Just when
you think you’ve read just about everything possible on the Inklings, and
surely no one can add any more to what we know about them, along comes a writer
like Colin Duriez and a book like The
Oxford Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien and Their Circle, just to prove you
wrong.
What a
treat this book is – comprehensive, succinct, engaging, and informative.
Over a
period of more than two decades, a group of teachers, professors, and occasionally
students and friends came together to discuss literature, read from their works
in progress, drink beer, and offer constructive criticism and encouragement.
The best known of the group were J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Owen Barfield,
Hugo Dyson, Charles Williams, and Warren Lewis were regular attenders. Christopher
Tolkien would join the group after his service in World War II.
What their
discussions led to was some of the best-known, best-loved, and most influential
literature of the 20th century – The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,
the Chronicles of Narnia and numerous
other books by Lewis, and the strange, magical novels of Charles Williams,
among others.
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| The Bodelian Library, Radcliffe Camera and St. Mary's Church |
Not all of
the discussions happened at the weekly meetings in the back room (aka “The
Rabbit Room”) of the Eagle and Child pub; in fact, the more serious and important
discussions happened in Lewis’s room in Magdalen College. It was only
literature that was discussed; Tolkien and Lewis between them successfully
plotted to overthrow the “tyranny of modern literature” in the Oxford English
curriculum. The Inklings were well aware,
for example, that the term “Renaissance” was invented in the 19th
century to describe the 14th-16th centuries, and it was
not a concept that the people who lived through it considered.
The
picture that emerges from The Oxford
Inklings, published in 2015, is a
group that centered on Lewis; he was the guiding spirit. What also emerges is a
strong sense of what was happening with Christianity at Oxford; the interplay
of writing, lectures, and friendships; the disdain by many of Oxford’s dons
(and occasionally Tolkien himself) toward Lewis as a popularizer of theology,
despite his major research and literary contributions. And one also sees something
of the tension between friends who shared the different faith traditions of Catholic
and Anglican.
 |
| Colin Duriez |
Duriez is a writer and lecturer who has written extensively
about Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings. His works include The C.S. Lewis
Handbook (1990), The C.S. Lewis
Encyclopedia (2000), The Inklings
Handbook (2001; co-authored), Tolkien and The
Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle Earth (2001), The J.R.R.
Tolkien Handbook (2002), A Field Guide to
Narnia (2004), The C.S. Lewis
Chronicles (2005), J.R.R. Tolkien:
The Making of a Legend (2012), and The Oxford
Inklings (2015). He is also the author of A.D. 33: The
Year That Changed the World (2007), Field Guide to
Harry Potter (2007), The Poetic Bible (2001),
and Francis
Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (2008).
The Oxford Inklings is a significant addition to our
understanding of who the Inklings were, what they accomplished, and what their
friendship meant.
Related:
Top photograph: From left, Charles
Williams, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, and J.R.R. Tolkien, all members of the
Oxford Inklings.
This sounds like a great book for understanding the relationships behind the legendary group. When I've read Lewis and Tolkien's fiction, so full of great friendships and bonds among colleagues, I've wondered about the lives they lived which, apparently, consisted of a lot of "research" on the hoof about the love between friends.
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