The Inklings

The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter
This book was recommended to me by a fellow C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien admirer, so I added it to my Christmas list and received it! I have been reading this, the story of the literary group who met regularly in Oxford to read their works to one another, calling themselves The Inklings. I love how Tolkien describes the double-meaning of the name, "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."

Reading this biography of the friends who met each Thursday night in C.S. Lewis' rooms in Magdalen College, Oxford provides a deeper look into each of their lives and stories I did not know. I knew the general details about the little group, who would read to each other the writings the were working on, but I didn't know how their lives at Oxford were outside of this literary circle. The book is more concerned with Lewis, as he seemed to be a sort of central figure, or the glue that held the group together. They all met in his sitting room located upstairs in the New Building (which isn't new, but built around 1733), in Magdalen College, located steps away from the river and the trail of Addison's Walk that he enjoyed frequently.

My favourite chapter is definitely the one where the author pieces together a meeting of the Inklings on a Thursday night from fragments of journals and letters (since no minutes were kept at any of their meetings). In this chapter, we are a fly on the wall, spying in on the friends who gather in Lewis' room, including J.R.R. Tolkien, and what they talked about. On their minds that night was the war (which they were in the midst of), Hitler, if they should forgive the Germans after the war, stories, tid-bits about their day in relation to a comment from someone, and Tolkien reads a chapter from The Lord of the Rings that he has just been working on and it still needed tweaking. Lewis offers a suggestion and Tolkien nods in agreement and jots down a note. Lewis serves tea, and his brother Warnie finds some rum in a cabinet; there had been a beer shortage since the start of the war (The Eagle and Child pub had a sign on their door saying they were out of beer).

It is interesting to read about how these friends influenced one another's writings and specifically how each person felt about their writings. Tolkien, for instance, was never a fan of the Narnia books. Lewis, though, was always enthusiastic about The Lord of the Rings. However, we learn about Tolkien's intense interest in the care he took in his books to be chronological and precise with maps and locations, and the created languages and the histories of all the beings of Middle-Earth. In contrast, Lewis' Narnia books are put together in a hasty manner, so the quality, to Tolkien, was not to his standard. But it was known that Lewis' encouragement to Tolkien is what sometimes urged him forward to completing all the books in The Lord of the Rings.

The Inklings were known as the Oxford Christians, and they all had common interests, but they were individually quite different. I think their differing views and opinions is what enriched their time together. For if they all agreed on every matter, there would be no deep discussions exploring those topics, and there may not be such classic and wonderful books for us to read today.