaginative half is dying," overcome by "philosophical pessimism" (80).
This chapter closes with the end of the war; Warnie and Jack have both survived, as has Tolkein, but many, many young men they had known were gone, and the war had a profound effect on all the survivors. Jacobs ends with a quote from a letter by Wilfred Owen, whose haunting poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" is perhaps his most well-known; it saddens me to think of so many talented young people, who may have become poets, artists, writers, inventors, teachers, etc., that have been lost to both the necessity and the folly of war. And so very thankful for those who arrive home safely.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Narnian, ch 3 . . .
In this chapter we get Lewis's final years of schooling before university, and these were the best years in many ways for him, as he lived and studied with the "Great Knock," William Kirkpatrick. Here Lewis's logical and debating skills were honed, and he thoroughly enjoyed the freedom from the torments of his earlier schools.
His reading included "popular fiction, classic English novels, all of his classical, Italian, and German literature . . . [and] the greatest English poets" (63). His favorite reading was "Spenser's Faerie Queene . . . . "the prose and verse narratives of William Morris" . . . . and "everything he could find by Yeats" (63).
Jacobs quotes from a letter from Lewis to his friend Arthur Greeves:
"never since I first read [Morris's] 'The well at the world's end' have I enjoyed a book so much--and indeed I think my new 'find' is quite as good as Malory or Morris himself. The book . . . is George MacDonald's 'Faerie Romance,' Phantastes" (63).
I've chosen The Well at the World's End for my 401 students for later in the semester; I'll have to remember to point this out to them.
Jacobs points out that during his stay with Kirkpatrick, Lewis adopted a "materialist view of myth"; to him all myths, including the Christian myth, grew out of the natural processes and events in the world (48). Lewis himself wrote, "The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. On the one side a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other a glib and shallow 'rationalism.' Nearly all that I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real I thought grim and meaningless." (49)
I've known people like this, who deeply appreciate the beauty and delight that Lewis encountered in myth and poetry, though they may encounter it in different ways. It is a balm to them in their otherwise grim and meaningless lives. It saddens me. And makes me thankful for the grace of integrity in true Christianity.
After reading this chapter, I wished I had read it before I re-read the trilogy. All the way through THS, I was wondering if McPhee was modeled on someone Lewis knew; B[arfield], Humphreys, Tolkien, and Williams are all mentioned by name. Jacobs claims that Kirkpatrick is the model for McPhee as well as for Professor Kirke in the Narnia stories. It makes sense--wish I'd made the connection myself!
His reading included "popular fiction, classic English novels, all of his classical, Italian, and German literature . . . [and] the greatest English poets" (63). His favorite reading was "Spenser's Faerie Queene . . . . "the prose and verse narratives of William Morris" . . . . and "everything he could find by Yeats" (63).
Jacobs quotes from a letter from Lewis to his friend Arthur Greeves:
"never since I first read [Morris's] 'The well at the world's end' have I enjoyed a book so much--and indeed I think my new 'find' is quite as good as Malory or Morris himself. The book . . . is George MacDonald's 'Faerie Romance,' Phantastes" (63).
I've chosen The Well at the World's End for my 401 students for later in the semester; I'll have to remember to point this out to them.
Jacobs points out that during his stay with Kirkpatrick, Lewis adopted a "materialist view of myth"; to him all myths, including the Christian myth, grew out of the natural processes and events in the world (48). Lewis himself wrote, "The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. On the one side a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other a glib and shallow 'rationalism.' Nearly all that I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real I thought grim and meaningless." (49)
I've known people like this, who deeply appreciate the beauty and delight that Lewis encountered in myth and poetry, though they may encounter it in different ways. It is a balm to them in their otherwise grim and meaningless lives. It saddens me. And makes me thankful for the grace of integrity in true Christianity.
After reading this chapter, I wished I had read it before I re-read the trilogy. All the way through THS, I was wondering if McPhee was modeled on someone Lewis knew; B[arfield], Humphreys, Tolkien, and Williams are all mentioned by name. Jacobs claims that Kirkpatrick is the model for McPhee as well as for Professor Kirke in the Narnia stories. It makes sense--wish I'd made the connection myself!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Narian, ch 2
Chapter Two deals with the succession of boarding (public) schools the Lewis boys attended; we learn that Warnie was a "blood," a member of the often vicious ruling class of boys who were merciless in their treatment of lesser beings like Jack (though by the time Jack came to Malvern, Warnie had moved on to another school). In this hierarchy, the boys in power could demand that the others did whatever they were told; they became servants and whipping boys. This "fagging" left a lasting negative impression on Jack and other victims of schoolboy brutality. Jacobs notes that, as a result of the fagging system, George Orwell was "energized . . . politically" and adopted a sort of socialism, while Lewis turned inward and withdrew "from the political realm" (34). He also points out that this system led to a desire in some boys to become part of the "Inner Ring," which Lewis portrays so well in Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength (35).
Jacobs recounts Lewis's experience at Wynyard College school during his pre-teen years; here "real Christian faith became part of his life for the first time" (37). But this faith, which he admired because he saw the sincerity of those who taught it, was experienced by him as a strenuous faith of works. During this time, too, he was influenced by two views of religion that undermined his faith in the truth of Christianity. First, Jacobs tells us, as Lewis read the Classics he began to wonder if Christianity might not be just as false as the pagan religions, and then he meet a woman, Miss Cowie, who "today would be called a proponent of New Age spirituality" (38). Lewis wrote: "She was . . . floundering in the mazes of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, the whole Anglo-American Occultist tradition" (38). In these concepts he found an expanding idea of spirituality, which made no rigorous demands on him; Jacobs says, "Freed from the burdens of prayer, by the time he left Malvern Jack had ceased to be a Christian" (40).
The chapter ends with a discussion of Lewis's intense search for "Joy," which drove him throughout his later teen years to flee from the unrewarding rigors of traditional Christianity and to search for "a world where delight was still possible" (42).
This all brings two things to mind: First, it frustrates me no end when Christianity is lived in this stultifying, barren way, and many Christians do live like this, beating themselves up all the time for their fallen nature and sinful behavior; that made me think of the film, Martin Luther, where Luther is constantly living in fear of God and bemoaning his sins--his confessor tells him that he's not so wicked as he tries to make out and that he's never confessed anything that was even interesting! The priest then tells Luther to look to Christ, to bind himself to Christ, and find mercy. It often seems to me that Christians who live this life of constant self deprecation are in fact egocentric and not looking to Christ; He is to be the focus of the Christian's life, not ourselves, not our sin, not our failings. This, to me, is liberating.
And Second, I find it interesting that later in life two of Lewis's closest friends would be Owen Barfield, a theosophist, and Charles Williams, who for a time was a member of the Golden Dawn and very interested in occult (secret) organizations and practices. Both of these men remained orthodox in faith but their Christianity allowed for the very sort of expansion the young Jack was seeking, yet he never followed that path with them.
Jacobs recounts Lewis's experience at Wynyard College school during his pre-teen years; here "real Christian faith became part of his life for the first time" (37). But this faith, which he admired because he saw the sincerity of those who taught it, was experienced by him as a strenuous faith of works. During this time, too, he was influenced by two views of religion that undermined his faith in the truth of Christianity. First, Jacobs tells us, as Lewis read the Classics he began to wonder if Christianity might not be just as false as the pagan religions, and then he meet a woman, Miss Cowie, who "today would be called a proponent of New Age spirituality" (38). Lewis wrote: "She was . . . floundering in the mazes of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, the whole Anglo-American Occultist tradition" (38). In these concepts he found an expanding idea of spirituality, which made no rigorous demands on him; Jacobs says, "Freed from the burdens of prayer, by the time he left Malvern Jack had ceased to be a Christian" (40).
The chapter ends with a discussion of Lewis's intense search for "Joy," which drove him throughout his later teen years to flee from the unrewarding rigors of traditional Christianity and to search for "a world where delight was still possible" (42).
This all brings two things to mind: First, it frustrates me no end when Christianity is lived in this stultifying, barren way, and many Christians do live like this, beating themselves up all the time for their fallen nature and sinful behavior; that made me think of the film, Martin Luther, where Luther is constantly living in fear of God and bemoaning his sins--his confessor tells him that he's not so wicked as he tries to make out and that he's never confessed anything that was even interesting! The priest then tells Luther to look to Christ, to bind himself to Christ, and find mercy. It often seems to me that Christians who live this life of constant self deprecation are in fact egocentric and not looking to Christ; He is to be the focus of the Christian's life, not ourselves, not our sin, not our failings. This, to me, is liberating.
And Second, I find it interesting that later in life two of Lewis's closest friends would be Owen Barfield, a theosophist, and Charles Williams, who for a time was a member of the Golden Dawn and very interested in occult (secret) organizations and practices. Both of these men remained orthodox in faith but their Christianity allowed for the very sort of expansion the young Jack was seeking, yet he never followed that path with them.
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