Carol Zaleski is the co-author, with Philip Zaleski, of the new book The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams. Their other books include Prayer: A History and The Book of Heaven. She is a professor of religion at Smith College.
Q: Why did you decide to write a group biography of the
Inklings, and how did they get their name?
A: We wrote our book about the Inklings because the group is utterly
entrancing, a fascinating medley of voices, joining together artists,
novelists, poets, soldiers, philosophers, literary historians, philologists,
and more.
The two most prominent Inklings, C. S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien, have proven to be two of the most important writers of the past 100
years; and all the Inklings had a great deal of value to contribute.
The name, a curious one, came from a previous Oxford
University literary circle; it is meant to suggest, as Tolkien said, “a
pleasantly ingenious pun . . . suggesting people with vague or half-formed
intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink."
Q: What role did Oxford play for the Inklings, and could
their creativity have been fostered in the same way in a different setting?
A: Oxford during the time of the Inklings – roughly from the post World War I
era until the mid-1960s -- was a tremendously exciting place to be, if one
cared about ideas and their artistic and literary expression.
The city’s famous “dreaming spires” seemed a natural home
for fantasy, which became a favorite (though by no means the exclusive) mode of
expression for the Inklings. The group could have appeared elsewhere – in
London or Cambridge, perhaps – but it wouldn’t have been quite the same.
Q: How would you describe the Inklings’ relationship to
religion, and what do you see as these writers’ spiritual legacy today?
A: The Inklings were Christians with a literary and
scholarly bent. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, Lewis an ecumenically-minded
Anglican, who would become, through his wartime BBC radio talks and popular
books, the leading Christian voice of his generation. Owen Barfield was an
Anthroposophist and a Christian; Charles Williams was an Anglican with occult
interests.
There were religious differences and tensions among them,
but they all saw their work in life, at least in part, as having a religious
dimension; working with the tools at their disposal, most often pen and ink,
for moral goodness, for reason and faith, for charity, for hope in the face of
war, and for the recovery of traditional ways of thought and life, for
environmental awareness – the last a particular concern of Tolkien’s.
The Lord of the Rings gave rise, not only to a vast genre of
modern fantasy, but to a generation of young people committed to defending the
natural world, while Lewis’s many works continue to bring spiritual consolation
and encouragement to millions of readers.
Q: How did the two of you collaborate on the book and divide
up the research and writing?
A: We always collaborate in the same way. We divide a book
into various parts, and each of us tackles what suits him or her best. We then
pass our pages back and forth, rewriting constantly. What emerges is, we hope,
a single, appealing voice. As the years go by, we grow more alike.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: We are beginning to sketch out a new co-authored book on
the relation of religion to art and literature; and we each have our individual
projects as well (mine, currently, is a book on immortality, heaven, hell, and
purgatory).
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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