Tolkien was the subject of yesterday’s post. He was a member of the famed group of writers known as the Inklings. Another Inkling was Tolkien’s close friend C. S. Lewis, who was born this day, November 29, in the year 1898. In light of yesterday’s post, I thought the above quote was quite appropriate.
Clive Staples Lewis was the author of The Chronicles of Narnia as well as The Space Trilogy and a few shorter works of the fantastic. Most of his writing was nonfiction and dealt with theology.
Like Tolkien, Lewis has been a target of criticism for years, albeit for his nonfiction as much as for his fiction. Damn these dead white heterosexual men for letting their worldviews influence the fiction they wrote. Unless of course it’s this week’s approved worldview.
I’m getting really sick of that type of attitude. I’ve not read all of the Narnia books. After I finish reading Tolkien that I haven’t read yet or rereading Tolkien that I have, I think I’ll read the rest instead of something published recently. Just to show how woke I am. Besides, simiply from a craft perspective, Tolkien and Lewis were better stylists than most writers working today.
