Christopher Tolkien and the legacy of his father J.R.R. Tolkien: The Steward of Middle-earth

Christopher Tolkien and the legacy of his father J.R.R. Tolkien: The Steward of Middle-earth:

In 1975, Christopher Tolkien left his fellowship at New College, Oxford, to edit his late father’s massive legendarium. The prospect was daunting. The 50-year-old medievalist found himself confronted with 70 boxes of unpublished work. Thousands of pages of notes and fragments and poems, some dating back more than six decades, were stuffed haphazardly into the boxes. Handwritten texts were hurriedly scrawled in pencil and annotated with a jumble of notes and corrections. One early story was drafted in a high school exercise book.

C.S. Lewis And J.R.R. Tolkien: The Unpayable Debt of Writing Friends (Throwback Thursday) | A Pilgrim in Narnia

C.S. Lewis And J.R.R. Tolkien: The Unpayable Debt of Writing Friends (Throwback Thursday) | A Pilgrim in Narnia:

A now-famous literary pact between Tolkien and Lewis, “Tollers” and “Jack,” confirms how different their approach was. Here Humphrey Carpenter records Tolkien’s recollection of a conversation they had, with Lewis speaking first:

“Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.” We agreed’ (said Tolkien) ‘that he should try “space-travel”, and I should try “time-travel”. (Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien, 190).

C.S. Lewis’ space travel story, Out of the Silent Planet, appeared quickly in 1938. We don’t get to see what Tolkien was working on until after he died.

Luke Shelton’s Tolkien Experience Project | A Pilgrim in Narnia

Luke Shelton’s Tolkien Experience Project | A Pilgrim in Narnia:

The basic format is that participants reflect on a set of five questions, and then respond to them in short-answer format. This means that answers can be one sentence, or a few paragraphs! The great thing is that there are no wrong answers, because you are just sharing your own experience!

The questions are:

How were you introduced to Tolkien’s work?
What is your favorite part of Tolkien’s work?
What is your fondest experience of Tolkien’s work?
Has the way you approach Tolkien’s work changed over time?
Would you ever recommend Tolkien’s work? Why/Why not?

These questions are intentionally vague to allow contributors to talk about a variety of things. ‘Tolkien’s work’ is not meant to exclude adaptations, so they feel free to share experiences about movies, video games, board games, etc. All of these are important experiences in someone’s fan history! If they want to use ‘part’ in question two to talk about a specific scene from a book, great! They could also use ‘part’ to talk about their favorite book in general.

Participants can take as much time as they need to answer these questions, then they send their answers to me using the Contact page on my website or by direct email. I usually respond directly to the participant once or twice to clarify what they would like to be called on the post and to fix typos, but the answers are largely unedited/unfiltered.

Approaching “The Silmarillion” for the First Time | A Pilgrim in Narnia

Approaching “The Silmarillion” for the First Time | A Pilgrim in Narnia: This is what a friend of mine called The Silmarillion: the Bible for Tolkien geeks. It is an astute observation, I think. Like the Bible, The Silmarillion includes genres like myth, legend, history, genealogy, prophecy, and poetry. It is a text of texts from another culture based in other languages, but a text that is meant to inform not just the past but the present. Like the Bible, it better reread than read.

C.S. Lewis and Deification � The Website of Unknowing

C.S. Lewis and Deification � The Website of Unknowing: "I haven’t read this yet, but it sure looks tasty… and I wanted to go ahead and post a link here, since I know some of my readers are interested in C. S. Lewis and some are interested in the doctrine of deification (in the Greek, theosis). So here’s a chance to ponder how this Orthodox doctrine figures in the thought of the most popular of Anglican authors…

Shine as the Sun: C. S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deification

Which is actually part two of a two part essay; here is part one: The Orthodox Worldview and C. S. Lewis (Part I)"