Derek Jacobi's Tolkien Audiobooks reviewed

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There are three audiobooks of Tolkien's short works performed by the English actor Derek Jacobi: Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle and Smith of Wooton Major.

There is not much to be said about them except that I suppose it is possible that better performances than these might conceivably be done at some point in the future, so I will award the discs 9/ 10...

But, really, Jacobi's readings of Tolkien are as near perfection as makes no difference.

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Which Inklings are the Notion Club Principals? And who is missing?

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There are six main members of the Notion Club. Their resemblances with real-life Inklings are partial and mixed and - in the later drafts - inessential.

But, accepting that, what follows are my current thoughts on the identity of the real-life Inklings upon whom the big six were based.

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Members Zero. Significant omissions: CS Lewis and Charles Williams.

I now feel that Lewis is omitted from the Notion Club Papers although at an early stage his initials were tentatively noted next to a character called Franks, who perhaps led to the name Frankley. Lewis was the cause and core of the real-life Inklings - but absent from the NCPs for the simple reason that Part 1 is substantially a debate about Lewis, especially his Space Trilogy.

Another core Inkling, Charles Williams, is also absent from the NCPs because he had died (May 1945) only a matter of half a year before Tolkien began to write the book (Late 1945), and Tolkien was not the man to write fiction about a recently-deceased friend.

Lewis would do this kind of thing - i.e. use fresh experience in his writing, as with A Grief Observed - but not Tolkien. Tolkien believed that raw experience needed many years of composting before use in fiction.

The subtraction of Lewis and Williams makes for a big, big difference between the Notion Club and the Inklings - how could it be otherwise when two of the largest and most distinctive characters of the twentieth century are missing?

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The main six members of the Notion Club are 1. Ramer, 2. Guildford, 3. Lowdham, 4. Jeremy, 5. Dolbear, 6. Frankley.

1. Ramer is the main Tolkien mouthpiece in the early part of the NCPs.

2. Guildford is described as the club's recorder who does not read pieces very much - this role is most like Warnie Lewis; but not much else about Guildford is like Warnie: Guildford is rather irritable and critical; Warnie was the opposite.

3. Lowdham's extravert and boisterous character comes from Hugo Dyson (this was identified by initials in an early draft), but many of his interests, abilities and attributes are from Tolkien himself.

4. Jeremy seems a younger character, and behaves almost like a son to Lowdham - and I suspect he comes originally from Christopher Tolkien.

5. Dolbear was identified by initials with 'Humphrey' Havard in an early draft, and has several clear points of resemblence.

6. Frankley. I don't have any sense of him being developed from any real-life Inkling, indeed he doesn't seem to have much of an identifiable personality or role, and I expect he would have been eliminated from later drafts. Perhaps Frankley is the mere residue or shell of the projected CS Lewis 'Franks' character after the obviously Lewis-ite characteristics have been subtracted?

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Spiritual warfare in modern fiction

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Spiritual warfare/ unseen warfare - the fight between Good and evil at a spiritual level (between Good and evil spirits, angels and demons), the battleground of salvation versus damnation as played out in human experience... this is not a familiar subject for modern fiction or fantasy.

But, it is the implicit (and perhaps unintended) subject for much fiction and fantasy - yet how can spiritual warfare be detected when it is not explicit?

It seems to me that spiritual warfare is, by analogy, what is going-on in all of those novels and fantasies in which the everyday world is invaded and inter-penetrated by the extraordinary: the supernatural, the magical, the ancient, the futuristic...

These book have the assumption of an unseen world of reality behind the appearances of the everyday - which I think works (insofar as it does work) by reminding us of the sub-text of our temporary mundane ephemeral lives - the spiritual world of the permanent and the eternal of which we are only partially aware, and which we only partially understand.

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The Slytherin Problem

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In the previous post I alluded to The Slytherin Problem, which is the question of why Slytherin House exists at Hogwarts.

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/how-was-dumbledore-great-headmaster.html

Why would it be a good thing to have a house to educate (mostly) dark wizards and witches to become expert in magic?

I have seen several feeble and unconvincing reasons for this (including explanations by JK Rowling) - such as that not all Slytherins are evil (e.g. Slughorne) - but these are not at all convincing: Slughorne and the like could have been placed in another House - and there is always Hufflepuff as back-up, who will take any misfits.

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No, the real reason for the existence of Slytherin in Hogwarts is the reason for the power of evil in the life as we know it: and thus in the Harry Potter world also.

Evil is strong in the Harry Potter world as it is described, such that there was no possibility of abolishing nor even of reforming Slytherin House.

Throughout the books, wealthy and influential dark wizards like the Malfoys seem to have great power in the wizarding world, including especially the Ministry of Magic bureaucracy and as governors and parents of Hogwarts, and the media (Daily Prophet).

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Indeed, the forces of good are, by comparison, restricted to relatively few isolated pockets - those around Dumbeldore and (with reservations) the Auror's office, perhaps.

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As usual, Rowling's deep instincts are right, even when her public explanations are not fully coherent: in a world like that of Harry Potter of course there would be a Slytherin House!

And Slytherins would make-up an 'old boys' (and girls) network which had a finger in every pie. 

And, if it was not a House within Hogwarts, then there would have been be a Slytherin School - and it would have been better equipped and higher in status than Hogwarts.

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So, the answer to the Slytherin Problem of why it would be a good thing to have a House to educate dark wizards is that Slytherin House was not a good thing but was in fact - in its total effect - an evil thing.

And that is exactly why Slytherin existed.

Slytherin existed because it was evil, and evil was powerful in the wizarding world. 

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How was Dumbledore a great headmaster?

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The Harry Potter saga is insistent that Dumbledore was a great Head of Hogwarts, yet the evidence is that considered strictly as a head Dumbledore was not very good.

1. He was a great teacher himself, apparently, yet we never come across him teaching any classes.

2. He employs Professor Trelawney, who is a terrible teacher (fraudulent, disorganized, has favorites, tries to terrorize students).

3. He promotes Hagrid from gamekeeper to Professor, although he is a terrible teacher (disorganized, no abstracting ability, indifferent to danger of students).

4. He allows Snape blatantly to favour his own House, and to pursue personal vendettas against students.

5. He uses a ghost (Binns) to teach the history of magic, who is a terrible teacher (dull, dry, zero rapport).

6. The Slytherin problem +

Indeed, the standard of teaching at Hogwarts seems to be low - perhaps only McGonagall seems like a really good teacher.

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Q: So why was Dumbledore a great Headmaster? A: Because he subordinated the business of education to the larger religious concern of fighting Voldemort.

In Christian terms, Dumbledore recognized that the job of education must be subordinated to Christian imperatives, and at times educational sacrifices must be made to spiritual needs.

Dumbledore had reasons to do with defeating Voldemort for doing most of the above, including shirking a share of the teaching; and the other abuses were tolerated as inevitable imperfections.

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SO - Dumbledore was a great man and a great leader, rather than a great headmaster qua headmaster - but considered in an ultimate sense, the strategies of 'spiritual warfare' must not be sacrificed to tactical  educational concerns.

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+ The Slytherin problem. There is a serious problem with the existence of a House dedicated to teaching advanced magic to - mostly - evil wizards. The problem, in a nutshell, is to answer the question of how it could be 'a good thing' to teach the likes of Crabbe and Goyle to become expert at magic? I shall write my, probable, answer in a future posting.

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Corruption in Tolkien's Legendarium

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It suddenly struck me the other day that corruption is almost the norm in Tolkien's world - even for the greatest, and indeed especially for the greatest.

The greatest of the gods (i.e. angelic powers below the one God) was Melkor, corrupted to Morgoth.

The greatest elf to dwell in Middle Earth was perhaps Feanor, or perhaps Thingol Greycloak - both corrupted by pride and self-will.

And in Lord of the Rings we see Saruman, the greatest wizard corrupted; and Denethor - pure Numenorean, second in personal wisdom and power only to Aragorn, and ruler of the greatest nation of Men. 

Greatness usually is corrupted. This is worth remembering.

Refusal of the Ring by Gandalf, Aragorn and Galadriel was not something to be taken for granted... 

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The audio-book Lord of the Rings, read by Rob Inglis

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For the past 4 months I have been listening to the audiobook version of Lord of the Rings, read by Rob Inglis: 44 hours of pure delight (that is the main text; and in addition there is the Prologue and Appendix A).

I would rate it 8 out of 10.

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A good reading out loud is at least the equal of silent reading to oneself, as witnessed by C.S. Lewis (also one of the greatest readers of his era) - the Inklings was, to a significant extent, a product of Lewis's love of being-read-to.

At any rate, I found it wonderful to hear Lord of the Rings read to me; and better than me reading it to someone else (which I have done).

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The performance by Rob Inglis is exceptional. Inglis is not a well known actor in the UK, so I presume he was selected because he was so good.

He is apparently Scottish - by his baseline narrative accent (and because Inglis is usually a Scottish name - Inglis was indeed the word used for the Lowland Scottish dialect of Middle English, the language of Dunbar, Henryson etc., to distinguish it form the 'Irish' Gaelic of the Highlands).

I suppose - strictly - a Scottish accent is sub-optimal for LotR, but Inglis has the measured clarity of diction retained by educated Scots - and also provides a basis of English class and regional neutrality from which to distinguish the different grades of people.

His voice has an occasional crack or break in it, which is a fault; and there are some points when (through inadequate preparation or slip of attention from actor or director) the wrong emphasis is given.

But there is a sense of complete commitment to this performance, which carries all before it.

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The songs are a difficulty in performing the Lord of the Rings, and I have not yet encountered a satisfying solution.

Here, the model is for Rob Inglis to perform the songs unaccompanied, in a trained baritone voice and using a variety of weights and tones of vocalisation.

That is good - and much preferable to the usual method (e.g. the BBC dramatisation) of the sudden arrival into the text of a professional singer, choir and full orchestra; but the actual tunes or melodies are usually not appealing nor convincing to me - at any rate, they are on a much lower level than the words.

The hobbit songs were not folky enough (a tendency to end each verse on the dominant chord seemed odd) and the elvish and bardic chants were not spiritual enough, and too complex.

But at any rate, they are performed with complete conviction, and with no sense of hurrying over them  - and despite my reservations this makes them effective.

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Indeed the whole thing is effective, very effective: very beautiful, moving and memorable.

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Note added 1 Nov 2013

I have just found the following interview with Rob Inglis  - which answers some previously unanswered questions such as "Who wrote the songs?". It is from

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/RobInglis.html

but I have copied it here because I had been unable to find the interview previously, and worry that it may be deleted at some point.

Talking With
Rob Inglis

Recorded Books's unabridged recordings of THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, all narrated by Rob Inglis, are now enjoying renewed popularity as new retail editions of the audiobooks are being distributed in bookstores.

AUDIOFILE: Before we talk about your narration of the books, let's get a technical question or two out of the way. What was the recording schedule like for THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS titles? Where did the recordings take place?

INGLIS: We recorded all three books in the trilogy over a six-week period, so it was quite intense. We actually went back and recorded THE HOBBIT about a year after the trilogy. All the recording sessions took place at the Recorded Books studios in New York in 1990.

AUDIOFILE: Did you do a lot of preparation for all the different voices you employed in the stories, or just dive right in and figure out the characterizations as you went along?

INGLIS: (laughs) Oh, my--I couldn't just dive right in! The various dramatic societies I belong to had all sorts of people breathing down my neck to make sure I got it right! So, yes, there was much preparation. Actually, I was already a bit prepared, I think, because of my one-man stage production of THE HOBBIT. It was my one-man show that actually brought me to the attention of Recorded Books. They heard a recording of one of my shows and asked me to do the full readings of all the books.

AUDIOFILE: Listeners are treated to some wonderful singing performances throughout THE HOBBIT and the three volumes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Who set the various songs to music?

INGLIS: Tolkien himself had already set a few of the songs to music, but most of the songs one saw on the printed page were without music. So, I had to come up with music for some of the songs, and Claudia Howard of Recorded Books wrote the rest of the music. She also essentially acted as my director and manager during the course of the recording sessions.

AUDIOFILE: Scores of characters appear throughout THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Was it wearying to breathe life into so many characters, and to give every character his own idiosyncrasies and other bits of uniqueness?

INGLIS: It was certainly challenging, but I enjoyed it. It's what I do, interpret and dramatize. And, of course, I didn't do it alone. There is much in the original writing that suggests how a character should be brought to life. It's quite strange. At times it felt like Tolkien himself was talking to me through his prose, telling me how things should be.

--Joseph P. Menta

December 2001/January 2002
(c) 2003 AudioFile Publications, Inc. 

What happens after death? Insights from Tolkien

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Death, for men , involves the severance of soul from body - and to be a dis-embodied soul is a horrible state (it is indeed, when regarded as an eternal situation, actually Hell).

Thus the state of a disembodied soul is not 'life' - there is loss of personhood. The disembodied soul always survives death, but this survival is in a partial, maimed and suffering state (Hell).

Men were not 'meant' to suffer this severance of soul, they were meant to undergo an assumption directly into Heaven (like the Virgin Mary) - but death and severance were a product of The Fall.

This is why Men fear death - what they fear is the loss of personhood and the pain of being a disembodied soul, with no hope of relief.

Elves also suffer the severance of soul from body at death, but are (usually) reincarnated (restored) in the 'same' body and in the world (in this world) - either on Middle Earth or the Undying Lands.

The work of Christ enabled each Man's soul to be given a new and perfected body after death and to dwell outside of the world in Heaven - indeed, more than this, after death each Man's soul may be perfected as well as being given a perfected body.

Each man may then become a Son of God - something qualitatively superior to a mortal Man, yet still the same person. 

But this is only possible via death - and Men need faith to hope that this will happen.

So death became (by Christ) a Gift to Men - so long as there is faith and hope; while elves could (perhaps) only look forward to 'more of the same' and to be destroyed when the world ended.

Or elves might hope to join Men beyond of the world in Heaven, but (presumably, since they will not have been resurrected) as un-perfected and lower beings than the Sons of God...?

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See http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/tolkiens-marring-of-men.html

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Charles Williams regrettable tendency to regard co-inherence as therapeutic 'magic'

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Charles Williams was the prophet of co-inherence for the modern age - and for that we must be grateful; indeed profoundly grateful since this is a teaching we lack and sorely need.

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Yet Williams did confuse the issue by his recurrent tendency to regard (or portray) co-inherence in a 'magical', secular and therapeutic fashion, rather than as a matter of Christian salvation.

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In her early biography - An Introduction to Charles Williams - Alice Mary Hadfield states that she had an unresolved disagreement with CW about the applicability of co-inherence beyond Christianity: Williams persisted in trying to open-up co-inherence as a possibility outside of Christianity while AMH felt that co-inherence was a part of Christianity.

I feel that AMH was correct - and that in trying to push co-inherence outside of Christianity, CW made the concept incoherent - indeed at times it begins to sound either like a magical technology or just wishful thinking.

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For example, if his novel Descent into Hell is read from a Christian perspective, it is a profound work; but from a non-Christian perspective it is an occult work; because CW discusses co-inherence as effective by mere act of will and without love.

So that one person can (it is asserted) take on the burden of pain or fear from another simply by assenting to this, like picking up and carrying a parcel for them.

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Now, in the first place this (even if wholly effective) is entirely a non-Christian act of altruism, and in the second place it is a purely therapeutic act - which starts and finishes in the relief of human suffering.

Yet in other places, notably his greatest theological writing - for example in He Came Down from Heaven and Descent of the Dove - Williams makes clear that co-inherence is about love and salvation - it is about saving others by our love for them; and about us being saved not by our own efforts but by the love of others for us.

This strikes me as an insight of first rank importance, the implications of which have barely yet been explored.

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Why did Williams tend at times to make this error of detaching co-inherence from Christian salvation and love?

My guess is that there were good and bad reasons (as usual) - good reasons would include the hope that by establishing co-inherence as a habit then people might be more likely to become Christian; bad reasons might include a residual (from his early adult life) belief in the reality and potentially benign nature of magic, and an element of wishful thinking that co-inherence might be effective and helpful despite the lack of love.

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(I sense in CW a difficulty or reluctance in distinguishing Christian love and pathological infatuation. His personality was one of extreme charm and magnetism, but he does not strike me as a naturally loving person - and his enormous and sincere efforts to become so seem forced and, at times, counter-productive. Perhaps - despite his convincing arguments for the validity of the Via Positiva/ Way of Affirmation/ Romantic Theology - Williams missed his personal vocation as celibate religious?)

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Tolkien, philology and theology

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Tolkien was a philologist - probably, in terms of ability, the best of his generation.

Philology was a specific technical discipline that focused on language, especially words, especially names – but this was only a tool being put to use in a search for understanding Man’s place in the world.

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In Roots and Branches Tom Shippey summarises philology as a quest; firstly for a lost unity behind modern diversity in language and culture, both national and regional – including myths; and secondly as the reconciliation of this unity with ‘ideology’.

The ‘ideology might be German nationalist – as in the case of Grimm, or Danish nationalist (in opposition to pan-Germanism) as in the case of NFS Grundtvig, or Finnish nationalist in the case of Tolkien’s most direct influence Elias Lonnrot - who compiled/ created the Kalevala.

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For Tolkien the aimed-at reconciliation was:

1. The West Midlands

2. England

3. Christianity

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As is now well known, thanks to Shippey, Tolkien set out to do something for England that was closely analogous to the great 19th century philologists: that is, he set out to use philological methods to infer from fragmentary evidence a lost unity (if not the lost unity) behind English language, culture, ideology, mythology and - ultimately – theology.

(However, while Lonnrot synthesised national myths then presented them as if historical fact, Tolkien chose to present his lost unity in term of fiction, romance, feigned history; as an explicit act of sub-creation.)

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Tolkien worked intermittently but very seriously to retain a general compatibility between his Legendarium and Christianity.

This can be seen quite explicitly in the material printed in relation to Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Morgoth's Ring which is Volume 10 of The History of Middle Earth (edited by Christopher Tolkien) .

(See http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/tolkiens-marring-of-men.html )

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Tolkien was trying to steer a middle course.

On the one hand, Tolkien had to avoid too close an identification of his Legendarium with Christianity, because then his work would become merely a re-telling or, at most, an allegory.

On the other hand, Tolkien certainly did not want his Legendarium to work-against Christianity in any way.

His hope and intention was, therefore, that the Legendarium should be complementary to Christianity.

His hope was fulfilled, his intention succeeded.

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The centrality of co-inherence to salvation - Charles Williams as prophet

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Anyone who has approached the theological writings of Charles Williams will know the importance he places on the concept of co-inherence - yet this is a concept which I have found hard to grasp, and at times I have felt that Williams 'makes too much of it'.

But as I gradually come to grasp its meaning, I begin to see that co-inherence is of profound importance to the Christian life - an importance which it is hard to over-emphasise.

I shall try to explain in my own words.

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Co-inherence relates to the second great commandment to 'love thy neighbour' (the first being to love God above all).

The deep meaning of this is that we save others, ourselves we cannot save - and it is by love of others that we may participate in the divine plan of salvation.

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The necessity for the incarnation is that the human will is corrupt and humans cannot save themselves. We really cannot.

And the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ did not affect this fact.

The human will is still corrupt, humans still cannot save themselves.

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Yet, by 'love of neighbour' we can save each other (our love being, as it were, added to the saving love of Christ which makes the whole operation possible).

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The fundamental and immovable insufficiency of human will is neglected - we really cannot do anything at all for ourselves directly.

Attempts to live by The Law, spiritual strivings, the inculcation of good habits - these are all in vain.

We just are corrupt, and our will is poisoned at its roots, all such attempts will be perverted and turned against us.

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But, by the new testament of Christ, our love can save others. This is the 'good news'. This is also 'the meaning of life'.

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This means (I think) that we have no say in our own salvation.

Because if we did have any say in our own salvation, then we would refuse it - because we are wretched and corrupted creatures.

We would reject salvation - even if it was offered to us on a plate (as, in a sense, it really is).

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BUT, we can be saved by the love of others - it is their love for us which saves us.

And vice versa, it is our love of others which saves them.

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However the mystery is that love is inevitably and intrinsically a two way process.

One cannot love another without also being loved by them; or, love of another intrinsically entails love by that other (even when one party does not know the other, even when one is alive and the other dead).

Our love for another can, and will, save that other - whether they 'know about' it or not, whether they want it or not!

They may be be saved even if they do not consent to being saved - because if it required our consent to being saved, then nobody would ever be saved.

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We can only love others by means of Christ's love - to put it in a simple metaphor, Christ's love will go into us that it may be transmitted to others, and only for that reason.

The saving love comes to us only as an indirect consequence of our love of others.

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Or, to extend this simple metaphor, Christ brought this possibility into being as a extra to the already-existing possibility of salvation purely from love of God (which already existed for the prophets, for instance - I am assuming the prophets were saved, since at least some went directly to Heaven).

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To put matters very crudely (my understanding being itself very crude) we have two routes to salvation - the direct route of love of God - which was available to humanity before Christ but is extremely rare and hard; and the indirect route of love of others which Christ 'brought into being'.

This indirect route being more possible to more people - a more accessible mode of salvation. (This the Good News).

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And, this mode of salvation by love of others works retrospectively (in eternity). Love now is permanent in its effect, which means it is eternal - outside of time.

Thus co-inherence is the solution to the ancient problem of the virtuous pagan born before Christ - it is our love for them which saves them (or had saved them already, as it were, in the moment after death when their souls moved from Time to Eternity).

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And co-inherence is also the solution to the problem of The Good non-Christian, and of the salvation of children, the mentally incompetent, the brain damaged and so on.

Such may be saved by the love of others (and by the loving prayers of others).

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Co-inherence is therefore spiritual altruism - the real, underlying, proper other-wordly spirit of altruism.

By this account, co-inherence is - for most people, most of the time - just the most important thing in life.

So Charles Williams was not exaggerating its importance, not in the slightest; he was, indeed, the profound prophet of a fundamental but neglected truth.

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Another way of thinking about this is that we cannot save ourselves because love of self is pride. Pride, the master sin, stands behind all human motivations as they relate to the self - whatever we try to do for, or by, or with ourselves will be subverted by pride. So how to escape this impasse? By love of God and of others; not by doings, as such, but by love (which may motivate doing, but may not - action may be impossible). Christ will 'supply' us with love, all the love that is ever needed, but only when that love is directed away from the self; when it is thereby freed from taint of pride. This combined with the recognition that love is eternal in its effects - an unceasing and ineradicable source of warmth and light for the soul that has been loved. The effect of us being loved is what compels us to choose salvation - without such compulsion we would not be able to accept it. Thus we may be saved without our knowledge or consent; and may do the same for others. It is an invisible economy of salvation (at least, its working are invisible in this world) .

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Tom Shippey - the indispensable Tolkien scholar

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For anyone not themselves a philologist and who finds themselves turning to JRR Tolkien as to a spiritual father or starets, the scholar Tom Shippey is indispensable - I mean the word literally. We cannot do without him.

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My own understanding of Tolkien divides into two phases - pre- and post-reading Shippey's The Road to Middle Earth.

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Shippey brings two things: first the technical skill (in itself extremely rare) necessary to analyse Tolkien's methods and purposes; and secondly a basic attitude to life which is essentially identical with Tolkien (Shippey writes from the perspective of a reactionary Christian).

(I do not know to what extent Shippey would explicitly accept the label of reactionary Christian; nonetheless this is without doubt the perspective from which he writes.).

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Great literary criticism is extremely rare, but Shippey goes beyond literary criticism. Shippey is a real philologist, in the 19th century German tradition, when philology was (briefly) the Master Discipline of academia: combining traditional knowledge of the humanities, the objectivity and precision of science and the creativity of the poet.

Of course, this is precisely what Tolkien was; and it takes Shippey to show us Tolkien's greatness in this respect - and greatness is the proper word, because Tolkien was a truly great scholar, despite his slender publication list.

And Tolkien's fiction came from his scholarship - as Tolkien always himself claimed; but it takes Shippey to tell us what Tolkien's claim meant, and how the process worked.

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These thoughts have come from (at last) reading Tom Shippey's third book about Tolkien - the collection of essays from 2007 entitled Roots and Branches.

I foolishly delayed buying this book until last week, because I worried that the essays might simply repeat the earlier books, and because the volume seemed over-priced.

I was wrong.  

Roots and branches represents a major extension of Shippey's insights into Tolkien, and it is one of the best books of 'lit crit' I have read - dense with scholarship, insights and wisdom; deft, direct, humorous; sheerly enjoyable.

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First read Tolkien.

Then, if you want to look into the secondary literature read Shippey's Road to Middle Earth.

Then read Roots and Branches. 

And then read the others... 

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The unrepentant orcs

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In The Lord of the Rings there are several points where there are fairly extensive transcriptions of orc conversation - for example when Merry and Pippin have been kidnapped by the gangs of Ugluk and Grishnackh, and in the tower of Cirth Ungol when Sam overhears Shagrat and Gorbag in discussion, and in Mordor when Frodo and Sam observe an argument between a 'sniffer' and a warrior.

From such conversation, Tom Shippey (in his brilliant essay Orcs, Wraiths, Wights: Tolkien's images of evil) infers that:

'...Orcs recognise the idea of goodness, appreciate humour, value loyalty, trust, group cohesion and the ideal of a higher cause then themselves, and condemn failings from these ideals in others'.

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In other words, orcs have a moral system which is pretty much identical with that of men - which would not be surprising, since they were (probably) originally men that have been corrupted (mainly by Morgoth).

What is different about orcs is:

1. That they utterly fail to live up to their moral system.

2. Are free from any guilt about this failure.

3. And therefore do not ever repent their wrong-doings.

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As well as utterly failing to abide by their own moral code, orcs pursue evil in that they try to destroy Good: they destroy virtue, ruin any beauty and lie whenever it is expedient.

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Thus, orcs represent an extreme limit of human evil.

Orcs retain the inborn Natural Law (the orc moral system) - and are thus typically human.

Orcs are nonetheless dominated by the will to evil - they nearly always choose the evil option (exhibiting original sin) - and in this too they are within the bounds of human behaviour.

All that divides orcs from humans in a qualitative sense is the apparent impossibility of repentance among orcs.

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Perhaps this was the focus of Morgoth's corruption of men into orcs?

Perhaps Morgoth strove not so much to make men more evil, since there have-been and are men just as evil as the worst orcs described by Tolkien; but rather to breed (selectively?) a kind of man that is - in practice, temperamentally, by virtue of his character - incapable of repentance.

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That is quite a thought: the only thing dividing humans from orcs is the matter of repentance.

And it is this which makes the difference between the possibility of salvation from humans, and the apparent impossibility of salvation for orcs.

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Perhaps even this would not be enough to damn all orcs if they were capable of love, or even of eliciting love - but there is no sign of it.

Indeed, it is presumably the inability of orcs to love which is the ultimate cause of their inability to repent.

*

Why doesn't Eru just eradicate the evil of Middle Earth?

*

The short answer is that Middle Earth has been tainted and permeated by the evil of Morgoth, such that everything is involved.

To gain domination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth – hence all things that were born on Earth and live on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits, were liable to be ‘stained’.

(From Morgoth's Ring - volume XI of the History of Middle Earth)



To eradicate evil would, therefore, entail eradicating everything - including all the elves, men, dwarves and ents; all the land itself.

Yet destruction of Middle Earth and all in it would itself be a great evil.

The situation seems insoluble...

*

And this is Tolkien's fictional and sub-created 'explanation' of the necessity for the incarnation of Christ, His death and resurrection; because it is necessary for everything - humans and the earth itself - first to die, then to be remade perfect; and this is the only possible cure for evil.

Paradise, complete Good-ness, necessarily lies on the other side of death and destruction - as described in the Revelation of St John (upon which Tolkien had meditated deeply while translating Pearl by the Gawain poet).

*

The 'meaning of life' according to Tolkien

*

From Smith of Wootton Major - extended edition edited by Verlyn Flieger - Suggestions for the ending of the story page 81.

This is Tolkien reflecting on his draft of SoWM

I have edited this slightly for punctuation:

*

When the Smith comes home after surrendering the star, should any more be said about what became of him?


In [an] earlier draft it is said that he could go back to Fayery, for the mark of the star that had been on his brow was still visible to the folk of Fayery; but he could not go deep in, nor ever visit any new place or see any new thing that he had not already seen. 


(This has significance, of course; a time comes for writers and artists, when invention and 'vision' cease and they can only reflect on what they have seen and learned.) 


But that is not the whole point of the tale. Which includes sacrifice, and the handing on, with trust and without keeping a hand on things, of power and vision to the next generation. 


Also another point is that the visions of imagination are not enough; they are only pictures and imaginations. 


When wisdom comes, the mind - though enriched by imagination, having learned or seen distantly truths only perceptible in this way - must prepare to leave the world of Men and of Fayery.

***

Note: This passage brings-out the deep unity of Christian thought between C.S. Lewis and Tolkien -  the idea of the Good things of mortal life as being a matter of 'pictures and imaginations' that serve as distant and evanescent glimpses of eternal truths; which must be loved and learned-from yet renounced, let-go-of. The wise man must love the Good things of this world, yet consent voluntarily to leave this world; yet not from weariness or despair but in hope that the soul may attain utter fulfilment and satisfaction in the next. This hope comes from revelation, but is properly directed and strengthened by the pictures and imaginations of sub-creation.

*

What do hostile critics mean when they say Tolkien is morally simplistic?

*

The accusation that Lord of the Rings is morally simplistic - consisting of whiter-than-white goodies and blacker-than-black baddies - is extraordinarily common among those who dislike Tolkien considering that it is obviously, utterly, absurdly false.

But I think I now realise what they mean.

*

What they mean is not really what they say, that the characters are dichotomously distributed between Good and Evil...

What they mean is that LotR depicts the underlying Cosmic war of Good and Evil, the War of God and the angels and the free peoples; against Satan and the demons, their machines, slaves, servants and dupes.

The line between Good and Evil in LotR does not run between the characters (as the critics accuse) but within each character - no character is wholly either Good or Evil, but some mixture - however there is indeed a war afoot, and the sides are clear and distinct at a cosmic level, and each character chooses on which side they will try to fight.

*

And that is what the hostile critics recognise, and what they loathe - the traditional, and human universal conception of Unseen Warfare between good and evil:

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/reality-of-unseen-warfare-excerpted.html

And their recognition and hatred of this depiction of life as fundamentally an Unseen Warfare is (often) precisely at the root of their visceral hostility to Tolkien - because the hostile critics implicitly recognise the reality of this war, but they have chosen not to fight on the side of Good.

***

Note: Something similar applies to many similar criticism of fantasy such as Lewis's Narnia and Rowling's Harry Potter. The best examples of the genre are morally complex at the individual level - but clear and simple at the cosmic level - and it is this real and objective metaphysical morality which modern critics loathe.

*

Torturing Gollum

*

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/05/torturing-gollum-implications.html

*

(Note: I thought this should probably be archived on the Tolkien blog, as well as the Miscellany.)

C.S Lewis on Substituted Love and Exchange in Charles Williams

*

From Arthurian Torso, 1948, condensed from pp 121-5.

Williams realises, as perhaps only great poets do, that poetry is after all only poetry. It is not a substitute for for philosophy or theology, much less for sanctification.

Not even Virgil can be saved by poetry... This poet from whose work so many Christians have drawn spiritual nourishment was not himself a Christian - did not himself know the full meaning of his own poetry... This is the exquisite cruelty: he made honey not for himself; he helped to save others, himself he could not save...

*

The problem of the virtuous pagan is for [Williams] a real one.

The fact that Virgil was a great poet does not in the least alter the fact that he cannot have had Christian faith, hope and charity; without which no man can be saved...

Virgil's death... Every possible grip has failed. The two things he loved, Rome and Augustus, have become, the one a nonentity, the other a swelling, gruesome, obscene, gargantuan shape... Virgil is overwhelmed in the mere flotsam and rubble of what had been his own poetic universe...

And that, as far as Nature goes, would have been the end of the story.

But the second part [of the poem] tells us that as Virgil was about to perish in the 'perpetual falling, perpetual burying', helpers rushed towards him, dived beneath him, caught him as he fell.

They had rushed from what was (to him) the far future, for this transaction is outside time.

All who have been or will be nurtured by Virgil's hexameters rushed back along the timeless corridors to save their 'master and friend', the 'holy poet', to place at his service the faith which they had and he lacked...

*

The present poems means what it says. I think the poet would have said in so many words, if asked, that any Christian Virgilian can this very night assist in the salvation of Virgil.

*

Arthurian Torso - CS Lewis on Charles Williams on Islam

*

From Arthurian Torso by Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis, 1948.

Lewis is here describing  C.W's Arthurian poem sequences on pages 124-5.

It is Lewis's most extended discussion of Islam (that I can recall, at any rate) and seems worth salvaging from obscurity for that reason.

*

Palomides the Saracen Knight, the unsuccessful lover of Iseult, comes out of Mohammedan Spain ‘through the green-pennon-skirted Pyrenees’ and the ‘cross-littered land of Gaul’ to Cornwall and the house of King Mark.

The anachronism whereby Islam is made contemporary with Arthur is deliberate: Islam was for Williams the symbol (as it is certainly the greatest historical expression) of something which is eternally the opposite of Sarras and Carbonek.

Islam denies the Incarnation. It will not allow that God has descended into flesh or that Manhood has been exalted into Deity...

*

It stands for all religions that are afraid of matter and afraid of mystery, for all misplaced reverences and misplaced purities that repudiate the body and shrink back from the glowing materialism of the Grail.

It stands for what Williams called ‘heavy morality’—the ethics of sheer duty and obedience as against the shy yet (in the long run) shameless acceptance of heaven’s courtesies flowing from the ‘homely and courteous lord’.

It is strong, noble, venerable; yet radically mistaken.

It had nibbled at Christianity almost form the beginning in the swarm of heresies which denied the full doctrine of Incarnation.

That is the point of the Prelude to The Region of the Summer Stars. St. Paul preached ‘the golden Ambiguity’—the irony beyond all ironies which the manger in the Bethlehem stable presents, the ‘physiological glory’. But the ‘ancient intellect’ shrank back from the new doctrine...

*

The prelude to Taliessin Through Logres is also concerned with this conflict between the ‘ambiguity’ of Incarnation and the heavy lucidity of mere Monotheism.

On the historical level it is a fact that ‘the Moslem stormed Byzantium’. On the spiritual level huge areas of the world fell back from the subtler and more ‘scandalous’ Faith—and fall back daily in the sub-Christian doctrines of Christ’s person which are dear to the modern world.

This is not the defeat of truth by simple error or of good by simple evil: it is the loss of living, paradoxical truths (for mere Monotheism blinds and stifles the mind like noonday sun in the Arabian deserts till we may well ‘call on the hills to hide us’).

It is the defeat of fine and tender and even frolic delicacies of goodness by iron legalism, the ‘fallacy of rational virtue’.

Islam is true so far as it affirms: we must rejoice that it conquered the old Dualism of Persia. But it affirms unity in such a way that ‘union is breached’; and then, however truly and with whatever grandeur the muezzin cried ‘Good is God’...

*

The mythic Oxford symbolism of Smith of Wootton Major

*

This seems apparent from the wonderful opening section:

There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor very far away for those with long legs. Wootton Major it was called because it was larger than Wootton Minor, a few miles away deep in the trees; but it was not very large, though it was at that time prosperous, and a fair number of folk lived in it, good, bad, and mixed, as is usual.

It was a remarkable village in its way, being well known in the country round about for the skill of its workers in various crafts, but most of all for its cooking. It had a large Kitchen which belonged to the Village Council, and the Master Cook was an important person.

The Cook's House and the Kitchen adjoined the Great Hall, the largest and oldest building in the place and the most beautiful. It was built of good stone and good oak and was well tended, though it was no longer painted or gilded as it had been once upon a time.

In the Hall the villagers held their meetings and debates, and their public feasts, and their family gatherings. So the Cook was kept busy, since for all these occasions he had to provide suitable fare. For the festivals, of which there were many in the course of a year, the fare that was thought suitable was plentiful and rich.

There was one festival to which all looked for-ward, for it was the only one held in winter. It went on for a week, and on its last day at sundown there was a merrymaking called The Feast of Good Children, to which not many were invited.

No doubt some who deserved to be asked were overlooked, and some who did not were invited by mistake; for that is the way of things, however careful those who arrange such matters may try to be. In any case it was largely by chance of birthday that any child came in for the Twenty-four Feast, since that was only held once in twenty-four years, and only twenty-four children were invited. For that occasion the Master Cook was expected to do his best, and in addition to many other good things it was the custom for him to make the Great Cake.

By the excellence (or otherwise) of this his name was chiefly remembered, for a Master Cook seldom if ever lasted long enough in office to make a second Great Cake.

JRR Tolkien. Smith of Wootton Major. 1967

*

I shall comment on this section by section, unpacking what seems to me to be implied:

It was a remarkable village in its way, being well known in the country round about for the skill of its workers in various crafts, but most of all for its cooking.

Crafts imply the various branches of scholarship; cooking is, of course - as certainly intended, Christianity. And Wootton Major is clearly a mythic city not merely a village, since it has many specialist craftsmen and is a religious centre. Tolkien's mythic city was Oxford.

It had a large Kitchen which belonged to the Village Council, and the Master Cook was an important person.

Large kitchen implies a Cathedral (i.e. a large church) - the Master Cook is therefore a Bishop.

In the Hall the villagers held their meetings and debates, and their public feasts, and their family gatherings. So the Cook was kept busy, since for all these occasions he had to provide suitable fare. For the festivals, of which there were many in the course of a year, the fare that was thought suitable was plentiful and rich.

In this mythic Oxford, the Cathedral is the centre of human life - and all significant human affairs are conducted in a Christian context and location.

The Cook providing suitable fare indicates the Bishop's spiritual rule over (and likely presence at) all these meetings, debates, feasts, gatherings.

There was one festival to which all looked for-ward, for it was the only one held in winter. It went on for a week, and on its last day at sundown there was a merrymaking called The Feast of Good Children, to which not many were invited... it was largely by chance of birthday that any child came in for the Twenty-four Feast, since that was only held once in twenty-four years, and only twenty-four children were invited.

Every twenty four years means every generation - the feast of Good Children seems like the occasion at which the Bishop's successor is chosen - chosen from among who is good (so far as this can be judged), and chosen on the basis of divine Grace (by who has the star bestowed upon them) and chosen by how they respond to the Great Cake...

For that occasion the Master Cook was expected to do his best, and in addition to many other good things it was the custom for him to make the Great Cake. By the excellence (or otherwise) of this his name was chiefly remembered, for a Master Cook seldom if ever lasted long enough in office to make a second Great Cake.

So what is the Great Cake? Presumably a distillation of the Bishop's wisdom, something like a sermon or homily - what is to be determined is firstly how good the sermon, secondly which child receives the sermon as it should be received- upon that child the faery star (ennobling gift of supernatural Grace) is bestowed.
 
So, Wootton Major hints at an ideal, mythic city of an Oxford type - as Oxford should be: a primarily Christian centre, ruled by a Bishop, and under whose rule the scholarly Arts might flourish - and a place touched with and ennobled by the mystery of faery.
 
*

The web of co-inherence in Harry Potter - who saved Draco's soul?

*

Charles William's concept of co-inherence is strangely difficult to understand, I find.

Perhaps this is a modern phenomenon - we are all trained to think of ourselves as striving for self-actualisation - the idea that we are saved by others is alien and almost incomprehensible.

But I have found the Harry Potter series to be valuable in thinking through the idea, the way in which the books can be understood as being underpinned by a web of self-sacrificing love - in which character's save each-other, but not themselves.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2012/01/harry-potter-co-inherence-and.html

*

The idea of co-inherence seems to be that Christians are strictly unable to attain their own salvation directly - but only indirectly.

The two greatest commandments are love of God first, and secondly love of Neighbour.

Thus, our salvation is not attained by our efforts, but given by the Grace of God, and (less recognised) by the love of others.

(Nowhere does it mention love of Self.)

Our first job is to accept this free gift of love, humbly to consent to receive this gift; our second job is to join in the great plan of salvation by loving God and our neighbour - and thus assisting in the salvation of our neighbour.

The hero Harry Potter does both; the anti-hero Draco does only the first part (the acceptance) and does not seem to give his own sacrificial love to others - at least, so far as we know.

*

From Charles Williams we get:

Love of God is the direct path of monasticism - the Negative Way (Via Negativa) the path of asceticism and denial.

Love of Neighbour is the indirect way, the Via Positiva, the path of affirmation. We hope to be saved by our Love of others, by Love of God's creation and creatures.

(The two paths are not separable, but more a question of emphasis.)

*

The Via Positiva is possible because of co-inherence. In a nutshell this is that salvation is not individual but a matter of humanity - joined in a web.

Everyone's conduct, choices, faith affects everybody else - our path affects that of others, indeed of our nation and the world; and what goes on in the world, our country, the people around us affects us. We are all 'in it together' - in Life together, in the quest for salvation together.

*

We depend on others, depend in a very fundamental way - and they depend on us.

So salvation is a web, but a web of not merely mutual assistance, but a web in which salvation runs one-way - runs from others to us and from us to others.

We save others, others save us; our Love saves others, their Love saves us

- we are saved by our Love for others, but only indirectly, not by ourselves 'having' Love for others, but by given Love, by self-sacrificial Love.

*

It is this indirect route, this web of Love which is so profoundly exemplified in the Harry Potter series of novels - because again-and-again we see Harry 'saved' by the self-sacrificing Love of others, and in the end it is his self-sacrificing Love which saves 'the world' from coming under control of evil.

In the context of the novel series, to be 'saved' carries two distinct but related meanings - saving-the-life of and saving-the-soul of.

Saving Harry's life, in particular, is seen not just as a life, but in salvific terms - since Harry is himself the prophesied saviour, who is destined to be the one who will confront Voldemort to determine the fate of the world, he is the only one who can defeat Voldemort.

So, in this fictional world, saving a life is sometimes intended to mean much the same as saving a soul.

*

Dumbledore is the co-inherence expert in the Harry Potter books - he is the only person who seems to understand the workings of Love.

Right from the first book up to the King's Cross chapter of the last; Dumbledore's private chats with Harry are where the reader is told about the workings of love, especially of self-sacrificing love, and indirectly informed how and where it operates between the main characters.

Almost everything we, as readers, know about love in the world of Harry Potter, we are told by Dumbledore. Although he is morally flawed, Dumbledore's comprehension seems to be definitive.

*

Below I will analyse a small part of the complex 'economy of sacrificial love', the web of co-inherence depicted in the Harry Potter series.

I should make clear that I do not believe that the pattern was explicitly deliberate, and I would be amazed if it was directly derived from Charles Williams.

Rather, I sense that the pattern among the characters of HP resulted from JKR having a deep, strong and secure instinctual understanding of these matters, an understanding shared with C.W as a result of similar thought processes, rather than any kind of direct influence from C.W. to JKR.

*

In Harry Potter, love is described much more like a physical thing - indeed a physiological change, than it is like a psychological perception.

Sacrificial love has its effects on the person for whom the sacrifice was made - whether or not the recipient knows of it or its operations.

All that is required of the recipient of sacrificial love to gain the benefit is their passive - even grudging - consent to accepting the salvation which self-sacrifice brings.

*

So in The Philosopher's Stone, Dumbeldore says that Lily's love is present in Harry's actual skin, such that Quirrell/ Voldemort cannot touch him.

This happens despite Harry's lack of knowledge of how such things work.

In Order of the Phoenix, Dumbeldore says that Lily's love is present not only in Harry's blood, but also in the blood of his Aunt Petunia - despite that his Aunt actually dislikes Harry.

This protected Harry from Voldemort as a child despite his lack of knowledge.

That the sacrificial love of Lily's is effective protection requires only that Petunia consents to have Harry in her home, it does not require that Petunia love Harry.

In Goblet of Fire, Voldemort uses Harry's blood - and thus Lily's love - in making himself a new body. This joins Harry and Voldemort with a new kind of protection for Harry.

(Voldemort chooses to reject love, so the protection is one way. When Harry is enabled by his self-sacrifice to offer Voldemort a final chance for remorse, Voldemort dismisses it and tries to kill Harry - this is the refusal of consent to God's love and a rejection of the salvific effect of love by a 'neighbour'.).

*

The way in which the Harry Potter novels describe love as effective with mere consent is seen most clearly in terns of the anti-hero character of Draco Malfoy - who is, it seems, redeemed in some way such that we feel his soul has been saved through the course of the books.

This happens despite that there is no evidence of Draco having reformed much as a character, nor to have become a 'good' person - if the Epilogue's 'curt' nod to Harry at King's Cross is a reliable guide he has merely achieved the negative state of no-longer-being-actively-evil.

But how has this happened - who has saved Draco's soul?

*

In The Half Blood Prince, Dumbledore's main concern is to save the soul of Draco - which he believes will be lost if Draco commits murder.

In this case, the main agent of sacrificial love is Snape.

Dumbledore instructs Snape to kill him (in a kind of euthanasia) in order that Draco does not suffer the wound to his soul which would result from murdering Dumbledore. +


My understanding is that Snape's self sacrifice (i.e. bearing the sin of murdering Dumbledore) is done for Draco - and from Snape's love of Draco, but also on behalf of Harry.

And Snape's self-sacrifice for Harry comes from his love of Lily which led him to swear obedience to Dumbledore  - it is indeed a complex web...

*

As a result of Snape's self-sacrifice it seems as if Draco cannot, from that point onwards, harm Harry

 Draco apparently refuses to identify Harry when Harry is captured and brought to Malfoy Manor with his face distorted and disguised by by Hermione's Stinging Jinx. Shortly afterwards Draco seems to allow Harry to disarm him, with barely a struggle and without a fight.

At this point, Draco still seems to want to serve Voldemort and to harm Harry but something he does not understand (presumably Snape's act of self-sacrificial love) prevents him from doing so: such that when Draco, Crabbe and Goyle confront Harry in the Room of Requirement; Draco wants to leave Harry unharmed (albeit to deliver both him and the diadem to Voldemort - at this point Draco is still trying to serve evil).

However, Draco ends up - ineffectually - trying to protect Harry from Crabbe; is again disarmed, and from that point he seems - passively - to accept Harry's leadership and to stop fighting on behalf of Voldemort.

My understanding is that Draco has - at last - consented to having been saved by Snape's act of self-sacrifice on his behalf; and that this consent is enough.

In a typical working of co-inherence, Snape did the work of salvation for Draco, Draco needed merely to accept it.

*

+ NOTE - It is interesting that here, as elsewhere, Rowling's instinct is sometimes to to have a 'good' character break one moral rule - i.e. the prohibition of euthanasia - in pursuit of a higher moral rule - i.e. to save Draco's soul.

This is, indeed, what must happen with all moral laws if they are to lead to virtue - a higher law will sometimes require the breaking of a lower law, since all laws are summaries of virtue, and not virtue itself.

In the New Testament it is fairly common for Christ to do the same - e.g. breaking the Sabbath prohibitions in order to heal the sick.







*

Harry Potter and Charles Wiliams' Co-inherence

*

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2012/01/harry-potter-co-inherence-and.html

*

Understanding Charles Williams Co-inherence~

*

Charles Williams often quoted:

Matthew 27:42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. 

The taunt of the priests, scribes and elders against Jesus on the cross. 

Williams took this as a profound and universal truth about Christian salvation. This is my understanding of what he meant:

*

Question - How are innocents saved? - babies, and young children; how are they saved who have not known Christ and accepted him during their lives?

Answer - the same way everybody else is saved: by the Love of Neighbour.

*

The main commandments are number one Love God and number two Love thy Neighbour. 

How does this work? We should Love our Neighbour because we Love God (and because God commanded it)

and it is through this Love-of-Neighbour-for-the-sake-of-God that we may achieve salvation, but indirectly, as a by-product.

It is (and this seems to be the crux of Williams argument) our Love that saves our Neighbour. His own efforts avail him nothing. 

*

And our own efforts at salvation avail nothing - except for our Love-of-Neighbour-for-the-sake-of-God. 

We too will be saved, if we are saved, by a Neighbour's Love. 

*

In this sense we are all of us, even the most sophisticated, in the same situation as an innocent Babe; saved by the Love of others and not by our own efforts. 

*

Mankind is therefore a web, a network of Neighbours Loving and saving Neighbours; everybody doing the work of salvation for each other.

(Love of God being the reason for Love of Neighbour.)

So we save each other, by prayer and service. 

*

We look at each other and perceive that we are wretched incapables. But the Christian message is that we can (and must) Love (and serve) these wretched and incapable others. 

That is what Christ wants us to do.

*

Our range of Love is, of course, limited - by our own sanctity. The reason for become more Saint-like is from Love of others - only the greatest Saints can effectively pray for the sins of many, can perhaps through their prayers help Mankind to salvation. 

Most of the rest of us have far less capacity, less range (perhaps our parents and children, spouses, close friends, those dwelling around us - perhaps for some it is a single person?), but it is our job to do what we can within our given range. 

*

That, I think, is what Charles Williams meant by co-inherence. 

***


~NOTE: By Co-inherence I also intend to include substitution and exchange - Williams distinctive triad of concerns. 


PLACE-HOLDING NOTE:


I think there are implications in co-inherence for how salvation works - that it is an offer which will be made to all, to the soul (which is always mature and able to make this choice, even in babies) and accepted or refused, and the prayers and other helps of others (their Love) may be effectual in making this choice the choice for salvation. The opposite choice, Williams called 'the exclusion of Love' - the worst a human can experience: worse than death, he said.


And, I sense an extrapolation to understand the meaning of life, the extended life, the life into adulthood which so few humans (a small proportion) experienced in history. Life may not be a test for the individual soul, a kind of obstacle course with salvation as the goal or the world as a gymnasium of The Good - but perhaps advanced age was intended for the Love of others: in brief to allow more time to pray for others. Thus life could (potentially) benefit the whole of mankind, the more life - potentially - the greater benefit to the co-inherent web. 


*

The year's work in Inkling's/ Notion Club studies

*

2011 was certainly a 'breakthrough' year for me in relation to the project of this blog - meditating on the Notion Club Papers as a focus for engaging with the Inklings and their distinctive teaching for my time and place.

And it is fitting that I should finish this year by re-reading Verlyn Flieger's valedictory book Interrupted Music of 2005.

Anyone who finds this blog interesting really must read Flieger's book - it is an outstanding piece of work, and in many respects this blog is merely an extrapolation of her insights.

*

(Although mine are, mostly, extrapolations that VF would regard as inappropriate; or at the least excessively speculative. Indeed she has implied as much in some e-mails! Furthermore, Flieger often distances herself from Tolkien's reactionary perspective; whereas I regard this as one of the most important things which Tolkien has to teach us. I have come to regard JRRT as not 'merely' my favourite writer of fiction, which he already was for more than thirty years; but as something akin to a Holy Elder - a 'spiritual adviser'.)

*

Living in myth

*

In their early years, the Numenoreans lived in myth - they were fallen men, and they did not live in paradise exactly - although it was close; but they lived in myth in that they had a personal relationship with the world and (most of the time) they lived in meaning.

They had a broad angle, inclusive, deep perspective on life - later they focused-in so as to achieve power over the world, developed blinkers, ignored much of their perceptual field.

Life then felt unreal, their world was dead and subject to their will, they felt alienated, sought satisfaction in mastery, conquest, and pleasure...

*

I sense something similar for Byzantium at its best - that people lived inside the Christian myth.

Their lives were experienced within the Christian myth (and not merely interpreted in terms of the Christian myth).

Again, this is not perfection nor paradise; because men are fallen, and life is suffering (substantially) - but this wretchedness was experienced (I believe) as within the Christian mythic frame.

*

This can be seen most clearly in the lives of the Orthodox Saints. It is not that they lived lives of perfect worldly happiness, but that everything which happens to them is felt as being within providence; the worldly is perceived within the Heavenly frame.

*

For this to happen, the myth must be true.

And what must be true is that the world is alive, intelligent, relevant to and concerned with 'me' and has a direction.

When the Numenoreans ceased to believe in the true myth of their origins and condition, they became 'modern', they fell again and were destroyed.

When moderns lost their belief in the wholeness of undivided Christianity then in all forms of Christianity and paganism too (a gradual and still incomplete process) - they lost their ability to live within myth: at most they could pretend to live in myth or according to myth (intellectually-appreciated) - they did not experience life as myth.

Pretending doesn't work.

*

And in terms of living within myth (not with reference to salvation) partial, legalistic, dry, procedural, anti-animistic and anti-pagan forms of Christianity do not work.

Yet it is possible to live within the Christian myth, if that is aimed for, and at least for some of the time, and to aspire and work towards the ideal of continuous dwelling in myth - but the myth must be known as true; and it must be the old Christianity of Saints and Angels, Miracles and Spiritual Warfare - if not precisely Eastern Orthodox in terms of denomination, then certainly in that spirit.

Such a life will not be paradise while on earth; but it may be real.

*

Charles Williams and co-inherence

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http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/12/charles-williams-and-co-inherence.html

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Charles Williams' Companions of the Co-inherence - can anybody understand?

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In 1939 Charles Williams founded an Order called The Companions of the Co-inherence - I believe it is still going in some form.

The Order was based on a set of seven 'sentences' with (supposedly) illustrative or explanatory Biblical quotations.

I have read these sentences innumerable times, and still find them completely baffling.

I would be grateful to anyone who could convincingly explain them to me:

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1. The Order has no constitution except its members.

As it was said: Others he saved, himself he cannot save.

2. It recommends nevertheless that its members shall make a formal act of union with it and of recognition of their own nature.

As it was said: Am I my brothers keeper?

3. Its concern is the practice of the apprehension of the Co-inherence both as a natural and a supernatural principle.

As it was said: Let us make man in our image.

4. It is therefore, per necessitatem, Christian.

As it was said: And who ever says that there was when this was not, let him be anathema.

5.. It recommends therefor the study, on the contemplative side, of the Co-inherence of the Holy and Blessed Trinity, of the Two natures in the single person, of the Mother and Son, of the communicated Eucharist, and of the whole catholic Church.

As it was said: figlia et tuo figlio.

And on the the active side, of methods of exchange, in the Sate, in all forms of love, and in all natural things, such as child-birth.

As it was sais: Bear ye one another's burdens.

6. It concludes in the Divine Substitution of Messias* all forms of exchange and substitution, and it invokes this Act as the root of all.

As it was said: He must become, as it were, a double man.

7. The Order will associate itself primarily with four feasts: the Feast of the Annunciation, the Feast of the Blessed Trinity, the Feast of the Transfiguration, and the Commemoration of All Souls.

As it was said: Another will be in me and I in him.

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Pauline Baynes - my most-loved illustrator?

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Perhaps Pauling Baynes is the only illustrator whose work I love - and even then only some of the Tolkien and Lewis work.

Why should this be? Partly, no doubt, the connection with favourite authors, and partly the fact that I came across the work in my early teens when I was more open and unformed. But plenty of other things from that era have fallen away, and while I like many other Tolkien (or Lewis) illustrators, none move me in the same way.

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Baynes illustrated Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, then Lewis's Narnia chronicles (somewhat hit and miss, but with some definite hits), then - my favorite - Tolkien's Adventures of Tom Bombadil (poems), Smith of Wooton Major; and various maps and posters including those of Middle Earth and the Hobbit journeys, and the cover of the single volume 1970s paperback Lord of the Rings - all of which I used to examine with a magnifying glass to appreciate every last detail!

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All these are done in a developed pastiche of the Luttrell Psalter - a medieval book of the Psalms with copious marginal illustrations (and perhaps the most enjoyable of all ancient English manuscripts).

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My favourite illustrations are those which contain figures and landscape, especially figures in 'movement' - which (like the Luttrell Psalter) is a frozen and stylised kind of movement - beautifully balanced as a formal composition.

I am quite simply transported by some of these illustrations.

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From what I have read of Baynes, she did not really understand either Tolkien or Lewis, nor did she sympathise with their outlooks (although clearly a nice and likable person, she was a very mainstream arts and crafts type Leftist in lifestyle and beliefs) - and yet by the magic of true inspiration she was able to create these masterworks, which not only illustrate but amplify and frame some of Tolkien and Lewis's major features.

This is, of course, quite normal for true creativity, it is inspired, it comes from without not from within.

Baynes supplied the drawing technique, the design - but the genius was supplied her, probably via the spirit of Tolkien and Lewis - and more reliably and frequently in the case of Tolkien than Lewis.

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A small company

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The Inklings knew themselves to be swimming against the tide, and that their numbers were small.

The idea of a small 'company' (much like the Inklings themselves) up-against overwhelming odds and charged with saving the world from evil and destruction comes up in several of their key works, and in life.

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There is the Fellowship of the Ring, of course; and in the legends of Numenor which Tolkien worked-on from 1936 (in relation to the Lost Road) and again from 1945 (in relation to the Notion Club Papers) there is a small band of The Faithful led by Elendil (elf-friend) who escape the downfall of the island to establish Arnor and Gondor in Middle Earth.

In the Lost Road, Alboin (the precursor of Lowdham) is a descendant of Erendil, and Alboin's son Audoin is linked with Elendil's son Herendil.

In the Notion Club Papers, Lowdham is seen as a descendant of Elendil, and his friend Jeremy as a descendant of Voronwe his friend whose name means "faithful" .

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In life, Charles Williams was the inspirational leader of an esoteric Christian group (mostly of women) called the Companions of the Co-Inherence.

In That Hideous Strength, by C.S Lewis, the Company are 'four men, some women and a bear'; a heterogeneous group gathered around the leader Ransome who is in communication with angelic intelligences.

The character of Ransome in THS was influenced by Charles Williams, as is the whole novel - and it seems possible that Lewis regarded Williams as a spiritual leader - someone who seemed to be (to some extent) in touch with higher intelligences.

After Williams' death, Lewis edited Arthurian Torso, the work of a faithful friend in transmission of Williams' vision. Lewis was Voronwe to Williams's Elendil.

I do not think Lewis ever again met anyone who could 'replace' William in his spiritual role, or to whom Lewis would again adopt the role of disciple - C.W was perhaps regarded by Lewis as a lost (potential) saviour of his nation - somewhat like King Arthur.

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Tolkien never saw himself as a spiritual leader, yet he was one because of his vision - which came to him and was not created by him. Tolkien was of course an elf-friend: Elendil.

And, as things have happened, JRR Tolkien's elf-friend legacy has been indispensably transmitted by the work of his 'faithful' son Christopher - such that the Elendil-Herendil/ Albion-Audoin/ father-son fictional explorers of the Lost Road turned-out to be a pre-vision of life.

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Charles Williams and the Positive Way

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It has always been mysterious to me what Charles Williams was aiming-at with his writings on the Positive Way – also called the Via positiva or the path of “affirmation of images”.

But I think I understand now.

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The Negative Way is the best known method of attaining sanctity, deification or theosis. It is the path of asceticism, as practiced by many monastics through Christian history; and still a focus of Eastern Orthodoxy exemplified by Mount Athos.

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The Negative Way is merely a means to an end, not the end in itself – yet the ‘technique’ has proved itself many times – it entails (for example) long periods of prayer and chanting (often extending into night vigils), physical deprivation (heat or cold) and exercises (standing, prostrations), fasting, celibacy… In general, the purpose is to enable the aspirant to control worldly desires thus to enable a direct awareness of reality – that is God.

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The Negative Way is the most direct and proven route to sanctity, yet it is apparently a path to which few are called – it is generally believed among Christians that there are other paths – less steep, and perhaps leading less high, but valid nonetheless, and perhaps more generally applicable.

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What, then, is the Positive Way? Clearly it is not the opposite of the Negative Way; since that route would (presumably) lead to damnation.

As a married man with a child, a poet, writer, inspirational lecturer, conversationalist and spiritual counsellor; Charles Williams was deeply engaged with the world, and did not feel called to the ascetic path. He tried, therefore, to walk – and to clarify for others in similar state - the lesser known Positive Way.

In this he was, I think, only partly successful – at least, I have been unable until now to understand what he meant – and the explanations of Charles Williams scholars have not been clear to me.

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The clue is in the alternative term Affirmation of Images – that behind the images is reality. The Positive Way is that the images of things – God’s works, and Man’s works that come from God – are visions of reality: visions, that is, of The Good: of God.

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By images is meant words – poetry, prose, the worlds of scripture and ritual; also music; also the visual arts of painting, architecture, beautiful things… insofar as these beautiful things are divinely inspired – insofar as these things are consecrated to God.

The difficulty of the Positive Way is to engage with these images such that the individual may participate in the reality of Good.

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In sum, the Positive Way is a kind of Platonism – in which the initiate sees past the change and corruption, distortions and deceptions of the world and perceives the eternal ideas underlying this. It is an instance of the principle that every small and transient thing is symbolic of greater and timeless things, the world is a microcosm, ‘as above so below’.

Hence (perhaps) Charles Williams attention to poetry and literature generally, his attention to the minutiae of everyday life, love and work – and his swift and sure relation of these worldly matters back to eternal principles.

It was this he hoped to teach by daily interactions, by formal lectures, from his books and writings, and through the Companions of the Co-inherence.

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By means of various techniques such as the purposive use of contracts of exchange – the deliberate and explicit sharing of joys, fears, burdens - (techniques which could be considered analogous to the ascetic methods of the Negative Way) C.W. aimed to (or hoped to; albeit was sometimes corrupted and distracted away from) train his followers into habits of consecration: habits of referencing the mundane to the divine.

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(And without any trace of approximation or dishonesty – he insisted upon maximum accuracy and precision in perceiving the phenomena which were to be referred – no blurring or haziness was to be permitted.)


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What did Charles Williams bring to The Inklings?

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Charles Williams very clearly had an important role in the Inklings.

Someone of his stature and personality cannot fail to have influenced the other members of this group in frequent meetings, and indeed the work of Tolkien and Lewis underwent changes from around the time of Williams participation.

How can the nature of these changes be characterized?

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The change relates to Unseen Warfare - the insight that Life is a battle between Good and Evil, a struggle: a matter of choices and temptations; one path leads up towards Heaven, the other down towards damnation.

Tolkien and Lewis were naturally aware of Unseen Warfare as a human reality - but Charles Williams very explicitly lived Unseen Warfare, analyzed it, spoke and wrote of it continually.

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Unseen Warfare (the title comes from a classic of Christian mysticism) was C.W's big subject, especially in his novels, especially in his best novels: Place of the Lion, Descent into Hell and All Hallows Eve.

Tolkien and Lewis began to write fiction more seriously from 1936, shortly afterwards Lewis and Williams began to correspond and meet, and from late 1939 Williams was present in Oxford and regularly participating in social events and meetings.

I suggest that C.W. likely brought Unseen Warfare into focus for Lewis and Tolkien as the main thing in Life and potentially the main thing in story - and thereby provided a deep narrative purpose for the fictions of Lewis and Tolkien.

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The topic of Unseen Warfare is so dominant in Lewis (yet so unusual a topic) that it is somehow easy to miss: Perelandra and That Hideous Strength are novels of UW and so are the Chronicles of Narnia: the Screwtape Letters is perhaps the most successful work about UW ever published.

In Tolkien, Unseen Warfare was present in The Hobbit, especially moments like the struggle of courage when Bilbo first approaches Smaug through the tunnel in the Lonely Mountain: there is on the one hand the right thing to do, and there is also the temptation of cowardice and dishonesty.

But UW expands to take a focal place in the story of The Lord of the Rings, with the major characters of the quest wrestling with their inner demons throughout.

LotR is essentially about Unseen Warfare, the sanctification and ennoblement of the heroes - especially the Hobbit protagonists but also Aragorn, Gandalf, Galadriel; and the failure and damnation of the villains (Saruman, Boromir+, Gollum, Denethor).

UW is not an incidental component of Lord of the Rings but the main thing.

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Unseen Warfare - which Williams perhaps, arguably saw more clearly and lived more intensely than anyone of his era in England, therefore provided a major underlying narrative dynamic for Lewis and Tolkien's narratives.

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The Inklings, by which I mean essentially Tolkien and Lewis with the others role being that of support and stimulus, had a great underlying purpose - which was to restore myth to modern man.

They wanted to restore modern man by re-connecting with myth - modern man who who was languishing in a literalistic and lifeless world of 'history'.

But which myth specifically? Because this was not a post-modern, eclectic, Jungian concern with myth as therapy and a tool for self-development: the Inklings concern with myth was salvific and Christian.

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In a general sense, Lewis and Tolkien saw the world in terms of the 'Platonic' schema of Life versus Reality - that behind the growth decay and change of Life was an eternal, timeless, unchanging world of Reality.

Williams shared this, but was more explicit about it - The Place of the Lion is explicitly about a breakthrough of Platonic archetypes into the modern world.

But analytic elements such as the contrast between Life and Reality, or Platonic  forms, are static and are not conducive to the telling of a story - for philosophy to generate stories there must be an individual who negotiates a path through Life; a path with Reality - truth, beauty and virtue - on one side; and on the other side the various temptations of the World such as vice, power, pride, despair...

This is a vision of life as Unseen Warfare - with the proper business of life being about these choices.

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In sum, the Inklings already saw myth in broadly Platonic terms before the C.W. connection, their aim was to connect with myth, but the perspective of Unseen Warfare - coming into sharp focus in the person and works of Williams - joined up this general project with specific stories.

Unseen Warfare was a way in which philosophy could be brought alive in narrative; and which also implicitly Christianized that narrative in a manner that was pervasive and yet unobtrusive.

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As such, Unseen Warfare need not be Christian, but for Williams it was - yet implicitly in the stories.

Williams novels are all about Christian Unseen Warfare, yet don't focus on explicit Christian theology and indeed contain surprisingly little reference to Christianity.

The same applies to Lewis and even more to Tolkien.

Unseen Warfare is built-in; specific Christian themes of Love and Humility are there, and also a great deal of Natural Law virtue - including heroic pagan virtues such as courage and loyalty, and the transcendental unity of virtue with beauty and truth - of wickedness with lies and the destruction of beauty.

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Christian Unseen Warfare is thus built-into the post-C.W. novels of Lewis and Tolkien as the deepest structuring narrative element - and I suggest that this may have been a consequence of Williams intense participation in the Inklings.

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+My mistake - Bronomir is not 'damned'. He repents just before his death.

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