Tag: Inklings

Tesla & the Inklings

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Church History, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Modern Life, Theological Matters5 Comments

I recently uncovered a curious connection between C.S. Lewis and Tesla. (Not the current target of anarchist vandalism, the scientist.) While researching scientists living in the early twentieth century, a photograph of Tesla and his friend Mark Twain ignited my curiosity as to whether or not there might have been any connection between Lewis and Tesla.

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) and Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) never met or corresponded. And yet, they do possess a rather tenuous, speculative connection.

Their connection isn’t based on any similarities. Tesla was a radically innovative scientist. Lewis was a grounded literary master who was wisely suspicious of misplaced faith in scientism. 

Despite the fact Tesla’s father and uncle were both Serbian Orthodox priests, and he maintained an interest in various religious traditions throughout his life, his adult beliefs were eclectic.

Lewis, the grandson of a Church of Ireland priest, went through a period of atheism before returning to Christianity as a devout member of the Anglican communion.

So, how might the two men have been connected? Before exploring the notion that they shared a mysterious source of inspiration, consider the application of a modern theory.

Six Degrees of Separation

Various experiments have supported the idea that people (in Western nations, at least) find it “truly possible to trace a social connection between any two random people within just six steps” (This is far more refined than the overlapping of lifespans as discussed here.)

But the pressing question remained: Why six? The answer has finally been revealed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review X. The study authors include researchers from Israel, Spain, Italy, Russia, Slovenia, and Chile. 

For an academic study of the phenomenon check out “Why Are There Six Degrees of Separation in a Social Network?”

Even without the existence of social media, which some have argued may reduce “6 Degrees of Separation [to] 2,” I uncovered a pair of paths connecting Tesla and Lewis.

The first example is the more “direct,” but the second includes as an intermediate link, a writer of great importance to C.S. Lewis.

Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943)
Had as a friend who visited his laboratory, and later invited the inventor to attend his daughter’s wedding…

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Who, after offering a scathing indictment of British colonialism, officially introduced to deliver a 1900 speech in New York…

Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)
Who offered “the honour of becoming a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)” to…

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)
one of the most renowned scholars to ever teach at Oxford and Cambridge.

And an alternate path:

Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943)
Had as a friend who visited his laboratory, and later invited the inventor to attend his daughter’s wedding…

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Who maintained a longtime literary and personal friendship with…

George MacDonald (1824 – 1905)
Who received as a gift A Speech and Two Poems with a personal letter from Irish poet…

William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)
Who, on more than one occasion, entertained in his home…

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)
who, coincidentally, regarded the very same George MacDonald as one of his greatest mentors.

Tracking down these relationship paths was not that difficult. It was actually fun. If I wasn’t so busy, I would create a few more examples.

Was there Another Connection?

Nikola Tesla (Никола Тесла) was a Serbian-American inventor and futurist. His design of the alternating current (AC) electricity system was a breakthrough. As noted above, he was not a credal Christian. In “A Machine to End War,” he described his beliefs in the following manner.

To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception . . . Man, like the universe, is a machine. . . . what we call “soul “ or “spirit,” is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the “soul” or the “spirit” ceases likewise.

The possible connection between Tesla and the Inklings, postulated by a sensationalist Anglican priest, is offered in Secrets of Rennes Le Chateau. The author, R. Lionel Fanthorpe, an Anglican priest who believes “there are as many roads to the loving God of all mankind as there are individual human beings,” has written about many offbeat subjects. 

In the aforementioned work, he references passages from J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and George MacDonald as writers whose fiction may “contain hints about the Rennes-le-Château enigma.” He immediately follows this discussion with the case of “another contemporary of theirs [who] was one of the strangest and most brilliant men” of his age, Nikola Tesla.

He ends the chapter with the question, “what if the enigma with which all our Men of Mystery seem to have been involved was some form of superior communication? But communication with what? Or with whom?”

I doubt there is any connection in the source of the inspiration experienced by the Inklings, Tesla and the church at Rennes-le-Château. That said, it is an odd place of worship, due to the renovations made by its eccentric Roman Catholic priest, François-Bérenger Saunière (1852 – 1917).

Among the alterations made was the addition of a holy water font resting on the back of a devil or demon. That certainly qualifies as a “mysterious” decision. A mystery with which the Inklings bear no connection. 

Ultimately, Fanthorpe’s odd musings are illusory. Better to dismiss them and focus on the actual connection between C.S. Lewis and Nikola Tesla – one documented through the Six Degrees of Separation model.

C.S. Lewis, the Brothers Grimm & Snow White

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Cartoons with a Message, Classics Worth Revisiting, Films, G.K. Chesterton, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Literature, Modern Life, Narnia8 Comments

You may blame the recent cinematic debacle that is Snow White on a declining Film Studio or the Brothers Grimm, but C.S. Lewis is innocent.

That’s not to say the Grimms didn’t have an influence on the great Oxbridge professor, a subject we’ll explore momentarily. But it was the German folk tales published by academics Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm who published the classic fairy tales that Walt Disney mined so effectively. 

They also popularized Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Frog, and Rapunzel. Disney began the transformation of these tales into visual treasures as early as 1921 when he founded Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.

In addition to films, over the years Walt gleaned memorable Grimm stories for a multitude of cartoon shorts, including The Brave Little Tailor and The Four Musicians of Bremen.

Obviously, Walt Disney himself respected the source material for the stories and wielded his editorial prerogative in an appropriate manner. Tragically, the same cannot be said for his corporate heirs. Likewise, the Brothers Grimm bear no culpability in this area.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien & Snow White

The truth is, although Lewis and Tolkien appreciated literary fairy tales, neither of the preeminent Inklings were enamored with Disney’s animated treatment of the stories. Curiously, the two distinguished dons actually attended the theater together to view the trailblazing novelty that was Snow White.

They were particularly disappointed with the dwarves, seeing just how different they were from the genuine legends about them. Lewis even wrote “Dwarfs ought to be ugly of course, but not in that way.” Atlas Obscura has an entertaining article about their “movie date” and notes some of the elements they also enjoyed in the feature.

In his lectures published as A preface to Paradise lost, C.S. Lewis elaborates on his response to the Disney version of the tale.

That strange blend of genius and vulgarity, the film of Snow-White, will illustrate the point. There was good unorginality in the drawing of the Queen. She was the very archetype of all beautiful, cruel queens: the thing one expected to see, save that it was truer to type than one dared to hope for.

There was bad originality in the bloated, drunken, low-comedy faces of the dwarfs. Neither the earthiness, the avarice, nor the wisdom of true dwarfs was there, but an imbecility of arbitrary invention.

But in the scene where Snow-White wakes in the woods both the right originality and the right unoriginality were used together. The good unoriginality lay in the use of small, delicate animals as comforters, in the true Märchen [fairy tale] style. The good originality lay in letting us at first mistake their eyes for the eyes of monsters.

If you want to read more about the subject, you can do no better than read Joe Christopher’s article on the subject.

For an interesting argument that fellow Brit G.K. Chesterton would have loved Snow White for the very reason that moved the Inklings to criticize it, see “Tolkien and Lewis disliked Snow White. You know who wouldn’t have?”

C.S. Lewis & Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Like his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis was a champion of classical fairy tales. Neither was apologetic for it, although Lewis admitted to being shy about it when he was young. In an essay titled “On Three Ways of Writing For Children,” he wrote,

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

In a great post called “Old Enough For Fairy Tales: C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” the writer describes this distinction to which Lewis alludes.

The Chronicles of Narnia are not children’s stories. They are fairy tales—but that is precisely why they are not children’s stories. If you can’t understand, you haven’t been listening. Go back and read the quote from Lewis’ essay again. Children are not the only audience for fairy tales.

In 1954, C.S. Lewis apologized to a German professor for being unable to understand the nuances of his volume on philosophy. In doing so, he referred to his youthful reading of the Brothers Grimm in their original German (available at Internet Archive).

I look forward to reading the book (when the translation arrives! My German is wretched, and what there is of it belongs chiefly to the libretto of the Ring and Grimm’s Märchen – works whose style and vocabulary you very possibly do not closely follow).

If you are in the mood for reading Grimm’s Fairy tales today, and your German is sadly lacking, Project Gutenberg has just the translation for you . . . as long as you can read English.

Addendum [added 10 April 2025]

The Brothers Grimm were far more than simply folklorists. They were respected professors at the University of Göttingen. They were devout Christians and worked with other prominent Germans. 

Goethe assisted them at a crucial moment in collecting their tales, and the philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher provided copyediting assistance. Jacob’s work on German mythology had a pronounced influence on the composer Richard Wagner (World Magazine).

They also began compiling the Deutsches Wörterbuch (Germany dictionary) in 1838, with the first volumes published in 1854. It was the first dictionary to include historical usages of each word, preceding the Oxford English Dictionary, which was initiated in 1857 with its first edition published in 1884.

Bonus Trivia: The dwarves were unnamed until their debut on Broadway in 1912. And on that day they were christened Blick, Flick, Glick, Plick, Snick, Whick and Quee.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien & Naomi Mitchison

On By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, Books, C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Classics Worth Revisiting, Great Authors, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Marriage, Modern Life, Narnia, Publishing, Reading, Roman History, Writing2 Comments

Have your feelings about particular authors changed over time? C.S. Lewis’ attitude toward the work of prolific novelist Naomi Mitchison illustrates this type of progression.

Mitchison’s work possesses a direct link to another Oxford Inkling – J.R.R. Tolkien – whose Fellowship of the Ring she read in proof and favorably reviewed. Brenton Dickieson provides a priceless letter written by Tolkien to Mitchison in 1954.

Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison was a Scottish novelist who lived more than a century (1897 – 1999). She penned more than ninety books, primarily historical fiction, and including science fiction.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Mitchison joined a Voluntary Air Detachment in a London hospital. (Other familiar women who served in a VAD included Agatha Christie and Amelia Earhart.)

Politically she identified as a Socialist. She was sufficiently leftist that George Orwell regarded her as unsuited for writing anti-Soviet materials for the United Kingdom during the Cold War.

Mitchison’s brother, J.B.S. Haldane, did not equivocate on his radical views, announcing his position as a Marxist. He was a scientist and his atheism brought him into serious disagreement with the Christian views of C.S. Lewis. (I will devote my next post to that interaction.)

Coincidentally, artist Pauline Baynes (who also worked with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien), provided the illustrations for at least one of Mitchison’s children’s books, Graeme and the Dragon. This quick review offers a concise synopsis and discussion of “the charming illustrations [which] go a long way toward making this a fun read.”

An additional coincidence: the same year Lewis published The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mitchison also published a fantasy novel for children. The Big House involves time travel and some occultic themes associated with Halloween, etc.

For a thorough synopsis of The Big House and comparison to Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, check out this essay from the University of Glasgow. (That reviewer’s preference is clearly for Mitchison’s more complex approach with its themes related to class struggle.)

C.S. Lewis’ Perspective on Naomi Mitchison

I cannot locate any mention of C.S. Lewis by Mitchison, but he did mention her in passing in several pieces of correspondence. In essence, he praised her skill, but was put off by her graphic use of violent imagery.

In a 1932 letter to Arthur Greeves, he writes:

I thought we had talked about Naomi Mitchison before. I have only read one (Black Sparta) and I certainly agree that it ‘holds’ one: indeed I don’t know any historical fiction that is so astonishingly vivid and, on the whole, so true.

I also thought it astonishing how, despite the grimness, she got such an air of beauty–almost dazzling beauty–into it. As to the cruelties, I think her obvious relish is morally wicked, but hardly an artistic fault for she could hardly get some of her effects without it.

But it is, in Black Sparta, a historical falsehood: not that the things she describes did not probably happen in Greece, but that they were not typical–the Greeks being, no doubt, cruel by modern standards, but, by the standards of that age, extremely humane.

She gives you the impression that the cruelty was essentially Greek, whereas it was precisely the opposite. That is, she is unfair as I should be unfair if I wrote a book about some man whose chief characteristic was that he was the tallest of the pigmies, and kept on reminding the reader that he was very short. I should be telling the truth (for of course he would be short by our standards) but missing the real point about the man–viz: that he was, by the standards of his own race, a giant. 

Still, she is a wonderful writer and I fully intend to read more of her when I have a chance.

C.S. Lewis echoed his concern in a 1942 letter to another of his regular correspondents, Sister Penelope. “I gave up Naomi Mitchison some time ago because of her dwelling on scenes of cruelty. But I recognise real imagination and a sort of beauty in the writing.”

In 1951, C.S. Lewis congratulated author Idrisyn Oliver Evans (1894–1977) on the publication of The Coming of a King; A Story of the Stone Age. Ironically, speculative fiction set in this ancient era, referred to as “Prehistoric SF,” was also the setting of works such as H.G. Wells’ Story of the Stone Age series, which you can read here. Naomi Mitchison also dabbled in the prehistoric field. Lewis wrote to Evans: 

I congratulate you. And I think it is a great thing to put that idea of the Stone Age – which is at least as likely to be the true one – into boys’ heads instead of Well’s or Naomi Mitchison’s. It’s all good. The marriage customs are amusing . . . I hope it will be a great success. 

In 1959, C.S. Lewis provided some wise counsel to a young, aspiring author. The American student was contemplating a volume about the Roman subjugation of Gaul, which Lewis encouraged.

A story about Caesar in Gaul sounds very promising. Have you read Naomi Mitchison’s The Conquered? And if not, I wonder should you? It might be too strong an influence if you did (at any rate until your own book is nearly finished). On the other hand, you may need to read it in order to avoid being at any point too like it without knowing you are doing so.

I don’t know what one should read on Gaul. Apart from archaeological finds (Torques and all that) I suppose Caesar himself is our chief evidence? He will be great fun and I hope you will enjoy yourself thoroughly.

Which side will you be on? I’m all for the Gauls myself and I hate all conquerors. But I never knew a woman who was not all for Caesar – just as they were in his life-time.

C.S. Lewis’ most significant mention of Naomi Mitchison occurs in his brief 1943 essay, “Equality.”

It delivers a brilliant discussion of the subject, one that merits full reading. He commends one of Mitchison’s insights into inequality – although, ironically, she relates it to eroticism.* (You must read it in full context to understand how it supports his independent argument.)

This last point needs a little plain speaking. Men have so horribly abused their power over women in the past that to wives, of all people, equality is in danger of appearing as an ideal. But Mrs. Naomi Mitchison has laid her finger on the real point. Have as much equality as you please – the more the better – in our marriage laws, but at some level consent to inequality, nay, delight in inequality, is an erotic necessity.

Mrs. Mitchison [in The Home and a Changing Civilization] speaks of women so fostered on a defiant idea of equality that the mere sensation of the male embrace rouses an undercurrent of resentment. Marriages are thus shipwrecked.

A final reference to Mitchison brings us back around to my early note that she reviewed Fellowship of the Ring. C.S. Lewis refers to her review in his own, suggesting that she has not gone quite far enough in her praise.

Nothing quite like it was ever done before. ‘One takes it,’ says Naomi Mitchison, ‘as seriously as Malory.’ But then the ineluctable sense of reality which we feel in the Morte d’Arthur comes largely from the great weight of other men’s work built up century by century, which has gone into it.

The utterly new achievement of Professor Tolkien is that he carries a comparable sense of reality unaided. Probably no book yet written in the world is quite such a radical instance of what its author has elsewhere called ‘sub-creation.’

Sadly, Naomi Mitchison was less enamored with the subsequent volumes in The Lord of the Rings . . . but this post has already condensed more than enough information.

* An article in Michigan Feminist Studies notes how Naomi Mitchison’s recurrent references to sexual themes distracted from broader matters throughout her literary career.

Despite Mitichison’s attempts to move the discussion of her body of work from the salacious, it is the frank and open inclusion of sexuality that continues to intrigue her critics and reviewers. Racy, heated passages of Mitchison’s historical novels inspired comment from poet W.H. Auden in the 1930s (“Monstrous Sex: The Erotic in Naomi Mitchison’s Science Fiction”).

The essay’s thesis is what one might expect in a journal devoted to contemporary feminism.

I intend to demonstrate that the ribald sexuality of Mitchison’s work registers as more than merely provocative. Sexual encounters between female characters and aliens, as well as those between women, threaten an imperialising capitalism that dictates who may be loved in a gendered, racialised order.

Must Writing be a Solitary Endeavor?

On By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle Earth, Modern Life, My Writing Projects, Reading, The Future, Writing10 Comments

It’s often said that “writing is a solitary task.” I find that’s only half true.

Sure, each individual is responsible for putting the words on the page (AI-cheats aside), but sharing your work with others before publishing it provides amazing dividends.

Not only can “other eyes” see flaws we are too close to the piece to recognize, good critiques often include suggestions to make our writing stronger.

I’ve occasionally described the benefits I’ve received from being a member of writers [critique] groups around the globe. I titled one of my posts “Be an Inkling,” because this mutual sharing was central to those brilliant minds who gathered together in Oxford.

In 1967, J.R.R. Tolkien described his reason for using that particular word in just such settings. He said he used the word Inkling as “a ‘jest,’ because it was a pleasantly ingenious pun in its way, suggesting people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.”

I too find it “pleasantly ingenious” and have echoed it here in my own domain. 

Conferences can be helpful too, but my experience is that nothing surpasses the encouragement that emanates from the mutual commitment shared by writers who physically gather to share their creations.

I noted above two concrete ways writing friends can contribute to strengthening our work. However, this third element – encouragement – cannot be underestimated. It was precisely this element that brought that masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, to the world’s attention.

A Pilgrim in Narnia provides a superb account of C.S. Lewis’ essential role in boosting the confidence of his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. He cites a letter in which Tolkien describes how Lewis’ most precious gift was in challenging him to complete his opus.

The unpayable debt that I owe to him was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion.

Melancholy Transitions

Critique groups are weighing on my mind, since the one I’ve been part of for many years has come to its end. The passing of various members during the past decade left too few of us to continue, and we few who were left are mourning the fact that it was not sensible to continue meeting regularly.

It is another reminder of Solomon’s wisdom when he wrote, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Sadly, I lack the energy to help establish another new writing fellowship at this point in my life. Perhaps I will join one of the online communities. Christian Writers looks promising.

I actually participated in an online critique community back when primitive “bulletin board systems” were giving way to the nascent internet. No doubt the modern equivalent would be far better in every way.

In the meantime, I do have a few readers I trust to review my work before submitting it to an editor. One is my very talented wife. The problem there, however, is that her love (and compassionate nature) make her too gentle when she critiques my work. 

This drawback is one side of the coin to which author Dan Brown refers when he says: “I learned early on not to listen to either critique – the people who love you or the people who don’t like you.”

This does not mean, of course, that those who love us are unsuitable candidates. It simply suggests that we need to (often repeatedly) give them permission to offer genuinely critical comments, especially when they are accompanied by suggestions for how we might improve a given passage.

In essence although people like William Faulkner are correct in stating that “writing is a solitary job,” most of us can benefit from sharing our drafts with others. 

And fortunate are those of us who discover such friendship, where our writing companions are like-minded, trustworthy, self-confident, and honest. (I personally find having a sense of humor an essential trait, as well.)

In a word, we are greatly blessed to personally become part of our own fellowship of Inklings.

Tinker Bell, the Inklings, and Disney

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Classics Worth Revisiting, Films, Great Authors, Humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Literature, Middle Earth, Modern Life, Mythology, Narnia, Nature, Publishing, The Future, Writing4 Comments

Poor Tinker Bell. The political prejudices of our day have caught up with the sparkling fairy, and relegated her to a significantly reduced presence in the Disney universe.

Inside the Magic reported “Tinker Bell seems to have left Walt Disney World and is now on her way back to Neverland following a recent change at Walt Disney World Resort.” You can read the tragic tale on their site.

. . . once more, Disney’s animated classic, Peter Pan (1953), is under scrutiny, with Disney issuing a statement regarding Captain Hook and Tinker Bell as characters with potential concerns.

Linking poor Tink to a murderous pirate seems a bit of a stretch, and she has not been fully banished, but she has definitely been demoted. According to TMZ, Disney alleges the company’s “own people felt she wasn’t a good role model for girls in the 21st century.”

Well, eventually she too will be in the public domain, like Mickey Mouse. Actually, her literary portrait as introduced in the play, coincidentally just entered the public domain this year (2024)!

However, should you reside in the United Kingdom, beware that in 1988, the copyright holder, Great Ormond Street Hospital, was granted the rights to Peter Pan “in perpetuity.”

The Creator of Tinker Bell & Peter Pan

Tinker Bell is one of the most memorable characters in Neverland, the creation of James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937). He was a prolific Scottish writer and is best known for his 1911 novel, Peter and Wendy – which initially debuted in the form of a stage play in 1904, as Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.

Peter Pan was actually introduced to the world as a baby in The Little White Bird. Tinker Bell does not appear in the novel, but the following description of J.M. Barrie’s fairy mythology is quite fanciful.

One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies.

They look tremendously busy, you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe.

They have a postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box, and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and when she has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back.

It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest is always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess; and children remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, and that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new frills on the basinette.

Barrie continues, describing how infants are simply following fairy “ways” when they misbehave, and they naturally experience “exasperation, because we don’t understand [them], though [they are] talking an intelligible language . . . fairy.”

Returning to the person of Tinker Bell herself, she outgrew her supporting role as, in the words of her creator, “a common fairy.” She was literally a tinker, who died following the departure of Wendy and her brothers from Neverland. 

Presumably, some of the gatekeepers at Disney would have preferred that the affection of the crowds had not restored her to life. 

The Inklings

The Imaginative Conservative offers an interesting take on C.S. Lewis’ view of fairies. I quote a portion related to our present subject.

Lewis treats the subject of fairies in . . . The Discarded Image. . . . After explaining the medieval understanding of the heavens and planetary systems, Lewis turns to what he calls the Longaevi. He avoids the term “fairies” because it is “tarnished by pantomime and bad children’s books with worse illustrations.” (Probably referring to Barrie’s popular play and Princess Mary’s Gift Book – the book from which Elsie and Frances clipped the pictures they used in their fake photos.)

Jane Douglass, an American actress and playwright, contributed a fascinating essay to C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, and Other Reminiscences. One wonderful portion of “An Enduring Friendship” describes Lewis’ thoughts about the possible dramatization of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. 

C.S. Lewis deemed the prospect absurd on its face, saying “I believe plays should be plays, poems, poems, novels, novels, stories, stories, and certainly the book you mention is pure narrative.” So much for a partially surviving 1967 series, the 1979 animation, the 1988 BBC television series, and the cinematic version(s) which began in 2005. Oh, and there is the matter of the impending Netflix telling which remains a closely guarded secret. Douglass continued with a reference to Disney.

He repeated his dread of such things as radio and television apparatus and expressed his dislike of talking films. I said I quite understood this, and that nothing would distress me more than that he should think that I had in mind anything like the Walt Disney shows; I hoped nobody had suggested the book to Mr. Disney.

This seemed to relieve Mr. Lewis to such an extent that I thought perhaps Mr. Disney had been after the book, but of course I did not ask. And in his usual generous way, Mr. Lewis said, “Too bad we didn’t know Walt Disney before he was spoiled, isn’t it?”

Author Jim Denney has a nice article on “What C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Thought of Walt Disney” in which he describes parallels between the live of Lewis and Disney and concludes, “you might think that, with all that C.S. Lewis and Walt Disney had in common, they might have been mutual admirers – but that was not the case.”

Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs debuted in the United States in 1937 and in the United Kingdom in 1938. . . . A few months later, Lewis went to see it again, this time with his good friend (and fellow Oxford professor) J.R.R. Tolkien.

Coincidentally, Tolkien’s first novel The Hobbit had been published in September 1937, just three months before the American debut of Snow White.

Their greatest disappointment was in Disney’s utterly comical take on dwarves and the absence of the slightest air of “the mythic nobility of the dwarves from Germanic folklore.”

Although Snow White is itself a fairy tale, fairy characters are not to be found in the film. In the same way, J.R.R. Tolkien referred to the Lord of the Rings as a “fairy story” for adults, yet they do not appear to dwell in Middle Earth.

In fact, according to The Encyclopedia of Arda, “the name ‘Faerie’ belongs to an early period of Tolkien’s writings, and is never seen in The Lord of the Rings, but it does survive in a single usage in the earlier book The Hobbit.” And even in that case, it refers not to a population, but to a place.

On the Effect of Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell’s significance in the world is not confined to literature, or the interests of children. There is a brilliant application of her legend which has been transposed into the psychological realm. 

It’s call the “Tinker Bell Effect,” and “Be(lie)ve It or Not,” from Psychology Today, offers the following description.

One theory manifesting connections among belief, psychology, and mythology is the Tinkerbell effect named for the fairy Tinker Bell of Peter Pan whose resuscitation depends upon the audience expressing their belief in fairies through clapping . . .

The Tinkerbell effect refers to those things that exist only through imaginative acts and because people believe in them. The Reverse Tinkerbell effect maintains that, somewhat paradoxically, the more people believe in something the more likely it is to disappear. 

In their article, the psychologists parenthetically offer an additional application of Tinker Bell’s nature to their area of study. (It actually appears in the paragraph above, where I replaced it with an ellipsis.)

(because she is so small that she can only hold one feeling at a time, Tinkerbell is also a model for mood disorders and difficulties with emotional self-regulation)

Fascinating. It seems to me this insight opens the door to further literary exploration of the Tinker Bell Phenomenon that would be of interest to writers and literary critics alike. I close with my proposal for a new label for an ancient plague afflicting fictional works. If it interests any scholars among you, I invite you to develop it further and claim it as your own.

Tinker Bell (var. Tinkerbell) Crippling Character Creation Complete Content Complexity Phenomenon: The invention of fictional characters who lack depth and bear no resemblance to real people. Literary tropes that are often referred to as one-dimensional or “flat” characters. (See nearly all Marvel supervillains.)

P.S. – Feel free to abbr. the admittedly verbose proposed title; keeping in mind most readers prefer brief reads.

Individualism, License Plates & C.S. Lewis

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Christian Life, Humor, Military History, Military Musings, Modern Life, Potentially Useful Trivia, Words5 Comments

One of the peculiar things about the United States is the extreme degree to which people are driven to stand out from the crowd. We are able to do this with our automobiles, for example, in a rather odd way.

C.S. Lewis was immune to the temptation discussed here, since he was never a fan of cars, as I discussed in “C.S. Lewis & Automobiles.”

In his autobiography, Lewis declared “I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, while yet most of my friends had, and sometimes took me for a drive.” Those who are curious about Lewis’ dichotomy concerning vehicles, should refer to that post.

I don’t know how many other countries do this, but in most of the United States states, people have the option of getting random numbers and letters on their license plates – or opting for so-called vanity plates.

These individually emblazoned metallic placards perform a sort of Third Estate heraldic device. They often include variations on surnames or words significant to the bearer.

Obviously, offensive words are prohibited, but they are frequently quite creative. Here are a few examples: SO 4CHN8 and its opposite, EN-V ~  GONA B L8 which is probably an insufficient excuse to the cop who pulls you over ~ IBMEUBU with its live and let live philosophy versus URAMESS ~ UH AS IF from California, of course ~ IOU DAD from a grateful child ~ BWAHAHA and the clearer message from Vermont, BBRRRR ~ TWOCUTE can either refer to attractive twins, or to an illiterate narcissist ~ BBQ=LUV celebrates a common American favorite ~ and, this provocative phrase ITS A SIN. Hundreds more examples are online if you’re curious.

It’s fascinating that Americans will pay often exorbitant surcharges to individuate their auto plates. Especially in light of the fact that we already have different plates for each of the 50 states and a Federal District (for our national capital), as well as others for Territories and Protectorates. Prepare yourself. Seriously, prepare for a shock.

All of the 8,331 License Plates in America

States now offer a vast menu of personalized plate options for a dizzying array of organizations, professions, sports teams, causes and other groups.

Such plates typically include a surcharge to support the theme identified on each choice, as for Maryland’s Beekeepers, Barbershop Quartet Singers, or the Baltimore Bicycling Club. And we mustn’t forget their plate promoting the museum of the B&O Railroad (of Monopoly fame).

How can we arrive at that unbelievable number? Well, consider Illinois, for example. They boast no fewer than forty different options related to military alone. Hawaii has the fewest overall varieties at fourteen. Maryland, likely desperate for revenue, actually has nine hundred and eighty-nine. I am curious why they bothered to stop short of an even thousand.

Add to that the fact that nineteen states do not require a license on the front of the car, which invites the substitution of an individualized alternative. Consequently, there are statutes ensuring “most states also require that you do not mount your plate upside down.” In many of these, you would be legally allowed to mount decorative or business plates, but not alternative license plates, misleadingly different from your true registration.

Individuality run amok. The chaos sadly seems strikingly American.

Which brings me to the reason I was thinking about this unusual topic. Heading to church on Sunday I saw a plate with a curious message. It was one of my state’s options for Fire Fighters. The message it bore consisted of just three letters: UGH.

What does that convey to you? Since it appeared on a vocational emblem, my thought is that it reflects the feelings of someone who has grown tired of their profession. The best construction I can imagine is someone frustrated by the fact that after every fire they suppress there will come another. Resulting in a sense of futility or ennui. If you interpret it differently, please let me know.

I mean, we’ve all had ugh-days. But to feel ugh enough about life to indelibly express it this way . . . well, all I could do was hope it was an unconventional joke, and offer a quick prayer for the driver, in case it wasn’t.

C.S. Lewis offered many insights about our God-given individuality and uniqueness. Individualism, as a driving force, however, is something different. I recently read a wonderful article about how Lewis assessed individualism’ interplay with collectivism – two relentless forces in many Western cultures. “C.S. Lewis on Individualism, Equality and the Church” focuses on a World War Two speech delivered at Oxford and published as “Membership.”

Our personal uniqueness is not accidental. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain,”

[God] makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

In contrast, hyper-individualism is normally deleterious. Yet, the fact that God regards us as precious, irreplaceable beings, and calls each of us by our personal name, is wondrous news. It can accomplish two things related to the discussion above: (1) it puts personalized license plates in their proper perspective, and (2) it reminds us that even though we occasionally feel frustrated or despondent, our overall life attitude should never be summed up with an ugh.

Editor’s Note: In the interest of journalistic transparency, yours truly, while experiencing many moves, has participated in the automotive bacchanalia described above. Twice I secured military-related plates, Alabama’s Desert Shield/Desert Storm veterans and Illinois’ POW/MIA remembrance commemorations. In addition, while stationed in Guam, I secured plates with my surname.

I have asked my children to have me hospitalized for dementia should I ever decide to order our Washington State J.P. Patches Pal license plate. The reasons for that decision are obvious.

Tortured Writing & the Inklings

On By robstroudIn Books, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Classics Worth Revisiting, Great Authors, Humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Literature, Poetry, Words, Writing12 Comments

Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939) was an Irish poet and novelist beloved by the Oxford Inklings. “Beloved” here is used in the sense of treasured for its distinctiveness, rather than admired for its artistry.

An article about Ros in Smithsonian Magazine is subtitled: “Amanda McKittrick Ros predicted she would achieve lasting fame as a novelist. Unfortunately, she did.”

So how is it that a writer described by the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (OCIL) as authoring “unconscious comedy of a very high order” came to occupy a special place within the company of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their literary fellows? Why did they begin reading her works as a sort of contest, with the challenge of neither laughing nor smiling as they did so?

It was not because her mother (or she herself) christened her after a character in The Children of the Abbey, published in 1796. (Her initial name was “Anna.”)

No, it was due to an intrinsic element of her frequently alliterative artistry, described by OCIL in the following manner.

She published two sentimental romances, Irene Iddlesleigh (1897) and Delina Delany (1898), both in an idiosyncratic manner that provides unconscious comedy of a very high order. . . .

Most of her published writings appeared posthumously as a result of literary curiosity.

Many writers would agree that writing comedy is quite challenging. Comedy Crowd is devoted to helping writers gain some skill in this arena, and if you take a moment to check out their video about failed puns – after you finish reading this post – you won’t be disappointed. 

As one commenter on SleuthSayers puts it, “. . . writing humor isn’t easy. It’s even dangerous: trying to be funny and failing would be almost as bad as being funny when you’re trying to be serious.” Sadly, the worst of these options proved to be the fortune of poor Amanda.

Even her native Northern Ireland Library Authority confesses that her “writing style can only be described as elaborate, melodramatic, using startling descriptions with mixed metaphors and inappropriate alliteration with the result being unintentionally hilarious.”

In her collection “Poems of Puncture,” I came across a piece titled “Reverend Goliath Ginbottle.” Being a reverend myself, I eagerly listened to a LibriVox recording of the poem (which you can download for free from Internet Archive), and I was not disappointed. Her description of this “viper of vanity” and her joy at his ultimate judgment was delightfully colorful. Or, should you prefer to hear a diatribe against a corrupt lawyer, listen to Mickey Monkeyface McBlear, who bore “a mouth like a moneybox.”

TV Tropes has an article about Ros which attributes a dozen tropes to her pen.

In the Style of: Aldous Huxley noted that Ros wrote in the 16th century style of Euphuism. Susan Sontag decades later stated that Euphuism was the progenitor of camp, which would explain why literary greats found her writing so hilarious.

Those curious about euphuism can read John Lyly’s Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit; Euphues and His England which is filled with delights unnumbered. Originally two volumes, the books were published in the sixteenth century.

C.S. Lewis was a serious enough “fan” of Ros’ writings to share his affection for them with Cambridge Classicist Nan Dunbar. C.S. Lewis scholar Joel Heck has written a worthwhile article about the ongoing friendship between the two professors.

For a detailed study of the literary relationship between Amanda McKittrick Ros and the Inklings, I highly recommend the article by Anita Gorman and Leslie R. Mateer which appeared in Mythlore.

As they describe, even before the Inklings added occasional readings of her work to their gatherings, as early as 1907 there was in Oxford a society devoted to weekly readings of her works. The authors pose, and then proceed to answer, the following question.

What . . . impelled C.S. Lewis and his mates to read aloud Ros’s work? Yes, the improbable plots, silly characters, and nonexistent themes may have played a role, but were those enough to captivate the Inklings and to give rise to Delina Delaney dinners and Amanda Ros societies?

After all, many writers have written improbable plots about improbable people, and these writers have enjoyed short-lived reputations, if any reputations at all. Yet Amanda lives on.

For Those with Stout Constitutions

Mere Inkling offers one final look back at the transcendent poetry of Amanda McKittrick Ros. This infamous selection can be found at the aptly named Pity the Readers: Horribly Excellent Writing website.

“Visiting Westminster Abbey”
(from Fumes of Formation)

Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,

Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with ‘blue’
Undergoes the same as you.

These morose words bring to mind another verse, composed in the form of a song by the artists of Monty Python. It appeared on Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album as “Decomposing Composers.”

They’re decomposing composers.
There’s nothing much anyone can do.
You can still hear Beethoven,
But Beethoven cannot hear you. . . .

Verdi and Wagner delighted the crowds
With their highly original sound.
The pianos they played are still working,
But they’re both six feet underground.

They’re decomposing composers.
There’s less of them every year.
You can say what you like to Debussy,
But there’s not much of him left to hear.

Yes, similarly morbid verse, but offered here to provide a sharp contrast between types of humor. Monty Python is the epitome of Camp, which according to Susan Sontag,

sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp;” not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

Although Sontag notes “one must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp,” she argues the “pure examples of Camp are unintentional.” She considers self-conscious efforts, such as Noel Coward (and presumably Monty Python as well) as “usually less satisfying.”

Another perspective offers a helpful dichotomy to distinguish between “intentionality: whether camp deliberately cultivated (‘high’ camp) is the same to that of the unintentional kind (‘low’ camp).”

Personally, I often enjoy high (nonvulgar) camp humor – witty silliness that scoffs at life’s peculiarities. As for unintentional, “low” camp such as we find in Ros, I typically feel a flash of guilt at hurting (even posthumously) the feelings of a writer. Most of us writers are, after all, a sensitive and vulnerable breed.

The enlightening illustrations accompanying this article are from Amanda McKittrick Ros Society Promotional Memes, ably captained by Dan Morgan.

George MacDonald’s Poetry

On By robstroudIn Books, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Christianity, G.K. Chesterton, Great Authors, Humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Poetry, Reading, Words11 Comments

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a prolific Scot writer. His legacy was amplified due to his influence on G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. (He was also a friend of Mark Twain.) An essay, originally presented as a speech by G.K. Chesterton, is available online.

Chesterton goes so far as to say, “if to be a great man is to hold the universe in one’s head or heart, Dr. MacDonald is great. No man has carried about with him so naturally heroic an atmosphere.” Listen to his description of that special type of literature that inspired many Inklings, chiefly C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Many religious writers have written allegories and fairy tales, which have gone to creating the universal conviction that there is nothing that shows so little spirituality as an allegory, and nothing that contains so little imagination as a fairy tale. But from all these Dr. MacDonald is separated by an abyss of profound originality of intention.

The difference is that the ordinary moral fairy tale is an allegory of real life. Dr. MacDonald’s tales of real life are allegories, or disguised versions, of his fairy tales.

It is not that he dresses up men and movements as knights and dragons, but that he thinks that knights and dragons, really existing in the eternal world, are dressed up here as men and movements.

C.S. Lewis, for his part, praised MacDonald as instrumental in tilling the soil for his eventual conversion to Christianity. He was on the defensive, since the writers which most inspired him shared a common flaw – they were Christians.

All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been as blind as a bat not to have seen, long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader.

George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course it was a pity he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it.

Chesterton had more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence had it too (Surprised by Joy).

Lewis would actually come to edit a selection of MacDonald’s passages for an edifying anthology. This post includes a link for downloading a copy of George MacDonald: An Anthology.

This week I was reading one of MacDonald’s excellent essays, which appears in The Imagination and Other Essays. I intend to discuss some of his thoughts on age and writing soon. Although I am not an aficionado of poetry – despite having composed poetry from time to time, including quintains, I turned to another of MacDonald’s books.

On to His Poetry

I decided to follow up MacDonald’s brilliant essay with a dip into his poetry. Fortunately, Internet Archive allows you to freely download a complete copy of MacDonald’s Scotch Songs and Ballads, published in 1893. My conscience forces me, however, to provide a single caveat. Be forewarned that the tome is not suited for those intimidated by pronounced dialects.

Before looking at one of his poems in its entirety, allow me to share with you a passage from “The Waesome Carl” which I particularly enjoyed (due to its portrait of a preacher). 

The minister wasna fit to pray
And lat alane to preach;
He nowther had the gift o’ grace
Nor yet the gift o’ speech!
He mind’t him o’ Balaäm’s ass,
Wi’ a differ we micht ken:
The Lord he opened the ass’s mou,
The minister opened’s ain!
He was a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’ wrang;
There wasna a man aboot the toon
But was a’thegither a’ wrang!
The puir precentor couldna sing,
He gruntit like a swine . . .

Not that I claim able to decipher it all, but my impression is that it’s not especially flattering. It is definitely entertaining. And I humbly think I interpret it significantly more accurately than Google’s online translator, which provided the following version.

The minister was not fit to pray
And lat alane to preach;
He nowther had the gift o’ grace
Nor yet the gift o’ speech!
He mind’t him o’ Balaam’s ass,
Wi’ a differ we micht ken:
The Lord he opened the ass’s mou,
The minister opened his eyes!
He was a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’wrang;
There was a man aboot the toon
But thegither was wrong!
The puir precentor couldna sing,
He grunted like a swine. . .

Using the Dictionars o the Scots Leid, you can make perfect sense of the words about which you may be uncertain. (Thank you, Scotland.)

Dialects are interesting things indeed. I will close with another of MacDonald’s poems. I submit it for (1) those who comprehend the dialect, (2) those who deem precious their Scottish ancestry, (3) those with an affinity for Connor MacLeod, and (4) those who simply enjoy a challenge.

“Nannie Braw”

I like ye weel upo Sundays, Nannie,
I’ yer goon and yer ribbons and a’;
But I like ye better on Mondays, Nannie,
Whan ye’re no sae buskit and braw.

For whan we’re sittin sae douce, Nannie,
Wi’ the lave o’ the worshippin fowk,
That aneth the haly hoose, Nannie,
Ye micht hear a moudiwarp howk,

It will come into my heid, Nannie,
O’ yer braws ye are thinkin a wee;
No alane o’ the Bible-seed, Nannie,
Nor the minister nor me!

Syne hame athort the green, Nannie,
Ye gang wi’ a toss o’ yer chin;
And there walks a shadow atween ‘s, Nannie,
A dark ane though it be thin!

But noo, whan I see ye gang, Nannie,
Eident at what’s to be dune,
Liltin a haiveless sang, Nannie,
I wud kiss yer verra shune!

Wi’ yer silken net on yer hair, Nannie,
I’ yer bonnie blue petticoat,
Wi’ yer kin’ly arms a’ bare, Nannie,
On yer ilka motion I doat.

For, oh, but ye’re canty and free, Nannie,
Airy o’ hert and o’ fit!
A star-beam glents frae yer ee, Nannie–
O’ yersel ye’re no thinkin a bit!

Fillin the cogue frae the coo, Nannie,
Skimmin the yallow ream,
Pourin awa the het broo, Nannie,
Lichtin the lampie’s leme,

Turnin or steppin alang, Nannie,
Liftin and layin doon,
Settin richt what’s aye gaein wrang, Nannie,
Yer motion’s baith dance and tune!

I’ the hoose ye’re a licht and a law, Nannie,
A servan like him ‘at’s abune:
Oh, a woman’s bonniest o’ a’, Nannie,
Doin what maun be dune!

Cled i’ yer Sunday claes, Nannie,
Fair kythe ye to mony an ee;
But cled i’ yer ilka-day’s, Nannie,
Ye draw the hert frae me!

Addendum:

For those interested in pursuing this linguistic subject, I just came across a delightful 1896 collection of works you can download for free. Legends of the Saints: in the Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century is “edited from the unique manuscript in the University Library, Cambridge.”

The cartoon above comes from Mr. Punch in the Highlands which was published “with 140 illustrations” more than a century ago. You can download your personal copy of humorous work at Internet Archive.

Books Enjoyed by C.S. Lewis

On By robstroudIn Books, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Classics Worth Revisiting, Great Authors, Great Authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Reading, Writing17 Comments

Reading is not only one of life’s pleasures, the content and ethos of what we read, subtly influences the shape of our very lives.

C.S. Lewis loved books with genuine passion. While many people only perceive books as compilations of information or as sources of fleeting entertainment, he knew them as far more. Only someone sharing Lewis’ affection and wisdom will identify with the following passage from his essay “An Experiment in Criticism.”

The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. . . .

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality.

But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

Lewis scholar and emeritus professor of English, Dale J. Nelson, has been providing a wonderful service in recent years as he explores the books which found a place in C.S. Lewis’ personal library. “Jack and the Bookshelf” is a continuing series which appears in CSL, journal of the New York C.S. Lewis Society. Founded in 1969, the organization “is the oldest society for the ​appreciation and discussion of C.S. Lewis in the world.”

Nelson’s task of editorially archiving C.S. Lewis’ library is complemented by the work of our mutual friend, Dr. Brenton Dickieson. In a “comment” praising Dickieson’s compilation of “C.S. Lewis’ Teenage Bookshelf,” Nelson offers a commendation with which I fully concur.

Thank you for assembling that list of books . . . I’d encourage Lewis’s admirers to take their appreciation of CSL to the next step and delve into the things he liked to read throughout his life.

Nelson’s contribution to the December 2023 issue is the fifty-ninth in his series, and discusses a fantasy work titled The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison. Eddison (1882-1945) was a Norse scholar, and his fascination with mountains combined with that, to resonate with Lewis’ passion for northernness.

Dr. Nelson, who has added an array of science fiction to his own academic work, possesses superb credentials for exploring the connection between Lewis and Eddison. 

Nelson relates that, at C.S. Lewis’ invitation, Eddison attended two gatherings of the Inklings. At the second, Eddison – who relished critiques of his works in progress, as do many serious writers – read from a project which would not be published due to his death the following year.

Eddison’s themes more closely resembled J.R.R. Tolkien’s than Lewis’ own. In Nelson’s words, both “Tolkien and Eddison wrote masterpieces of heroic fantasy whose values differed markedly.” 

Another distinction is that while Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has maintained its mythic rigor, Eddison’s oeuvre feels rather anchored to the formative years of the genre, prior to the so-called Golden Age of science fiction (and fantasy).

If you would like to read this book, which was enjoyed by both Lewis and Tolkien, you can download a copy of it at Internet Archive. If you enjoy dwarves, goblins, manticores and hippogriffs, you are unlikely to be disappointed.

Mickey Mouse Is Now Ours

On By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, Animals, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Films, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narnia, Writing13 Comments

He’s no Reepicheep, but the earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse just became public property!

One of the little-heralded New Year’s Day events was the entry of the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey into public domain. Now anyone who desires can use the image without infringing on Disney’s copyrights.

Actually, my headline is not 100% accurate. As I just noted, it’s the earliest version of the most famous mouse in the world. However, the rodent’s name, and his subsequent graphic version remains protected. That’s because while copyrights eventually expire, trademarks don’t.

Therefore, as reported in Fortune magazine, “current artists and creators will be able to make use of Mickey, but with major limits. It is only the more mischievous, rat-like, non-speaking boat captain in ‘Steamboat Willie’ that has become public.”

The 1928 poster advertising Mickey’s cinematic debut comes from a great article at Animation Scoop. Without comparing measurements of Mickey’s initial and contemporary snouts, it doesn’t appear to me the public domain version is that much more “rat-like.”

As for differences between the two . . . well, I’m not an attorney, but it appears Mickey’s onscreen persona in 1928 wasn’t wearing his standard white gloves. The poster, nevertheless, shows a Mickey closely resembling the cartoon mouse who was part of many of our childhoods. As noted in the Fortune piece:

Not every feature or personality trait a character displays is necessarily copyrightable, however, and courts could be busy in the coming years determining what’s inside and outside Disney’s ownership.

My question, and perhaps one of you intelligent readers can answer this, is about the image’s “name.” His full name, with his surname “Mouse,” is undebatably trademarked. Can a person legally use the name “Mickey” with the 1928 likeness? My guess is that the first name is not restricted, no matter how much Disney protests.

Speaking of Disney, a company which has become a disappointment in recent years, the Inklings were not big fans. If you are interested in learning more about the Inklings’ opinion about Disney Studios, check out author Jim Denney’s “What C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Thought of Walt Disney.”

After identifying a number of parallels in their lives, he explores the irony that “you might think that, with all that C.S. Lewis and Walt Disney had in common, they might have been mutual admirers—but that was not the case.”

And, there is always another option. As Britannica reminds us, Mickey wasn’t even his original name. Walt’s first choice (vetoed by his wife) was “Mortimer.”

That’s it for today. Now I’m off to write a book about Mickey’s alliance with Reepicheep. Oh wait, Reepicheep won’t be in the public domain until after I’m enjoying heaven with my Lord, and with the Christian members of the Inklings.

And, even if one could pair the two up for an adventure, they wouldn’t prove compatible. The reason should be obvious, but for an enjoyable exploration of that subject, I commend to you, “Reepicheep and Mickey.”