The Inklings and Other Things

For those unfamiliar, The Inklings were a group of friends — all British, male, and Christian. They all had a love for literature, imaginative writing, and the value of the narrative. Also, the group of friends were all writers and often provided critiques for each other.

I like to consider myself well versed with The Inklings because I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien who were two of the most prominent members of the group. Actually saying I am a big fan is probably an understatement… J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystical Middle Earth world was the earliest series to completely captivate my imagination (outside of a certain wizarding world which shall-not-be-named) and this world engendered in me a love for works with a strong narrative, especially those partial to fantasy. While on the other end of the spectrum C.S. Lewis has shaped a large part of my understanding of the Christian faith, and truthfully a large part of my overall way of thinking.

My love for these authors leads me to consume almost everything I hear or see that references them. The most recent of these was a podcast by The Art of Manliness titled C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings which interviewed a couple who had written a book on the Inklings. I am always skeptical about podcasts because even podcast with the best reviews (or even those referred to me by friends) tend to be 80% fluff… I don’t know what it is about podcasts, but speakers always feel the need to shoot the shit for 30 minutes during a 45 minute podcast… I’m not sure if this bugs anyone else… but if it doesn’t change I think I’m gonna start badgering Apple for 4x speed button, cause 2x just doesn’t cut it. Anyway… this podcast was highly recommend so I took the plunge.

The podcast itself was so surface level I walked away seriously annoyed yet incredibly curious; wanting to know more, I impulsively bought the book, which in retrospect makes me wonder if that was not the end-goal the entire time… ugh, it was probably just brilliant marketing — damn capitalism.

ANYWAY… damn tangents. The reason I was writing this post had to do with where my thoughts went during the podcast.

The Value of Private Critiques and Time (Lots of Time)

I believe both of these ideas are crucial not only for the creation of powerful narratives that speak to our hearts, but for the immersive and magical worlds that these authors create.

Now I will preface my thoughts on this subject by saying I am almost completely ignorant to the modern process of creative works, but as an American I feel it is my duty to push forward and express my ‘feels’ as a deep and true understanding of how the world works — or as Colbert calls it ‘truthiness’. And what I feel is that now more than ever both of these ideas are starting become foreign concepts. I would find it hard to believe in our On-Demand culture, with attention spans shorter than goldfish (true stat FYI, the average internet user’s attention span is 5 seconds a goldfish is 8), that modern creators (as opposed to the Inklings) have the time and private critiques they need in order to create works that have the same depth AND great narrative… Look at Star Wars episode 1–3, Lucas clearly had enough time (maybe too much time…) but clearly not enough private critique to eliminate the one-to-many Jar Jars. Where on the other end of the spectrum, you have George R. R. Martin who is being outpaced by HBO…

I am fearful of where this places the future of creative works. Especially in the culture we live in, which is always clamoring for more and for newer — and I’m not just talking about Buzzfeed articles explaining the intricacies and art to opening a banana correctly. I’m talking about creative works which are grossing large sums of money at the expense of quality (cough cough Twilight, cough cough 50 shades of something, and dare I say cough cough The Hunger Games — and before anyone sends me hate mail… I am not saying The Hunger Games was bad I am just saying it could have been way freaking better if Collins took time to develop the world further and add greater depth to the characters because lets be real here… We all know a majority of the narrative was ripped from every dystopian novel we had to read in 11th grade English (I can’t be the only one who read those things) and then on top of that anyone that has a Netflix account knows the entire setting of The Hunger Games was copy pasted from Battle Royal , which was written almost a decade prior — but then again as Banksy says…

Anyway… we all know that both time and private critiques are crucial to the creative process, but our culture demands (and gets) the opposite…

Not sure what that has to say in regards to the ‘Golden Age of Television’ which I am still thoroughly enjoying… as my mom says, the best works of our time are going to come out in the medium that people know best — for Shakespeare that meant a play to be performed at the Globe Theater, and for us is typically means the big screen or more true to newer trends, the little screen. Anyway, just some random thoughts I am half exploring… Back to The Inklings, I thought it was interesting that Tolkien kept his works secret for such a lengthy time, revising for decades… Tolkien even criticized Lewis multiple times, in private, because he believed Lewis did not put enough effort towards perfecting his own work. Specifically, Tolkien was heavily critical of Lewis’ Sci-Fi series, which actually contains one of my favorite works by Lewis — Perelandra.

Male Fellowship

This has actually been on my mind quite a bit recently. I am at that stage in life where almost all of my close friends are either: married, engaged, soon-to-be-engaged, why-aren’t-they-engaged-yet, I-could-have-sworn-they-were-engaged, and then there is always Chuck. I am not sure what I am supposed to be feeling about all this… nor am I sure that I could understand the feelings even if I knew what I was looking for, and I am surprisingly OK with both thoughts.

I will say the one idea that pervades my thoughts quite often is: what is going to happen to my close male friends? (I feel like the verbiage is weird ‘male’ friends… why not guy friends… but that's how The Inklings reference it so keeping suit). I was thinking about this a lot during the podcast. The Inklings were friends first and foremost and actually at the time, especially around Oxford, one of the higher valued traits was bachelorhood. This was typically correlated with someone who had extra time to pursue their studies further, thus kinda like a badge of honor, but for The Inklings it also had a tie to deeper male fellowship. It’s crazy to think about but back then the world had just exited the 2nd and deadliest war in history, most of The Inklings had had most, if not all, of their close male friends killed in battle or the consequenting aftermath, and (if I remember the Podcast correctly) Oxford had almost 20% of its student body killed.

Short Tangent

There is a long, incredibly interesting tangent I can go into here in regards to Malcolm Gladwell and his book David and Goliath (it is a must read; it’s in my top 3 of all time) where he explores this fascinating complex of the human spirit. Where after so much death (i.e. that which was experienced during the London bombings) that the survivors have this ‘God complex’ where they feel invincible. The best way to describe it is, if God wanted me to die I would have died then, during the bombings, but I didn’t so it looks like He choose for that not to happen so nothing can touch me. Super interesting. Anyway back on track…

Back on Track

If I had one of my close friends killed I know that the emotion would fully overwhelm me and I am sure I would lash out and go way out of my way to make sure my relationships with my other friends were as strong as ever. On one level for support and on another level because of the probable realization of the value those relationships hold… Anyway if I was in the position of The Inklings, that emotion would be unfathomable, I am not surprised they took exceeding care to develop the relationships, and on another level I am not surprised that those relationships eventually dissipated as younger members, less directly touched by the war, came in (or more importantly, the ones touched by war slowly died off). All of this being said… I am worried about the future of my male friendships cause I don’t know what holds them together, or at least I don’t fully understand it. I like to think I know, but I don’t. There isn’t some underlying hurt that is all drawing us together. There isn’t some culture standard on bachelor life. And to be honest we don’t even have any stability to know whether or not we will be in the same city, let alone time zone, in the coming 2 years.

When you run a business you make plans when you know someone is traveling. Everything is rigid and everything makes sense, it's your job for it to make sense. With relationships there is an intrinsical Laissez-faire attitude towards those decisions, which is cool when your roommate makes a spur of the moment decision to fly to New Zealand for a week cause he got a great GroupOn deal. What’s the worst that can happen to your friendship? Maybe he buys a ironic souvenir shirt and turns out he expects you to actually wear it… Anyway to my point, when your buddy used to talk about serious things like looking at an MBA program in a different city, or taking a promotion that will require more hours at the office, or changing jobs for a more desired career but less salary. I feel as though I can talk impartially and openly about the pros and cons of the decision, and if he disagrees I don’t mind challenging him on the idea. The problem I fear, is that with marriage I don’t believe that is my role anymore, or at least it is much more complicated. Those larger decisions are decisions that previously only impacted my close friend, but now impact two people. One whom I will never know as well. How am I supposed to speak into my friends life when a large part of what is most important to him is behind a veil to me? This would more than likely invalidate my logic, and may even make my analysis completely off-base. It's odd, I thought at first that my friends getting married was scary prospect because I wouldn’t see them as much — which is probably true — but really the thing I fear more is not being able to have the same depth of relationship, because there is always a side I will never know as well, and it is not my place too. And I don’t really know what to do with that information either…

Now, if that seemed teen-angsty bleak, I will say that there are two things that I draw back to, which both come from lessons learned via The Inklings…

Fratello vs Eros

In The Four Loves, Lewis outlines how in a romantic relationship (eros), the relationship can be thought of as the two lovers looking at each other and describing the relationship. An eros relationship is focused on the other individual in the relationship, whereas a friend relationship (fratello) is seen as shoulder to shoulder, and the focus is on some common goal. My takeaway from all that is the fear outlined above is unfounded. I find this interpretation by rationalizing: as friends the depth of our relationship is found in the common goals we tackle together, and even though there is a different dynamic, it does not take away from what is happening/ has happened.

Laughter

I thought this next quote was a little strange when I first heard it — ‘No sound delights me more than male laughter’. This is a quote from CS Lewis, and to be honest I don’t think I ever thought of this before. Also, it makes me think that as far as me and my friends go, we are crushing it and living in delight. If there is one thing that will draw us all back together over and over again I know it will be laughter and the amazing times we have together, and as life goes forward with its ups and downs, I know I can always rely on laughter as a bond to build and strengthen relationships and friendships.