1. Travis Perry says:

    Ok, totally from memory and no cheating:

    1. I don’t remember. ‘Till We Have Faces, maybe?
    2. His nephew, what-his-(ugly)-face. Was it wormtongue? (I don’t quite remember.)
    3. Surprised by Joy. Though many of Lewis’ non-fiction books had autobiographical elements.
    4. Lucy, who does not see the invisible Aslan as she enters the magician’s chambers in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
    5. Without Christ, I think Lewis would be like Huxley, a well-known name that people only occasionally still read. It’s the eternal, spiritual messages of Lewis that make him so well-loved, beyond his writing ability.

    Not that I think Lewis was a terrible writer. In fact, his violation of the writing conventions of our day I consider evidence that the conventions of our day are not as important as many people think. 🙂

    • notleia says:

      No, Till We Have Faces was dedicated to lady named Joy that he eventually married. Evidence: I have a copy on my bookshelf and I’ve actually opened it recently. I don’t have Mere Christianity on my shelf, but I think that was the one dedicated to Tolkien.

    • PhiLiP SchMidT says:

      Hi Travis.
      A pleasure to make your acquaintance!
      And now, to quote you, “Ok, totally from memory and no cheating”:
      1. I don’t remember, either. I do know that Lewis dedicated the character of Elwin Ransom in his space trilogy to Tolkien. So was I told in a lecture by Dr. Scott Masson, my professor at Tyndale University College. With a twinkle in his eye, Dr. Masson concluded a discussion on ‘Perelandra’ by revealing this lesser-known fact to the class. “Sticking a middle-aged naked man on a planet, calling him Piebald…..Lewis was alluding to Tolkien.” Dr. Masson went on to say that Tolkien got back at him by modelling the character of Treebeard after Lewis.
      2. Wormtongue is the duplicitous adviser to King Théoden in ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Return of the King.’ He is called upon the carpet by Gandalf, defects to Saruman and becomes his lackey. You were close, though. Wormwood is Uncle Screwtape’s nephew. ‘Wood’, ‘tongue’…..hey, what’s a few stray letters amongst friends?
      3. Bang-on. Many of Lewis’ non-fiction books DID contain autobiographical elements, particularly his essays.
      4. I had forgotten about Lucy in Coriakin’s house in ‘The Voyage of the Dawntreader.’ Good catch! How ’bout Uncle Andrew in ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ and the dwarves in ‘The Last Battle’?
      5. Bang-on! Lewis continues to defy his critics with his enduring popularity. I think it’s noteworthy to remember that he outraged his own learned contemporaries when he originally wrote his books, to the point where they ostracized him. Focus On The Family’s wonder-full dramatization ‘C.S. Lewis At War’ chronicles this quite well.
      As for the ‘conventions of our day’…..
      They are, to quote Lieutenant Starbuck of Battlestar Galactica, “felgercarb.”
      Cheers.
      PhiL >^•_•^<

  2. princesselwen says:

    1 The Screwtape Letters. I just checked my copy.
    2 His nephew Wormwood.
    3 Surprised by Joy.
    4 Peter and Edmund (not just Susan) in the woods in Prince Caspian. And like Travis already mentioned, Lucy in the magicians house in Dawn Treader.
    5 I don’t think he’d be as popular. I think he’d have remained more of a scholarly author read primarily by academics.

  3. Ah, yessss. This warms my writer’s heart! You’ve captured the essence of his brilliance in this, “He had both a simplicity and a grasp of complex arguments. He painted memorable pictures with words. He took the profound and made them live.” What a gift he had to do just that.

    It’s certainly because of Lewis that I am now a writer. To have just a thimblefull of his insight in my writing would be wonderful. If/when such inspiration happens, it is only the Lord!

    Love his autobiography, “Surprised by Joy”. Love “Til We Have Faces” (fascinating!) and “The Great Divorce” (insightful!). “The Magician’s Nephew” is my favorite of the Narnia stories, though I love the whole series.

    Have you read “Between Heaven and Hell…” a fictional account of Huxley, Kennedy, and Lewis after death? Shows their differing worldviews in light of the afterlife. Here’s the link if you’re interested.

    Thanks for this article!

    Oh, Screwtape is writing to Wormwood. Eustace is another spiritually blind character. I don’t recall which book he dedicated to Tolkien (will Google it). And yes, his writing would be profoundly different if he had not been a Christian. I suppose he would’ve tried to use Norse or Greek mythology in some way, to spiritualize his characters, but that would only have gotten him so far.

    https://www.christianbook.com/between-somewhere-beyond-kennedy-aldous-huxley/peter-kreeft/9780830834808/pd/834800?en=google&event=SHOP&kw=academic-0-20%7C834800&p=1179710&dv=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrszdBRDWARIsAEEYhrdXLcID0wkK177Kk2fp9HCXS6xvx4kv6LOmm7H7V4hRPWoPFEipdHwaAs8fEALw_wcB

  4. David W. Landrum says:

    We often forget the Lewis was one of the top scholars of Renaissance English Literature (1500s and 1600s) and his work is still a must to read for anyone studying that field. I did a Ph.D. in the literature of that era. The book I was told to read first in order to understand the period was English Literature in Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama) by C. S. Lewis. His scholarly books such as The Allegory of Love, A Preface to Paradise Lost, and The Discarded Image are still scholarly standards.

  5. 1. The Screwtape Letters
    2. Wormwood. Screwtape’s apprentice and–finally–dinner.
    3. Surprised by Joy
    4. Uncle Andrew from The Magician’s Nephew who convinces himself the beasts of Narnia can’t talk and goes ballistic when they run over to him calling but he only hears roars, barks, and howls.
    5. Probably more like Isaac Asimov’s stories or the Star Wars universe. Lewis almost became a Hindu instead of an atheist.

  6. Rachel says:

    Great article. I like the game at the end. Let’s see…

    1. I had to look it up.

    2. The devil.

    3. Surprised by Joy.

    4. The dwarfs thrown through the barn door in The Last Battle.

    5. Very different. I don’t think we would have Aslan at all or any of his Christian writing if he was never Christian.

What do you think?