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Manhattan 2.09
Dec. 9th, 2015 10:21 amIn which several characters go Macbeth on us, and I discover (again) I have a double standard.
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Dec. 9th, 2015
The Walrus was Jack
Dec. 9th, 2015 08:01 pmSo here I am, sitting in a train, idly reading the "Literary Review" from November, when lo and behold, I come across an article opening with the following lines:
"If Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were the Lennon and McCartney of the Inklings, then Charles Williams was the George Harrison. (And their Ringo? Possibly Owen Barfield. Another story.)"
My both Beatles and Inklings interested mind, it boggled. Also, considering their lifetimes overlapped, I wonder what Tolkien & Lewis would have made of the comparison. Anyway, the article writer, one Kevin Jackson, makes a good case for Charles Williams as George, not just because of the fame factor("Williams's considerable, highly ideosyncratic achievement have long since been overshadowed by those of his two world famous Oxford pals, and no doubt always will be", but also because of the minus and plus sides of Williams' character (on the minus side: neglectful husband, obsession with pretty muse figures, given to jealous; on the plus side, inspiring, sometimes even life changing teacher, ardent scholar, one of the great all round autodidacts, and no less a person than W.H. Auden raved about Williams "personal sanctity"; on the neutral side, he was famously a practicing occultist). But where I'm currently stuck is: between Tolkien and Lewis, who gets to be who? Jackson by the order of names seems to be casting Tolkien as John, but Tollers strikes me as not nearly aggressive and quarrelsome for that, not to mention that he loved to work and had endless patience, both very un-Lennonian traits. But on the other hand Lewis also was a workoholic, and certainly once the Narnia novels took off in rapid succession while Tolkien painstakingly labored and was annoyed by both Lewis' shoddy worldbuilding and commercial appeal, you can see some McCartney parallels there. Then again, Joy Gresham works better as Yoko than Edith Tolkien does.
Nah, I can't decide. Anyway, Jackson was probably just thinking of their standing in the group vis a vis that of Williams, I know, but it's still fun to wonder. If they'd been born two generations later and in very different social circumstances, how would Tolkien and Lewis have fared in a rock group?
"If Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were the Lennon and McCartney of the Inklings, then Charles Williams was the George Harrison. (And their Ringo? Possibly Owen Barfield. Another story.)"
My both Beatles and Inklings interested mind, it boggled. Also, considering their lifetimes overlapped, I wonder what Tolkien & Lewis would have made of the comparison. Anyway, the article writer, one Kevin Jackson, makes a good case for Charles Williams as George, not just because of the fame factor("Williams's considerable, highly ideosyncratic achievement have long since been overshadowed by those of his two world famous Oxford pals, and no doubt always will be", but also because of the minus and plus sides of Williams' character (on the minus side: neglectful husband, obsession with pretty muse figures, given to jealous; on the plus side, inspiring, sometimes even life changing teacher, ardent scholar, one of the great all round autodidacts, and no less a person than W.H. Auden raved about Williams "personal sanctity"; on the neutral side, he was famously a practicing occultist). But where I'm currently stuck is: between Tolkien and Lewis, who gets to be who? Jackson by the order of names seems to be casting Tolkien as John, but Tollers strikes me as not nearly aggressive and quarrelsome for that, not to mention that he loved to work and had endless patience, both very un-Lennonian traits. But on the other hand Lewis also was a workoholic, and certainly once the Narnia novels took off in rapid succession while Tolkien painstakingly labored and was annoyed by both Lewis' shoddy worldbuilding and commercial appeal, you can see some McCartney parallels there. Then again, Joy Gresham works better as Yoko than Edith Tolkien does.
Nah, I can't decide. Anyway, Jackson was probably just thinking of their standing in the group vis a vis that of Williams, I know, but it's still fun to wonder. If they'd been born two generations later and in very different social circumstances, how would Tolkien and Lewis have fared in a rock group?
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