Ninety years and four days ago, Clive Lewis and John Tolkien met at an English faculty meeting. In his diary, Lewis wrote of Tolkien, “No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.” Five years later, Lewis called himself a Christian. Thirty-two years after that conversion, Tolkien and Lewis had long been estranged, but the Catholic visited the Anglican on his deathbed, bringing his son (a Catholic priest) along with him. Rather than showing any inclination to convert, Lewis and Fr. John Tolkien, according to Joseph Pearce, “spent the time discussing the Morte d’Arthur” (C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, 149) rather than spiritual matters.
The close friendship and eventual estrangement of Tolkien and Lewis is one of the most painful literary stories of the twentieth century. Their coming together on the common ground of poetry and pagan myth was not strong enough to prevent their sundering on the grounds of religious and moral differences. Tolkien was long frustrated that Lewis would not accept reception into the True Faith, instead of clinging to its doppelgänger Anglicanism. Lewis was influenced by Charles Williams to tend towards other spiritual-philosophical directions, and his irregular marriage to Joy Gresham solidified their divide.
Tolkien wrote a brief letter on the occasion of his old friend’s death, which is poignant more in what it does not say than what it does:
I am sorry that I have not answered your letters sooner; but Jack Lewis’s death on the 22nd has preoccupied me. It is also involving me in some correspondence, as many people still regard me as one of his intimates. Alas! that ceased to be so some ten years ago. We were separated first by the sudden apparition of Charles Williams, and then by his marriage. Of which he never even told me; I learned of it long after the event. But we owed each a great debt to the other, and that tie with the deep affection that it begot, remains. He was a great man of whom the cold-blooded official obituaries only scraped the surface, in places with injustice. How little truth there may be in literary appraisals one may learn from them – since they were written while he was still alive. Lewis only met Williams in 1939, and W. died early in 1945. The ‘space-travel’ trilogy ascribed to the influence of Williams was basically foreign to Williams’ kind of imagination. It was planned years before, when we decided to divide: he was to do space-travel and I time-travel. My book was never finished, but some of it (the Númenórean-Atlantis theme) got into my trilogy eventually.
Publication dates are not a good guide. Perelandra is dated 1943, but does not belong to that period. Williams’ influence actually only appeared with his death: That Hideous Strength, the end of the trilogy, which (good though it is in itself) I think spoiled it. Also I was wryly amused to be told (D. Telegraph) that ‘Lewis himself was never very fond of The Screwtape Letters’ – his best-seller (250,000). He dedicated it to me. I wondered why. Now I know – says they.
Perhaps the Tolkien-Lewis schism exists to remind us that the things which divide us are often stronger than those that bring us together. Perhaps the point is to make us shake our heads at the silliness of it all. Perhaps if Tolkien had not disliked Edmund Spenser’s poetry–a sticking point for Lewis upon their first meeting–things would have gone differently.
Who can say? But perhaps it is a worthwhile Pentecost reflection to wonder that the descent of the Paraclete, prophesied so poetically in the Gospel of John, should yet have left these two men on opposite ends of a great divide, for which men the words “That they all may be one” were so lacking in ultimate realization. Their friendship ended slowly and painfully in “a long defeat,” as Tolkien once wrote in another context.
Is there a felix culpa somewhere in this falling out? A glimpse into the mysterium iniquitatis? It is as if the hag Discord from Book IV of The Faerie Queene had risen out of Screwtape’s lair to rend them apart.
“I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
Denis Jackson says
I am absolutely appalled to learn of their utterly silly breakup. Two such ‘intelligent men’ !
Kory says
Denis, what do you mean “‘intelligent men'”? Do you suppose that the quality, intelligence, is singular in expression? If so, then how many unintelligent theologians and authors there are making making their way onto bookshelves! However, I do not think that is the case. Many intelligent people disagree. We should not make snap judgments about those with whom we have little acquaintance. Rather, we should seek to understand why such intelligent men felt so strongly about their convictions. We may just grow in the process; we may find we agree with one or the other. Perhaps that is the felix culpa of this “utterly silly breakup.”
Walker says
Great article. Interesting to see I had a similar thought to Tolkien’s about “That Hideous Strength”–that it was so different from the other two, it seemed more of a standalone than part of the “trilogy.”
I know Tolkien was also critical of Chesterton’s “The Ballad of the White Horse” in later years because of its oversimplified treatment of Norsemen. Seemingly the relationship between those two men cooled as well. Perhaps Tolkien was a tad hard to get along with?
This article inspired me to look up one about Eliot’s and Chesterton’s reconciliation after criticisms of each other’s writing/viewpoints had become rather pointed.
Kory says
Good observation! Lewis made it a discipline not to discuss things he did not consider “mere Christianity.” He did not wish to dwell on divisive issues. I have a hard time seeing him instigating the tension between himself and Tolkien.
I also felt similarly bout “That Hideous Strength.” One thing, however. Lewis primed the imaginations of his readers in “Out of the Silent Planet” and “Perelandra,” but it is difficult to make a narrative one’s own when it is so other worldly. The narrative had to be brought back to the silent planet. It is here we see the gravity of our situation, not on Perelandra or Malacandra. While the story is so different, perhaps that is precisely because Lewis wished to shake his readers into a sense of unease. We realize that Mark Studdock’s story is our story rather than Ransom’s.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Roseanne T. Sullivan says
I hero-worshipped C. S. Lewis for a while, and read everything I could find about him and by him, and then like Tolkein, I found myself cooling towards him. I attribute his decision to stop short of becoming a Catholic to intellectual pride. When I read his essays, I often found them tedious, because he struggled to find answers to questions that the Church has already answered. He had an intellectual conversion to Christianity and he was proud of himself for it. (I was like that myself for a long time.) He took only what he agreed with and put aside the rest. Instead of loving the Church and trusting the Church’s answers, he trusted his own intellect. “Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.” His lack of obedience to even the rules of his own Anglican faith led to his asking an Anglican priest friend to illicitly marry him and Joy. Before Joy, he had a definitely quirky relationship with the mother of a buddy who died in the war. The more I found out, the more I felt that he was not a person I would like to know.
By the way, I loved the trilogy. I think That Hideous Strength is brilliant! He captured somethings I’ve never seen written about before, such as what it’s like to be in a group of people who are all climbers, all pointing everything they do towards being noticed and approved by whoever can help them get ahead. Mark Studdock is alternately picked up and dropped by the others when he is invited into the diabolic inner circle .. Creepy and so familiar. And the reappearance of Merlin, who thinks that Mark’s wife should have her head lopped off for practicing contraception!! The nuptial scene at the end when Studdock reunites with his wife. Never before or since have I seen anything like those scenes.
Jim Goeddel says
I’m glad to read your reflections on “That Hideous Strength”. I just re-read it recently, and it is one of my “evergreens”.
There is so much beautiful writing and scene-painting in THS. The entire closing chapter is a miracle of imagination. Ransom’s leave-taking, the descent of Venus, Mark’s rueful self-examination, Jane’s awakening to the erotic necessity of obedience; I simply never tire of these scenes. The closing sentence, “Obviously, it was high time she went in.”, seems to bless characters and readers alike.
All the characters, and they are numerous, are sharply and succinctly described. McPhee, Mr. Bultitude, Ivy Maggs, the Dimbles, the Dennistons; all leap from the pages.
I could go on at great length, but you get the idea. I always think of THS as Lewis’s most underrated work.
Orthodoxdj says
That’s a pretty harsh judgment of Lewis. I don’t think anyone who has read multiple works of his can come away thinking he’s filled with pride. It’s unfair to say he stopped short becoming Catholic because that presupposes he was on a particular trajectory that would lead only to Catholicism. That presupposition is there because you believe only Catholicism has the fulness of the Christian faith. Many of us do not believe that. Doesn’t mean we’re right, but it doesn’t mean we’re filled with pride.