A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War: The untold story of how the First World War shaped the lives,
faith, and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. LewisI usually synopsize myself, but I don’t feel I’d do this justice. Goodreads does an excellent job:
The First World War laid waste to a continent and permanently altered the political and religious landscape of the West. For a generation of men and women, it brought the end of innocence - and the end of faith. Yet for J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the Great war deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination. Had there been no Great War, there would have been no Hobbit, no Lord of the Rings, no Narnia, and perhaps no conversion to Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, Tolkien and Lewis produced epic stories infused with themes of guilt and grace, sorrow and consolation, Giving an unabashedly Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment, the two writers created works that changed the course of literature and shaped the faith of millions. This is the first book to explore their work in light of the spiritual crisis sparked by the conflict.
Other than that, I’ll
let Loconte (or Tolkien and Lewis) speak for themselves with some excerpts.
Tolkien and Lewis were attracted to the genres of myth
and romance not because they sought to escape the world, but because for them
the real world had a mythic and heroic quality. The world is the setting for
great conflicts and great quests: it creates scenes of remorseless violence,
grief, and suffering, as well as deep compassion, courage, and selfless
sacrifice. In an era that exalted cynicism and irony, Tolkien and Lewis sought
to reclaim an older tradition of the epic hero. Their depictions of the
struggles of Middle-earth and Narnia do not represent a flight from reality,
but rather a return to a more realistic view of the world as we actually find
it.
Tolkien reflecting
on his time on the Western Front: I have
always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable
courage of quite small people against impossible odds.
Loconte’s narrative
on Lewis’ experience…the sorrows of the
war did not ultimately blacken Lewis’s creative life. The world of Narnia, a
land watered by streams of joy – “the land I have been looking for all my life”
– would emerge from the wreckage of a Great War.
Roughly four hundred “war novels” were published in the
1920s and 1930s, many of which helped to create a mythology of war an
inherently ignoble and irrational.
From a pivotal
middle chapter, wherein Loconte describes that discussion between devout
Christians Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, with their friend and colleague, the agnostic
(recently atheist), Lewis. The conversation of this fateful night lasted until
3:00 in the morning.
To Lewis, myths might be beautiful, they might charm
our imaginations, but they were lies: inventions that contain no objective
truth about the world.
Mythmaking, what Tolkien calls “mythopoeia,” is a way
of fulfilling God’s purposes as the Creator.
Tolkien explaining
his sentiment that, Yes the story of Jesus
the Christ is a kind of myth: it is the authentic story of the dying God who
returns to life to rescue his people from sin and death and bring them to “the
Blessed Land.” where “though they make anew, they make no lie.” The difference
between Christianity and all the pagan myths is that this Dying God actually
entered into history, lived a real life, and died a real death.
Or as Lewis would
describe his newfound belief: “…the story
of Christ is simply a true myth.”
By the way, Tolkien wrote a poem - in part about this discussion called: Mythopoeia. More about this poem HERE
You may have heard
of Tolkien, Lewis, Dyson, and others referred to as the Oxford Christian writers.
They called themselves: the Inklings…those
who dabbled in ink.
More excerpts of
Loconte’s narrative/commentary on Tolkien’s and Lewis’ writings:
For in their voice is a warning: a call to “do the deed
at hand” no matter what the cost. In their presence is strength: the grace to “cast
aside regret and fear.” Grace beyond all hope. These are the great themes that
dominate their works and continue to delight generations of readers.
The heroes of these stories are vulnerable to temptation
and corruption, while the antagonists are almost never beyond redemption.
Rejecting equally the moods of militarism and pacifism,
these authors charted a middle course: a partial return to the chivalrous
ideal. Only a society that upheld this ideal – in its art, literature, and its
institutions – could hope to resist the dark and hungry forces arrayed against
it.
Like few other writers over the past century, they show
us what friendship can look like when it reaches for a high purpose and is
watered by the streams of sacrifice, loyalty, and love.
J.R.R. Tolkien to
his son Christopher, serving in WWII: “Well,
there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart,
and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside
a very great story!”
