Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship [Paperback]

Colin Duriez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

Both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are literary superstars, known around the world as the creators of Middle-earth and Narnia. But few of their readers and fans know about the important and complex friendship between Tolkien and his fellow Oxford academic C.S. Lewis. Without the persistent encouragement of his friend, Tolkien would never have completed The Lord of the Rings. This great tale, along with the connected matter of The Silmarillion, would have remained merely a private hobby. Likewise, all of Lewis' fiction, after the two met at Oxford University in 1926, bears the mark of Tolkien's influence, whether in names he used or in the creation of convincing fantasy worlds.

They quickly discovered their affinity--a love of language and the imagination, a wide reading in northern myth and fairy tale, a desire to write stories themselves in both poetry and prose. The quality of their literary friendship invites comparisons with those of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Cowper and John Newton, and G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc. Both Tolkien and Lewis were central figures in the informal Oxford literary circle, the Inklings.

This book explores their lives, unfolding the extraordinary story of their complex friendship that lasted, with its ups and downs, until Lewis's death in 1963. Despite their differences--differences of temperament, spiritual emphasis, and view of their storytelling art--what united them was much stronger, a shared vision that continues to inspire their millions of readers throughout the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The two most successful twentieth-century English fantasists were friends from shortly after their 1926 meeting until the younger's death. Both fought in World War I, in which all but one of Tolkien's dearest school friends died, and Lewis lost a buddy whose mother he thereafter cared for, as promised, until her 1951 death. As young Oxford dons, they discovered they shared a love of medieval northern European literature and, after Lewis (1898-1963), greatly aided by Tolkien (1892-1973), converted to Christianity, a common faith. Lewis' great aid to Tolkien was to encourage unflaggingly the development of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien reciprocated Lewis' supportiveness for Lewis' fiction and scholarship but was too conservative a Catholic to approve of the low-church Anglican Lewis' popular Christian evangelical writings and especially his limited toleration of divorce, which apparently seemed adventitious even to Lewis when he married divorcee Joy Davidman and never told Tolkien. In a graceful, sympathetic, and appealing dual biography, Duriez stresses their influences on one another and the depths of their friendship. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Colin Duriez imaginatively presents us with an intriguing opportunity to view this fascinating meeting of minds. -- Brian Sibley, author of 'The Lord of the Rings' Official Movie Guide and The Wisdom of C.S. Lewis

This dual biography of Tolkien and Lewis reveals for the first time how two twentieth-century fantasists shaped each other's work. -- Jane Chance, Professor of English, Rice University, and author of Tolkien's Art and Tolkien the Medievalist

Without J.R.R. Tolkien, we might never have heard of C.S. Lewis; without Lewis, we might never have heard of Tolkien. -- David C. Downing, Professor of English, Elizabethtown College, and author of Planets in Peril: C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Hiddenspring (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587680262
• ISBN-13: 978-1587680267
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #464,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Colin Duriez is based in Keswick in north-west England and writes books, edits and lectures. He has appeared as a commentator on extended version film DVDs of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, the 'Royal' 4 DVD set of Walden/Disney's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the Sony DVD Ringers about Tolkien fandom and the impact of Tolkien on popular culture. He has also participated in documentaries on PBS and the BBC. He is also a part-time tutor at Lancaster University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Congrats to Duriez, October 31, 2003

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Bradley J. Birzer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (Paperback)

Colin Duriez is one of the greats in Tolkien and Lewis scholarship. He has been writing on the Inklings since at least late 1972 (see, for example, his "C.S. Lewis Meets Professor Tolkien and the Inklings, CRUSADE, January 1973). Over the past thirty-one years, not surprisingly, Duriez has greatly increased in his understanding and knowledge of the Inklings. Duriez's previous book, TOLKIEN AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS, contains many of the best insights on Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology I have yet seen. With a thorough understanding of both Roman Catholic and Protestant theologies, as well as Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, Duriez provides a fascinating analysis of the key themes in Tolkien's works. With wit and wisdom, the author explains the meanings of such diverse topics as angels, the Apocalypse, death, evil, the Fall, imagination, light, loyalty, music, natural theology, power, Story, and the Old West in Tolkien's legendarium. There was not a page in this work that failed to provide some deeper understanding of Tolkien's works. Duriez's latest book, TOLKIEN AND C.S. LEWIS, incorporates many of these insights into a well-written and informative narrative. And as with his previous book, TOLKIEN AND C.S. LEWIS is a must-own for any Tolkien scholar or fan. It's been a wonderful pleasure to read. Certainly, Duriez has done his share in putting yet another nail into the coffin of the movement claiming Bloomsbury as the most important literary group of the twentieth century. Long live the Inklings!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pen pals, April 7, 2004

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E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (Paperback)

Just about everyone who knows things about the life of "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien knows that he was pals with fellow fantasy writer C.S. Lewis (author of the "Narnia" series). But where that's usually a sidenote in Tolkien biographies, Colin Duriez makes it the center of double-biography "Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship."

Duriez focuses on Lewis and Tolkien's early lives, the differences in their religious progressions, their wartime experiences, their fantasy works and their involvement in Christian literary club The Inklings. In 1926, the quiet Tolkien ("Tollers") and ebullient Lewis met and became friends over a shared love of Christianity, language myth and imagination.

Duriez's main idea in "Gift of Friendship" is that this friendship created some of the most influential fantasy and science fiction ever, by mutual support. Religious beliefs and "the horns of elfland" were important for them both. For example, it was partly through Lewis's encouragement that Tolkien managed to finish his stories of Middle-Earth, and Tolkien in turn helped with Lewis's more serious works.

Duriez doesn't reveal anything new about the friendship or the men in it, and he focuses quite a bit on the Inklings at large at one point. (Since he wrote a book on them, it isn't surprising) However, he clearly is a big fan of both men and his enthusiasm is obvious. He briskly clears away some misconceptions (for example, Tolkien did not hate the Narnia books, he merely "disliked" them) and throws in some literary analysis of Middle-Earth, the Ransom books and Narnia that doesn't stray too far from the authors' intents.

"Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship" doesn't offer more than a few tidbits that are new, but it's a good focus on Tolkien and Lewis's friendship and how it affected their epic books.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well ... not exactly what I was expecting, January 22, 2005

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T. Williams "world traveller" (Not where I was born, nor where I will die) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (Paperback)

This book might have been better titled: "Two Parallel Lives in Oxford." Perhaps it is more a reflection of the English reserve of the two scholars (or a dearth of first person account's of their friendship) than it is some shortcoming in Duriez's research, but given the title of this book I had expected a greater discussion of their friendship. Instead the reader is treated to a bloodless, albeit intriguing, chronicling of two extraordinary writers who lived in close proximity.
While this "dual biography" was adequate introduction for readers like myself who are relatively unfamiliar with the personal life of either man (though I suspect there are more complete examinations of both men's lives out there), I kept wanting more about their friendship. Buriez doesn't give the reader much to go on. I had a hard time figuring out why the seemingly good-natured and much more emotionally generous Lewis would want to be friends with Tolkien, who comes off as a little petty, insecure, myopic and persnicky (especially given some of the condescending remarks made about Lewis' work).
This book is readable because it discusses two fascinating men - not because it reveals much about their friendship.