The Art of Manliness - #272： C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Myth of Progress

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well both the

00:00:19.140 lord of the rings and the chronicles of narnia are filled with epic battles between the forces

00:00:22.860 of good and evil what many people don't realize that the author of these two works jr r tolkien

00:00:28.160 and c.s lewis had firsthand experience with the war themselves both fought the bleak trenches of

00:00:33.380 world war one and both were dramatically shaped by that experience in a way that would influence

00:00:37.140 their later work my guest today explores the history of tolkien's and lewis's battlefield

00:00:41.260 experience and how it influenced their viewpoints and writing careers his name is joseph lucanti

00:00:45.560 he's a professor of history at king's college and the author of a hobbit a wardrobe and the great war

00:00:50.400 how jr tolkien and cus lewis rediscovered faith friendship and heroism in the cataclysm of 1914

00:00:56.100 and 1918 on today's show joseph and i discuss what c.s lewis called the myth of progress

00:01:01.000 that swept the western world leading up the first world and why it contributed the war's catastrophic 0.95

00:01:05.180 damage and how the myth shaped both lewis's and tolkien's view about good evil and warfare

00:01:09.940 we then get into detail about tolkien's and lewis battlefield experience and how it inspired

00:01:13.800 specific characters and scenes in the respective works and we end our conversation about how the

00:01:18.120 fantasy work of these writers carved a middle path between cynicism and unbridled optimism while

00:01:22.880 simultaneously showing readers that even the lowliest of individuals can play a decisive

00:01:27.000 role in the great adventure of life if you're a fan of lord of the rings or the chronicles of narnia

00:01:31.380 you don't want to miss this episode after the show is over check out the show notes at aom.is

00:01:35.700 slash hobbit warrior

00:01:36.980 joseph lucanti welcome to the show well thanks for having me brett it's great to be with you

00:01:50.380 so you wrote a book called a hobbit a wardrobe and a great war and it's all about c.s lewis and

00:01:56.580 j.r.r tolkien's uh experience in the trenches of world war one and how it influenced their lives and

00:02:04.020 later on their writing i'm curious what prompted you to look at their war experience specifically

00:02:10.000 to see how that influenced their writing in the chronicles of narnia and the lord of the ring series

00:02:16.240 yeah well there are several things brett i i teach uh western civilization and american foreign policy

00:02:22.940 at the king's college in new york city and having to teach the first world war year after year the

00:02:28.620 more you read and think about that conflict the more you realize how cataclysmic it really was

00:02:34.900 for the west for the europeans for the united states really for the world and then when i picked

00:02:40.540 up a wonderful biography of of tolkien uh several years ago by uh a carpenter uh and i realized that

00:02:48.300 tolkien had fought in the first world war i knew lewis had fought in that conflict i didn't realize

00:02:53.720 tolkien had fought as well so finally the light goes on in my head i think well wait a minute

00:02:57.560 we've got tolkien and lewis who both survived the trenches of world war one they go to oxford

00:03:03.560 they meet there they become great friends and then both of them go on to write these epic stories

00:03:09.220 stories of heroism sacrifice valor where war is really at the center of both their stories

00:03:15.260 so you just begin to wonder how might the experience the furnace of combat in the first world war how

00:03:22.200 might that have influenced their literary imagination and that's really what the book is about and how

00:03:27.300 much do we know about their war experience do they have like do they write diaries i mean what

00:03:30.940 sources did you use to research the book you know there have been a couple of good uh accounts john

00:03:36.660 garth has a very good account of tolkien's war experience really taking from beginning to end

00:03:41.940 uh his friendships uh his work there as a second lieutenant as a signals officer there uh at the

00:03:49.780 soam uh lewis was probably better in some ways at keeping a diary although uh you know both these men

00:03:58.240 were pretty careful about of course i say modest about uh drawing too much attention to themselves and

00:04:05.520 their war experiences lewis's autobiography uh surprised by joy is where he probably tells us

00:04:12.100 the most about his war experience so a combination of their letters uh some very good biographies of

00:04:17.840 those men uh and then of course looking in their works and trying to discern how might that war of

00:04:24.060 experience literally have worked its way into their into their great epic stories so the one thing i

00:04:29.980 loved most about your book is that you do such a great job of providing the cultural backdrop of

00:04:35.020 what was going on in the west in europe in the united states uh before world war one and um particularly

00:04:42.300 you talk about this idea of the myth of progress um what was that that myth what what entailed the myth

00:04:49.080 of progress yeah this is kind of the uh the historian's task here brett is to try to put

00:04:54.700 these authors in their historical context and i think if there's one narrative that is shaping the

00:05:01.220 mind of western civilization particularly the europeans but also the americans uh on the eve of the

00:05:07.260 outbreak there of of the first world war it's this myth of progress that's an expression i borrow

00:05:13.100 from c.s lewis himself this idea that not not just in a technological sense or in a scientific sense

00:05:20.900 or in an industrial sense is mankind progressing that all that is true according to people living

00:05:28.500 there at the turn of the 20th century we're advancing technologically scientifically but also we seem

00:05:33.860 to be advancing morally and even spiritually that there's this unstoppable train of progress

00:05:41.300 uh everything is getting better in every way every day and that that mood that psychological

00:05:47.940 outlook is so strong it really infects virtually every discipline the academy popular culture the

00:05:54.560 scientific community and even the churches the idea that mankind himself is slowly ripening toward

00:06:00.780 perfection and that's part of what makes the war the first world war the most devastating war that

00:06:06.580 the west had ever experienced that's part of what makes it so disillusioning to such to a generation

00:06:12.300 of men and women and why that then becomes so important to token the lewis so i mean how did it

00:06:16.960 manifest this myth of progress manifest itself in the academy or particularly or the church let's talk

00:06:22.600 about the church because like you know lewis and tolkien um their faith is really um uh woven into

00:06:28.040 their works how did this idea the myth of progress affect uh christianity it's a terrific question it's a big

00:06:35.060 question i think on the more on the more liberal side of the churches and um uh it certainly affects the

00:06:42.840 conservative churches as well but on the more liberal side i think the way this myth of progress

00:06:48.240 influenced the churches is was at several levels one level was that um even war itself uh became seen

00:06:57.220 as something that could be redemptive and cleansing so if you look at the sermons uh once the war begins

00:07:03.920 you look at those sermons during the first world war and this is true across the board in europe and in the

00:07:08.880 united states you have so many preachers expecting a kind of spiritual revival renewal a transformation

00:07:15.440 of society it'll be the purging of of all kind of unpleasantness autocracies will will fall to the

00:07:22.360 wayside democracy is the wave of the future and you really see this coming from the pulpits and and many

00:07:28.300 ministers not so much the so much the guys in the trenches but many ministers uh transformed this

00:07:34.900 conflict into kind of a holy crusade uh and and that i think is is part of the uh the legacy of the myth

00:07:42.720 of progress that even war itself which think about it it is an inherently destructive enterprise you're

00:07:49.020 destroying things you're destroying human life but even the war could be seen uh as a an agent of 0.52

00:07:56.680 progress by by by the church uh by our politicians by our social thinkers really a remarkable thing

00:08:03.820 uh to be occurring uh at the outset of war and i think it's interesting because it was christians

00:08:08.940 fighting christians right these are these are europe you know british fighting germans americans fighting 0.62

00:08:13.940 germans and you know so it was like everyone thought they were on the right side but they were like 1.00

00:08:18.220 saying they're on the same side at the same time that's exactly right everyone believes that god is on

00:08:23.440 their side and this again is part of what makes the aftermath of the war so important especially for

00:08:29.300 tolkien and lewis what happens then in the aftermath you've had this build-up that the war is going to

00:08:34.140 it's going to be a short war it's a war it's a war to end all wars it's a war to make the world safe for

00:08:39.720 democracy none of that happens it becomes the most devastating and lethal conflict in history

00:08:45.240 and so in the aftermath of that with all of these promises going into it that the sense of

00:08:51.500 disillusionment and gloom and then the the rejection of liberal democracy the rejection of

00:08:58.340 christianity which had been so associated with this war these alleged christian nations engaged in a

00:09:04.300 sort of massive global suicide pact and so the the mood of gloom and cynicism and doubt is so strong

00:09:11.660 it's such a strong current in the 1920s and 30s i think that helps us to understand really the

00:09:16.820 achievement of tolkien and lewis that they are not swept up in that in that mood of gloom and disillusionment

00:09:23.660 yeah we'll talk about that in a bit but i thought was interesting your book is you lay out this myth

00:09:27.280 of progress and how everyone's getting swept up by it but it seems like both lewis and tolkien were

00:09:32.560 immune from it um why was that why didn't they buy into the myth of progress well it's a it's a

00:09:40.660 terrific question i think that uh lewis admits and i'll quote here if i could uh brett from the from

00:09:47.840 the book here from lewis he says i grew up believing in this myth and i have felt i still feel it's almost

00:09:56.280 perfect grandeur it is one of the most moving and satisfying world dramas which has ever been

00:10:02.860 imagined it was incredibly powerful lewis as a young atheist they're going into the war he goes

00:10:09.080 into the war as an atheist he comes out uh an atheist and he is caught up in that myth up to a

00:10:14.360 point certainly i think the the realism of the trenches the mortars the machine guns uh the flame

00:10:21.860 throwers the chemical gas the barbed wire the human devastation that sobered a lot of people 0.69

00:10:27.620 about that myth i don't think uh tolkien was as caught up in it as as lewis was tolkien went into

00:10:33.120 that war as a believing catholic and so he has a pretty good sense of the fall of man the doctrine

00:10:39.580 of sin the doctrine of the fall and i i think that helps to restrain tolkien because of his his catholic

00:10:46.920 christian faith it helps to restrain him from being pulled into this myth of progress though lewis

00:10:52.060 though is very much as he goes into the war i think he's he has that uh idea going in it it gets

00:10:58.780 chastened and then of course he will have a spiritual journey uh throughout the 1920s and 1930s as he meets

00:11:04.660 tolkien and other christians there at oxford i thought was interesting about interesting about tolkien is

00:11:08.480 that even before the war uh he had a very and i wouldn't say he wasn't a luddite uh per se but like

00:11:14.700 he had an appreciation for creation for nature and he saw um this mechanization as sort of a uh

00:11:22.660 i don't know an apostasy i guess would be the right word of like what god had intended for man

00:11:28.720 yeah that's a great point uh tolkien is growing up in birmingham which becomes a real industrial hub

00:11:36.560 uh there in england at the turn of the century and he like lewis you know these are men who

00:11:42.300 they they go on to become medieval scholars professors of english literature uh and there's

00:11:49.240 something about that simpler life closer to the earth that is so appealing to both of them and of

00:11:54.840 course you see it in both their works just one example you know the lord of the rings the the last

00:12:00.260 march of the ents well what is that these tree creatures who are rebelling against the the abuse of

00:12:08.040 technology and and weaponry the destruction of the earth those men experienced the destruction of the

00:12:14.960 earth uh in the first world war i mean the iconic images of the war trees laid bare because of the

00:12:21.920 mortar fire the machine gun fire so they they experienced that that assault on nature at a first

00:12:28.920 hand level and i think their rebellion against that that technology the abuse of technology not only

00:12:35.060 against man but against nature that finds its way in both their works doesn't it yeah it does so at

00:12:40.080 what point did lewis and tolkien get into the trenches did they were they one of the ones that

00:12:44.200 just volunteered right away or did they were they reluctant soldiers these were reluctant soldiers

00:12:49.920 these neither of them were holy warriors uh going into the first world war i think you know by the

00:12:56.400 time uh tolkien is ready to enlist in 1916 remember the war is on for two years already britain has

00:13:04.280 about i don't know at least a million men on the continent of europe at least 200 000 british soldiers

00:13:10.400 have already been killed by 1916 so when he leaves he writes in his journal parting from my wife was like

00:13:18.300 a death because even even british uh officers were being were being killed by the dozens every week and

00:13:25.300 every month he didn't think he was going to come back alive when he departs there in june of 1916

00:13:30.600 and he goes right to the front and tolkien will become part of the battle of the somme which to

00:13:36.980 this day is the july 1st the opening day of the battle of the somme there in france it is the single

00:13:43.500 bloodiest day in british history uh close to 20 000 men perished in that battle alone tolkien will

00:13:50.740 survive that battle but he'll lose as he says almost all of his closest friends perished in the first

00:13:58.140 world war yeah it seems like tolkien kind of lucked out he caught uh trench fever and he was a ship

00:14:03.340 back to england and after that point all of his friends and comrades died yes a severe bout of trench

00:14:09.600 fever will take him out of the war uh by 1918 uh now for lewis uh he he's he's a little bit uh younger

00:14:17.400 than tolkien he goes into that war uh in 1917 so even more killing more bloodshed and again a reluctant

00:14:25.020 uh a guy who who is who enlists by 1916 or so brit britain has instituted the draft he enlists

00:14:33.000 he arrives on the front on his 19th birthday imagine being a 19 year old man with your whole future in

00:14:41.180 front of you all these ambitions for an academic life a peaceful academic life have to put on be put

00:14:47.240 on hold uh and he goes in as an officer as well lewis will be injured a mortar shell will go off close

00:14:53.880 to him kills the sergeant standing close by lewis is injured in three places by shrapnel and in a sense

00:15:00.300 he gets the best possible injury because it's the kind of injury that will not be uh life debilitating

00:15:06.880 but it will take him out of the war for the remainder of the war uh and when you read his

00:15:12.660 letters there the sense of relief and and sheer joy at now escaping the trenches it's unmistakable and

00:15:20.120 it's it's so sobering uh and it will change the course of his life and why were lewis and tolkien

00:15:25.640 both reluctant warriors i mean what was the how was their attitude um about war and warfare in general

00:15:33.000 uh different from this holy war attitude that most europeans and americans had you know that's a great

00:15:38.940 question brett and uh it's a little hard for me to unpack all of it but based on their letters

00:15:43.700 uh at the time and then their correspondence looking back on it later i think for different

00:15:48.800 reasons as you as you piece together their letters at the time and then their correspondence

00:15:52.460 later on reflecting on that war uh they were either not uh of age lewis was not of age in 1914

00:15:59.300 to have enlisted uh tolkien is is involved in his academic career begins his academic career

00:16:04.500 uh and i think that the the bloodshed the sheer bloodshed in the first year of the war which

00:16:11.300 surprised everybody remember a lot of men went off to war jubilant exuberant at the prospect of war

00:16:17.840 but but a year into the thing uh all of the allied forces and the axis powers they have rushed to

00:16:24.460 stalemate and now we're getting back the reality of the war even with all the propaganda the the the

00:16:30.980 the suffering and the horror of the trenches those stories firsthand stories are being delivered back to

00:16:37.200 the home front uh and tolkien and lewis are very aware that they have information now that men in

00:16:43.520 1914 did not have that's part of the reason i think that's part of the reason okay so i mean what big

00:16:50.020 picture themes did both tolkien and lewis develop while they were in the trenches that would later emerge

00:16:56.360 in their respective works well i guess one of the most obvious of course and perhaps the most surprising

00:17:02.760 given the the mood of their age it is heroism it's the idea of valor a sacrifice for a noble cause

00:17:11.880 that some wars will be necessary some wars are just even as we fight them perhaps in an unjust way

00:17:19.720 uh they can have a a noble decent and humane purpose uh and outcome and that becomes one of the themes for

00:17:27.280 both these men in a way that is really surprising because there was so much anti-war literature

00:17:32.860 anti-war memoirs novels poetry i mean scores and scores of books and and and poetry uh that came

00:17:41.960 out in the 1920s and 1930s you know you think of of novels like all quiet on the western front uh goodbye

00:17:48.640 to all of that uh t.s elliott the wasteland i mean these these are fiercely anti-war uh novels and and

00:17:56.560 and poetry and literature and tolkien and lewis resist that they are not going to let go of this

00:18:02.120 idea of heroism and sacrifice for a noble cause and i thought it was interesting too you talk about

00:18:07.740 the idea of the hobbit right uh tolkien said kind of the the soldiers in britain like he they were the

00:18:14.440 inspiration for the hobbits yeah that's exactly right brett and that was one of the things that

00:18:19.200 convinced me once i read that once i discovered that in in tolkien's work in his own private letters

00:18:24.220 and then i knew this is a book that somebody had to write and maybe i should write it because

00:18:29.720 as as what what i knew about tolkien i and you know loving the hobbit loving uh the lord of the

00:18:35.700 rings i had no idea that tolkien uh based his hobbit the creature of the hobbit sam gamgee and frodo

00:18:43.100 on the soldiers that he knew as he says it explicitly in one of his letters my sam gamgee uh is is based

00:18:50.460 on the on the batman the people who served and helped uh the officers the batman and the soldiers

00:18:57.780 in the trenches that i knew in the first world war and considered as so far superior to myself

00:19:03.220 so what he saw under fire was the resilience and the courage the kind of stubborn bravery and loyalty

00:19:10.880 of the ordinary english soldier and the british expeditionary force 1914 15 16 right through the war

00:19:17.680 it was a remarkable fighting force uh and tolkien got to experience that up close and it impressed

00:19:23.340 him deeply and i think they're very much the same for c.s lewis they were officers who had seen the

00:19:29.500 loyalty the stubborn loyalty and the sacrifice of the men around them and besides the the idea of the

00:19:35.500 hobbit coming from the british soldiers are there any other specific instances in either lewis's work or

00:19:41.820 tolkien's work where they could they said like that that was inspired from exactly that battle inspired

00:19:48.740 this scene in my book yeah i think there are a number of them let's take uh tolkien for a minute

00:19:54.800 here uh brett and you know uh we can't be certain about this there are moments when when tolkien will

00:20:00.560 make some references uh that where it's clear other times you have to kind of imagine all right does this

00:20:07.480 sound like a soldier in the trenches of the first world war or not so for example when tolkien is

00:20:13.240 describing the siege of gondor as he puts it where fires leaped up where great engines crawled across

00:20:20.600 the field and the ground was choked with wreck and with bodies of the slain and then busy as ants

00:20:27.100 hurrying orcs were digging digging lines of deep trenches in a huge ring just outside the bow shot from

00:20:35.620 the walls that is starting to sound like uh the battlefields there along the western front uh right

00:20:41.600 there it seems to me would be one example i mean the other place you think about with tolkien again

00:20:46.900 sticking with tolkien if we could for a moment uh the description of the dead marshes the desolate path

00:20:53.540 to mordor how does tolkien describe it he says the dead grasses the rotting weeds looming up in the

00:21:00.200 mist like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers and then sam gamji looking intently into the grimy

00:21:07.820 muck startled by what he sees tolkien says there are dead things dead faces in the water and then gollum

00:21:15.260 laughing the dead marshes yes that is their name well think about it if you're a soldier on the western

00:21:22.460 front in 1916 what are you seeing there you are you're experiencing that what every soldier

00:21:28.880 virtually every soldier experienced finding men dead in these craters that had been caused by the

00:21:36.340 mortar shells filled up with water and discovering these bodies days or weeks later and we know this

00:21:43.460 because martin gilbert who interviewed martin gilbert the great uh war historian who interviewed

00:21:49.900 tolkien in the 1960s and asked tolkien about this explicitly and gilbert goes on to say this is

00:21:57.580 exactly what soldiers would have experienced on the front and then tolkien himself says the dead

00:22:03.200 marshes owe something to northern france after the battle of the somme well that's pretty conclusive

00:22:09.000 evidence of the the riveting horrifying experience of war how it makes its way into his great epic work

00:22:16.200 so after the war both lewis and tolkien go back and they begin or tolkien start restarts his academic

00:22:22.680 career lewis starts his and that's where they um and i guess is that oxford where they yes at oxford

00:22:28.060 they meet in 1926 right and that's where the whole inkling started um a world famous sort of mastermind

00:22:34.800 group but they also formed an intense friendship between the themselves yeah um did the two of them

00:22:41.120 talk about the war or write each other letters about their experience in the war you know it's a terrific

00:22:46.500 question a couple points on this brett uh when we when we think about this group of fellow scholars

00:22:51.020 and fellow christians that they formed at oxford the inklings think about the first world war

00:22:56.340 and the intense comradeship that men experienced in combat we associate that with the second world war

00:23:03.580 you know the the film band of brothers but but the men who went into the first world war the british who

00:23:09.020 enlisted they often enlisted uh from the same town the same village and so they experienced the same

00:23:15.200 kind of comradeship friendship deep friendship that that men know under fire and they don't quite

00:23:22.020 experience anything quite like it in civilian life and i think the formation of the inklings

00:23:27.660 was an attempt by tolkien and lewis to recapture something of that comradeship but with a different

00:23:33.860 cause a different purpose the the the writing of great literature which is kind of fun to think about

00:23:39.180 but uh more to your point then on the on the question well did they discuss the war with each

00:23:43.960 other uh it's pretty clear that they did uh in different ways and and and tolkien and lewis met not

00:23:50.360 only in the inklings but they would meet at the east gate hotel a place they would meet at the eagle and

00:23:55.240 child pub uh just the two of them sometimes uh they met regularly you know there's a place there's a

00:24:01.500 letter here let me see if i can find it uh digging back here uh in this book where um lewis is thrilled

00:24:09.280 about the uh the completion of tolkien's work the lord of the rings he reads it in manuscript tolkien

00:24:17.480 read virtually every chapter of the lord of the rings out loud uh to lewis which is just amazing to

00:24:23.960 think about lewis was was tolkien's uh really greatest encourager and fan of of this of this book

00:24:31.660 and tolkien says at one point that he never would have brought the lord of the rings uh to a to a

00:24:37.080 completion had it not been for lewis's encouragement uh and so it's just an amazing

00:24:42.760 friendship that they have that he has that kind of uh relationship with lewis that he shares this work

00:24:48.440 so close to his heart which is a war story and i think that's part of the reason he can share it

00:24:53.700 with lewis it's a war story and as a war story it avoids two great extremes now if i could just

00:25:00.980 make this point uh brett that's worth making it avoids two great extremes this war story it avoids

00:25:06.740 the typical triumphalism uh that you might find with some writers romanticizing conflict i don't think

00:25:14.280 these these authors neither tolkien nor lewis ever romanticized war but it also avoids the kind of

00:25:19.920 fatalism and cynicism of what became a motif of their generation the anti-war fatalism it avoids

00:25:28.480 both those there's a realism a grim realism in their war stories but also the sense of hope

00:25:35.080 and valor and sacrifice and you i'm just so confident that these men had those conversations

00:25:41.200 there's a letter uh that lewis wrote to tolkien back to this point after his manuscript was published

00:25:48.840 i can't find it here in in my in my work but i can almost quote it from memory where lewis says to

00:25:55.360 tolkien he says um commenting on this manuscript on the lord of the rings he says so much of our life

00:26:02.700 together so much of the war meaning the first world war so much of the war now has been captured

00:26:09.460 in this work so much of their shared life together and so much of the war has been captured in this

00:26:15.820 in this great epic work that's the impact that the work had on lewis that's how he interpreted

00:26:22.540 the lord of the rings that it was somehow in a way that he couldn't even fully describe

00:26:28.200 it had captured their common experience of war that's pretty remarkable when you think about the

00:26:34.040 lord of the rings and its impact not just of course on on lewis's life but on the lives of so many

00:26:38.880 people afterwards yeah this idea of how tolkien um sort of carved a middle path between sort of

00:26:46.120 cynicism and existential despair and sort of this romantic romanticizing um warfare he it sort of

00:26:53.680 ties in with his idea of eucatastrophe i think tolkien it's a greek word that tolkien invented

00:26:59.500 um yes what is eucatastrophe yes eucatastrophe e-u and then the word catastrophe

00:27:07.260 according to tolkien it's the sudden miraculous grace it's the happy ending but it's such it's

00:27:15.240 such a surprising ending when all seems lost when it really seems like it's all coming to a dreadful

00:27:21.480 end that we're going to be overwhelmed by this by the great shadow of evil there's a sudden miraculous

00:27:27.420 grace that brings about redemption a rescue now and i think this this you see this in both their

00:27:34.220 stories tolkien the lord of the rings uh and lewis and the chronicles of narnia think about tolkien's

00:27:40.040 story uh this is where their understanding of heroism is not like our modern understanding of

00:27:46.440 heroism the modern hero uh saves the day by his or her strength ingenuity good looks and usually

00:27:54.960 great firepower at hand right but for tolkien uh the hero the heroic it's defined by your

00:28:03.700 resilience your willingness your your uh readiness to sacrifice everything for this great noble cause

00:28:10.900 despite the fact that it looks like your cause is doomed so what happens in the lord of the rings

00:28:15.860 well at the end of their quest frodo and sam frodo the hero one of the great heroes in the story

00:28:23.700 frodo in a sense he succumbs to evil he succumbs to the great temptation of the ring and what does

00:28:30.660 he say at the end he says i will not do the thing that i came to do the ring is mine and he puts the

00:28:38.900 ring back on his finger in in that sense he fails in his quest well how is it resolved well the ring is

00:28:47.060 destroyed but not by frodo and not by the great company his his his allies in this not by the

00:28:54.820 fellowship the ring is destroyed by gollum this wicked wretched creature who seizes it from frodo 1.00

00:29:02.500 puts it on his own finger and then falls into the great catechism of the fires of mount doom and so the

00:29:12.740 ring is destroyed by a sudden and miraculous grace it's a you catastrophe according to tolkien and now

00:29:18.860 look at lewis how he picks up this theme as well in the last battle the children they are they're they're

00:29:26.840 tossed they are they are hurled into the stable they're forced into the stable which as far as they

00:29:33.020 understand it this is where the great evil is this is their end it means doom it means certain doom and

00:29:39.920 death and poggin says i can think of a hundred deaths i would rather have died rather than being

00:29:46.500 tossed into this drawn into this stable certain death and what happens well the lion the great lion as

00:29:53.260 long is in the stable and he has cast out the demon tash and now he has recreated narnia and so there's a

00:30:02.240 great what there's a great rescue and redemption of sudden and miraculous grace uh but it's not the

00:30:09.300 children of narnia who have brought it about it's aslan the great lion so uh for both their stories

00:30:16.000 this eucatastrophe if you think about it this really is the christian story uh the christian

00:30:21.260 narrative a grace a source of goodness beyond us that has to rescue us yes we have to be willing

00:30:28.660 willing partners in this great story but at the end of the day we don't save ourselves we are saved

00:30:35.600 and rescued by a force of grace and goodness outside of ourselves that is a deeply christian

00:30:40.440 idea isn't it it is um and you see you mentioned earlier that after the war this sort of um feeling

00:30:48.280 of cynicism and disillusion saturated the culture um but again both tolkien and lewis were immune from it

00:30:55.860 um why is that was it their christian faith that kept them immune from it or

00:31:00.680 i'm sure other christians who felt that this was the holy war before world war one started

00:31:06.660 they must have been disillusioned but uh tolkien and lewis weren't that is a fabulous question and i

00:31:12.280 can only give you a partial answer to that because it's it's it's sometimes a little hard to know

00:31:18.900 what does prevent people from succumbing uh to the spirit of the age and it is a pretty dark uh

00:31:26.740 spirit of the age if you think about it um you know there's a there's an amazing uh moment there

00:31:32.840 where people like t.s elliot who you know writes writes the wasteland a real agnostic for a good

00:31:37.860 chunk of his life but then he converts uh t.s elliot does to uh christianity and uh there's a there's 0.55

00:31:46.240 a line here from virginia wolf a letter uh t.s elliot was part of the bloomberry set a literary set

00:31:53.020 very skeptical uh group of authors in britain in london virginia wolf is one of them and when she

00:31:59.340 discovers just to give you a sense of how dark the mood was here but when she discovers that t.s

00:32:05.600 elliot or her former friend and colleague has become a christian she writes a letter to one of her 0.51

00:32:10.860 friends about all this and here's what she says in the letter i've had a most shameful and distressing

00:32:16.560 interview with dear tom elliot who may be called dead to us all from this day forward he's become an

00:32:22.900 anglo-catholic believer in god and goes to church i was shocked a corpse would seem to be more credible

00:32:29.680 than he is i mean there's something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in

00:32:37.340 god well that is the mood of the intellectual set uh in much of europe particularly in the academy

00:32:45.960 at oxford at cambridge and elsewhere to become this a believing christian and that's what these

00:32:52.760 men most definitely are by the 1930s uh certainly when lewis converts to christianity uh partially

00:32:59.200 because of the great help of tolkien and his friends and and more directly to answer your

00:33:03.860 question how did they resist this mood of gloom cynicism doubt and disillusionment uh in part by

00:33:11.620 forming uh a group called the inklings this like-minded men uh christian men uh authors uh accomplished

00:33:21.860 and aspiring authors who are serious thinkers serious scholars and so they they meet every

00:33:29.440 week i think for at least a 13 year period through the 1930s through the second world war they meet

00:33:37.240 every thursday evening in lewis's rooms there at oxford and they meet again also tuesday mornings at the

00:33:44.160 eagle and child pub and that that commitment to each other that friendship i think is one of the

00:33:49.820 explanations for their capacity uh to maintain their sense of calling as christian writers in a very

00:33:56.460 dark skeptical uh gloomy period i think it's interesting too their embrace of nordic myths of

00:34:03.100 romantic fairy tales that also had a role in in there as well yeah it did they are they are men who have

00:34:11.320 steeped themselves in terms of their scholarship their writing their thinking uh in these epic tales of

00:34:17.360 heroism tolkien a translated beowulf uh this ancient uh english story of war and heroism uh and his scholarship

00:34:28.640 on tolkien just did on on beowulf it it just it changed the scholarship and how he interpreted it and for for

00:34:35.440 lewis it's it's it's very similar it's it's ancient uh stories the aeneid the iliad uh they are raised with these

00:34:42.720 stories grow up with these stories um uh the death of arthur uh and so there's a there's a way in which

00:34:49.840 these men they take these ancient and medieval stories of heroism but i think brett they they reinterpret

00:34:56.400 that ancient story for the modern mind and they give it a kind of modern cast and i think that helps to explain

00:35:04.080 its enduring relevance and appeal in our own day there is a there is a grim realism to both their

00:35:11.840 stories and particularly with tolkien it is almost overwhelming the sense of dread you pick up this as

00:35:18.400 well in the chronicles of narnia but remember those stories are for children so they're not quite as dark

00:35:24.320 and as graphic tolkien is is willing to go a little bit further uh in in how real how realistic this the

00:35:32.160 story is and you just you just can't escape it the battle scenes uh the the sense of gloom

00:35:39.760 the the darkness of the story no one is immune to the dark forces in their stories uh that's that's one

00:35:47.520 of the most striking things no one is immune to to to being pulled into the to the darkness of the

00:35:53.520 story uh the the lore and temptation of evil is so real and palpable and i think that also speaks

00:36:00.080 to all of us if we're honest with ourselves uh none of us is immune uh to the to the darkness within

00:36:07.040 right yeah no it is it is gloomy i'm listening to the lord of the rings with my son right now in the car

00:36:11.920 and uh yeah there's that impending sense of doom and always and you always feel like and even gandalf

00:36:17.120 right you feel like the gandalf's this guy he's gonna help them but even some even the gandalf sometimes

00:36:21.760 can't help and i always feel bad for the hobbits when gandalf's not there for him

00:36:28.160 yes even gandalf says i can't take the ring you know frodo you you've been appointed to this task

00:36:34.160 this this mission this mysterious blending of of free will but also it seems providence you know

00:36:40.400 you've been chosen for the ring but you know you also have a choice to make and it and i think this

00:36:45.280 goes back again to the war experience it's the it's the hobbit these these little creatures tolkien 1.00

00:36:50.880 says explicitly that you know i made my hobbits of small stack small and stature reflecting the

00:36:58.400 ordinary english soldier these these little people so much depends on them and the choices that they

00:37:05.200 make and things that almost seem to be out of their control and yet they have this free will they

00:37:11.360 have the capacity to join the side of goodness and decency and humanity and ultimately joining

00:37:17.920 god's side of of the story god's side of the fight the side of light not the side of darkness

00:37:24.640 the smallest of creatures can make this immense difference in in the great story of redemption

00:37:29.840 so true to both their stories joseph this has been a great conversation where can people learn more

00:37:33.920 about your work well it's been a great pleasure and joy for me to join you uh they can go to my

00:37:39.120 website www.josephloconte.com and you'll see my various works and articles and essays and you

00:37:47.920 can order the book from amazon.com uh love to have people join that website join me in conversation

00:37:53.280 facebook as well fantastic joseph loconte thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:37:57.600 thanks so much sir great being with you my guest today was joseph loconte he is the author of the book

00:38:02.400 a hobbit a wardrobe and the great war it's available on amazon.com you also find more information

00:38:06.800 about his work at josephloconte.com

00:38:09.600 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:38:26.080 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy our show please

00:38:30.640 give us a review on itunes or stitcher helps us out a lot the show is uh recorded on clearcast.io if you

00:38:35.600 have any uh if you're a podcaster and you have a do remote podcast check it out it's a service that

00:38:40.720 i've been working on with my brother-in-law to make sound quality better for remote podcast as

00:38:45.440 always thank you for your community support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay

00:38:48.720 manly manly

00:38:54.560 you

The Art of Manliness - January 24, 2017

#272： C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Myth of Progress

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