Tyler van Opstal "Inklings Apart"

    In the 1968 Understanding Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings (alternatively titled The Tolkien Relation) by William Ready, C.S. Lewis is mentioned more regularly than anyone but Tolkien himself. This itself is entirely rational, Lewis having been another member of the Inklings club to which Tolkien also belonged, but the treatment of Lewis by Ready is often strange or otherwise notable.

    Lewis is first mentioned in Understanding Tolkien in the first chapter, after Ready discusses the Andrew Lang lecture by Tolkien that we read at the beginning of class to lay a framework for how myth and story can be understood. Ready takes umbrage with what he sees as an unfair treatment of Tolkien by scholars, blaming the fame of Lewis for coloring their opinions of him (Dr. Thompson states it is his recollection that Lewis was indeed more famous than Tolkien prior to the LotR movies). Ready complains that "Tolkien has been tarred by [Lewis'] brush" and that the resulting misinterpretations of Tolkien are even worse than the worse than any possible denunciating of Tolkien could be (p. 19).

    As an example of this, Ready brings up several recent (to 1968) and forthcoming publications from professors and other scholars such as M. Wright's Cosmic Kingdom of Myth and R. Reilly's Romantic Religion in the Work of Owen Barfield, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Ready scoffs at these other scholars' assertion that the "Oxford Christians" were similar authors with similar thoughts. He acknowledges all of these writers used the "There and Back Again" theme (eventually identified as the Hero's Journey by Campbell), but he denies that they are writing similar stories- Tolkien, Ready asserts, is writing art. The "There and Back Again" stories by the other Inklings, Ready dismisses as mere propaganda (or to be more precise- Ready asserts that all art is propaganda, but in Tolkien the art remains pure while the other Inkling's writings the propaganda leaks through and "curdle and ruins... the work." (p. 25, 27).

    This is hardly the only time that Ready mentions Lewis unflatteringly. Some choice examples include "... [Lewis'] only first class book was the Allegory of Love (p. 21)... Lewis with his Perelandra and other seemingly science fiction stories... failed [at creating Fantasy] (p. 26)... Till We Have Faces... was written for the times, the 50s [and is far behind Tolkien in the use of myth] (p. 32) ... Lewis and his like needed it [jollyness] so as to whistle past the graveyard [as opposed to Tolkien who saw only rough Truth could afford solace] (p. 67)"

    As aggravating as I found Ready's almost incessant need to prove to the reader that only Tolkien of the Inklings had a consistent connection to the True Storytelling, his defense against one of Tolkien's own points is quite explanatory- according to Ready, any good critic knows that an author's account of a story is least relevant. He claims that an author is incapable of making any good exegesis of their own work, that they are incapable of talking about their work. To any so foolish as to listen to an author's own explanation, Ready says "nonsense- and serve them right who believe it!" (p.75).

    With such vehement opposition to an author's opinion, it seems quite fair that Ready cannot stand much of the work by Lewis and other Inklings, so freehanded with allegory and "propaganda," and reasonable too that one of the few other authors of whom Ready speaks consistently well is Lewis Carroll, the creator of works such as The Hunting of the Snark which are as much nonsense to the author as to anyone else. 

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