A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

Anyone who follows this blog, has read my book, Seeing God: For Who He Really Is, or who knows me personally, knows of my love of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien. When a pastor friend recommended this book, I knew it would be one of my first reads of 2024. What’s not to love? This is a narrow focused biography, which reminded me most of another book I enjoyed: Steal Away Home.

While some biographies try to be all-encompassing, this one deals with a very specific point. We know that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien both fought in the Great War (which we now call World War I), and we know about their friendship at Oxford. The author attempts to take what is written about these things and use them to form some opinions about how the war might have affected their relationship, their lives and their writings.

This is not a work of great scholarship, but it is filled with the kind of conjecture you might find in a well-researched work of historical fiction. Because of this, it is difficult to recommend the book to everyone. Where possible, the author draws upon the original published writings of the two authors and some historical sources like letters and interviews, but this book is comfortable going further than the historical record.

Personally, I enjoyed this journey, and it didn’t bother me that the author makes some assumptions along the way. He gets more right than not and through the recounting of both these authors’ war experiences and the common experiences of other soldiers in the same battlefronts; we get a very clear picture of the potential impact this might have had on Lewis and Tolkien.

“Tolkien and Lewis offer an understanding of the human story that is both tragic and hopeful: they suggest that war is a symptom of the ruin and wreckage of human life, but that it points the way to a life restored and transformed by grace.”

We can be grateful that both the religious catholic, Tolkien and the softening atheist, Lewis, found each other in the aftermath of the war. Tolkien was one of several learned men of faith who played an important part in Lewis becoming “the most reluctant convert.” And it was out of this friendship that the encouragement of Lewis spurred on Tolkien to keep working on his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, when he frequently was ready to set it aside for more academic pursuits.

“Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.”

The author recognizes how unusual these two men’s viewpoints were when compared to the general pessimistic malaise that arose after the Great War. Somehow, in the midst of the despair, they found hope in their philosophical, faith-filled discussions.

“The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is-not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.”

Lewis and Tolkien were influential thinkers who demanded intellectual honesty in their discussions and arguments. Out of the discussions of them and their friends were born some of the greatest works of fiction and non-fiction of their age, many of which continue to be read today.

In reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of the challenges of our own day. Looking back on recent days from 2020 on, it would be easy to give in to pessimism and darkness. There is plenty of both to go around, but if Lewis and Tolkien can find a path towards hope out of the horrors they saw and experienced in the Great War, surely believers today can find our own truth to share in this current age.

Originally published at http://seeinggodclearly.com on January 14, 2024.