tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post5223382444200075881..comments2024-03-14T06:20:59.015+00:00Comments on The Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog: Tolkien and Lewis's annus divertium of 1936: a catalytic role for Charles Williams The Place of the Lion?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-41609439740558264952017-10-29T05:11:41.773+00:002017-10-29T05:11:41.773+00:00@POD - Thanks for your comment. @POD - Thanks for your comment. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-52077791118558521132017-10-29T04:22:47.305+00:002017-10-29T04:22:47.305+00:00In case you see this comment:
I'm a Catholic ...In case you see this comment:<br /><br />I'm a Catholic Christian who returned to the faith and the Church nearly seven years ago now. And since then I have felt my relationship with God growing stronger, though I know I still have far to go yet. But this year has been the best for me so far.<br /><br />I wanted to thank you for your blog, which has helped me to rethink what J. R. R. Tolkien was about, beyond what I already knew or thought I knew--which is helping to inspire my own writing--and which has inspired me to read The Space Trilogy. I'm working on That Hideous Strength at the moment, but (so far) Perelandra is my favorite, what I think stories ought to be. I'm blessed to have experienced it, precisely because it was such an exhausting struggle of an experience leading to the eucatstrophic joy of the ending--and because it's inspiring me in my own life.<br /><br />I was dimly aware of The Space Trilogy before, but it was your blog that prompted me to actually read it--and that's why I post here, because this is the blog entry I remember that got my attention about it. Thank you very much for that. God bless you.Michael E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03388855678756001137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-74410270824166968702012-07-21T15:08:08.105+01:002012-07-21T15:08:08.105+01:00See Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the ...See Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, pp. 285-6. His brief comment supports the hypothesis here.Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-13711574722646155642012-07-17T14:56:09.125+01:002012-07-17T14:56:09.125+01:00I hadn't thought of all this before. I think i...I hadn't thought of all this before. I think it's time I reread The Place of the Lion...Deniz Bevanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17134553551048836979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-48743904941539393042012-07-13T20:24:13.839+01:002012-07-13T20:24:13.839+01:00"But Place of the Lion is the C.W novel I mos..."But Place of the Lion is the C.W novel I most enjoy and have re-read most. ....<br /><br />"I went to a reading group meeting in Durham at this time where a different CW novel was discussed....<br /><br />"I remember walking away through the night at the end of the meeting stuck by the strangeness, a very C.W strangeness, of a group of Cathedral city academics, librarians and the like discussing such esoteric matters as stimulated by CW in a very ordinary middle class house."<br /><br />Yes, PotL is my favorite of the novels too, the only one I own. <br /><br />It was an optional reading selection for an undergraduate class on Fantasy that I took at a small American state college, as was Descent into Hell for a successor course. Somewhere I have a small booklet of student papers on DintoH, reproduced by ditto, that was produced by class members. These experiences were in the mid-1970s. <br /><br />I think that, at the time, readers tended to read CW through CSL-influenced and orthodox Christian eyes more than is the case now. Readings now often detect more of the strong occultic elements in the novels than was the case then and, so, are more accurate in that respect, but I suspect some of CW's present-day admirers may minimize the degree to which he, after all, was aligned with credal Christianity.Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-53612464554845429192012-07-13T18:33:48.006+01:002012-07-13T18:33:48.006+01:00@Dale - Yes, I think you are correct. Also he came...@Dale - Yes, I think you are correct. Also he came to PotL via borrowing Nevill Cohill's copy - and Coghill was a serious Christian (at that time, anyway). But Place of the Lion is the C.W novel I most enjoy and have re-read most. <br /><br />However, the very first time I read it (in 1987 or 8) I could not work-out what was going on - and (some 15 years later) I found Thomas Howard's book on the CW novels very helpful in this respect. <br /><br />I went to a reading group meeting in Durham at this time where a different CW novel was discussed, although few had actually been able to obtain copies (I can't remember which book it was - perhaps War in Heaven). <br /><br />I remember walking away through the night at the end of the meeting stuck by the strangeness, a very C.W strangeness, of a group of Cathedral city academics, librarians and the like discussing such esoteric matters as stimulated by CW in a very ordinary middle class house...Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-10447553025517189172012-07-13T17:38:29.897+01:002012-07-13T17:38:29.897+01:00In at least one way, The Place of the Lion is one ...In at least one way, The Place of the Lion is one of the least problematic of Williams's seven novels. It lacks the element of black magic present in War in Heaven, All Hallows' Eve, and perhaps Shadows of Ecstasy. The Platonic Forms in The Place of the Lion are less susceptible to Christian strictures against divination than the Tarot cards in The Greater Trumps. The Place of the Lion doesn't present Islam as perhaps an equally valid way to God, as Many Dimensions may suggest. The Place of the Lion, then, affronts an orthodox Christian less than most or all of the others may well do. The scenario that you suggest would not have come about if Lewis's first Williams novel had been War in Heaven, I suppose, a pervasively occultic novel. By 1936 Lewis was pretty much steering clear of such stuff. (It's interesting to note how, after his conversion, he seems to have avoided the writings of the occultic writer Algernon Blackwood, formerly quite a favorite.) But having started with Place of the Lion, which he liked so well, Lewis could then go on -- now in contact with the author -- to read the others, focusing on Christianity-friendly elements in them.Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.com