Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope,
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what will What's that? And I go, so, did
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: That Turkish delight is a real type of candy.
Speaker 2: Like the stuff from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know about you, but I didn't try
Speaker 1: Turkish delight until I was in my thirties, and from
Speaker 1: the time I read that book to the time I
Speaker 1: was an adult, I thought it had to be the
Speaker 1: most delicious thing in the world, just the way that
Speaker 1: like that character Edmund craves it and he like basically
Speaker 1: sells out his family for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean the word delight is in the name,
Speaker 2: so you figure it must be good, but actually what
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a precursor to the jellybean. So
Speaker 1: if you imagine like no candy shell but that sweet
Speaker 1: gummy stuff inside, that's actually what Turkish delight is. And
Speaker 1: it can be flavored like rosewater, citrus, and it's really tasty.
Speaker 1: It's thought to a versionate in Turkey during the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and that's obviously why it has its name.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's such a part time genius phrase
Speaker 2: to say it was the precursor of the jelly bean.
Speaker 2: I don't think you heard that on many other shows,
Speaker 2: you know. Actually I thought it was kind of ridiculous
Speaker 2: that Edmund would betray his family for some candy. Though,
Speaker 2: don't see what we do need to talk about that for.
Speaker 1: A second, you know, I looked into it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: First of all, Edmund's kind of a slimy character, so
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that he wouldn't betray his family for it.
Speaker 1: But you have to remember the book is set during
Speaker 1: World War Two, when candy and sugar were rationed. So
Speaker 1: when he asked the White Witch for Turkish delight, what
Speaker 1: he's actually asking for, and Gabe told me this, because
Speaker 1: I never would have figured it out on my own,
Speaker 1: is that he's asking for a taste of normalcy, and
Speaker 1: it's like a reminder of really happier time, Like h
Speaker 1: That's something reader is related to in nineteen fifty when
Speaker 1: the book was published, which you know, is just not
Speaker 1: something you think about when you're reading it today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess that does make Edmund more more sympathetic,
Speaker 2: or at least I suppose it does. But you got
Speaker 2: to give c S Lewis credit for trolling generations of
Speaker 2: kids into craving this rare candy, and I know that
Speaker 2: wasn't his intention, but it's definitely what happened.
Speaker 1: Well, Thankfully, there are lots of more important things we
Speaker 1: can credit C. S. Lewis for. Obviously, he's best known
Speaker 1: as the author behind the Narnia books, the first of
Speaker 1: which is celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary this year, but
Speaker 1: he was also an esteem professor at both Oxford and Cambridge,
Speaker 1: not to mention a poet, a theologian, and of course
Speaker 1: the best friend or maybe best frind.
Speaker 2: Of me of J. R. R.
Speaker 1: Tolkien. There is a lot to cover, so open up
Speaker 1: your wardrobes and less stuff inside.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend mangesh Hot Ticketter and on the other side of
Speaker 2: that soundproof glass wearing a trucker hat. And I've never
Speaker 2: seen him in a trucker hat, but he pulls it off.
Speaker 2: He looks good and the hat says Aslan is my homeboy.
Speaker 2: That's our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now, megol I
Speaker 2: appreciate that you cleared up those misunderstandings I had about
Speaker 2: Turkish delight. So here's yet another thing I've always gotten
Speaker 2: wrong about C. S. Lewis, and that's his nationality. So
Speaker 2: based on the settings and his books, I actually always
Speaker 2: assumed he was born in England, but he was actually Irish.
Speaker 2: So he was born on Dulfast on November twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight, which means just a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago it would have been his one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: seventh birthday.
Speaker 1: I wish I had known, I would have brought party hats.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, Yeah, Well, I think Dylan has enough
Speaker 2: of a hat for us all today. But anyway, Lewis's
Speaker 2: parents were well off and well educated as well. His
Speaker 2: father was a solicitor, which is a type of lawyer,
Speaker 2: and his mom graduated from the Royal University of Ireland.
Speaker 2: This was back in a time when most women didn't
Speaker 2: attend college, so the whole family loved reading. But CS
Speaker 2: was a prodigy of sorts, like, he was reading and
Speaker 2: writing his own stories by the age of five.
Speaker 1: So what kind of stuff was he writing?
Speaker 2: Well, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books had just come out,
Speaker 2: and CS and his older brother Warren were obsessed with
Speaker 2: these books, so they started making up their own stories
Speaker 2: about talking animals who wore clothes and lived in a
Speaker 2: fantasy land called Boxin and CS began writing these stories down,
Speaker 2: so some of these were actually published years later in
Speaker 2: a collection called Boxin the Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis.
Speaker 2: I'd love to read these things.
Speaker 1: That is insane. I'm very curious about how readable those
Speaker 1: five year old stories are. It does sound like C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis had this kind of idyllic childhood, though.
Speaker 2: Well unfortunately it actually all came crashing down the summer
Speaker 2: before he turned ten, so his mother died of cancer tragically,
Speaker 2: and just a few weeks later his father packed him
Speaker 2: up and sent him off to the English boarding school
Speaker 2: his older brother attended. Losing his mom was hugely traumatic,
Speaker 2: as you might expect, and on top of that, he
Speaker 2: had the culture shock of being in a new country.
Speaker 2: Aside from a brief stand at a school in Belfast
Speaker 2: in nineteen ten, he actually never lived in Ireland again,
Speaker 2: and people like me have mistaken him for an English
Speaker 2: writer ever since then.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad we cleared that up so obviously, this
Speaker 1: whole time, we've been calling him CS, which is the
Speaker 1: only way I've ever known him. But it actually stands
Speaker 1: for Clive Staples, which is such a great name and
Speaker 1: it sounds like a soul singer, right. But CS never
Speaker 1: actually liked it, so he insisted that his family call
Speaker 1: him something else, and, according to his brother, Warren or Warne,
Speaker 1: as he liked to be called quote. In the course
Speaker 1: of one holiday, my brother made the momentous decision to
Speaker 1: change his name. Dislike in Clive and feeling his various
Speaker 1: baby names to be beneath his dignity, he marched up
Speaker 1: to my mother, put a forefinger on his chest, and
Speaker 1: announced he.
Speaker 2: Is Jackxie, Jacksie.
Speaker 1: He's stuck to this next day and thereafter, refusing to
Speaker 1: answer to any other name, so to intimate friends, he
Speaker 1: was Jack.
Speaker 2: So where did Jacksie come from?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. There's a remember that he chose
Speaker 1: it in honor of a family dog that was hit
Speaker 1: by a car, but you know, we spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time digging into it and couldn't find solid proof
Speaker 1: that it's true. Either way, the nickname got shortened to Jack,
Speaker 1: and that's what his friends called c. S Lewis for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: Actually, well, I'm gonna be honest, I don't really like
Speaker 2: calling him Jacksie for the rest of this episode, so
Speaker 2: so why don't we stick with CS?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a good deal, all right.
Speaker 2: So back to his story. CS was away from home
Speaker 2: and he's a studious kid who loves to read. He
Speaker 2: loves to write, but he has a tough time at
Speaker 2: boarding school because the other kids and even the headmaster
Speaker 2: actually pick on him for having an Irish accent. But
Speaker 2: that wasn't the only reason that he got bullied. I
Speaker 2: know this sounds sort of random, but you know how
Speaker 2: most humans have double joint in thumbs, right, Like, look
Speaker 2: at your thumbs you can picture that. Well, Lewis and
Speaker 2: Warney both had only one joint on their thumbs.
Speaker 1: That is so weird. But how did anyone even notice?
Speaker 2: Well, apparently it's difficult to catch or throw a ball
Speaker 2: when you have a one joint in thumb. Then it's
Speaker 2: harder to grip objects in general. I wish both of
Speaker 2: us had that excuse now thinking about this, but fortunately
Speaker 2: we just aren't good at catching either way. But Lewis
Speaker 2: wasn't great at team sports, and he caught a lot
Speaker 2: of flak for it. So for the rest of his
Speaker 2: life he limited his exercise to running, swimming or biking,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of non thumb intensive activities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never thought to categorize those sports in that way,
Speaker 1: but I.
Speaker 2: Will now no thumbs involved, So c has lewis defective
Speaker 2: thumbs actually didn't prevent him from joining the army though.
Speaker 2: During World War One. He did his training and became
Speaker 2: a low level officer. Then just a few months after
Speaker 2: he began university studies at Oxford, he was shipped off
Speaker 2: to France to fight. So he was wounded on the
Speaker 2: front lines about five months after that and returned to
Speaker 2: England where he got right back to doing what he
Speaker 2: did best and what he loved doing most, which was writing.
Speaker 2: Now he wasn't writing novels or spiritual treatises though it
Speaker 2: actually came later on. Instead, in his early twenties, he
Speaker 2: mostly wrote poetry. In fact, the first book he ever
Speaker 2: published was a collection of poems assembled from his teenage years.
Speaker 2: It was called Spirits in Bondage and he released it
Speaker 2: under the pen name Clive Hamilton.
Speaker 1: First off, it's so strange that he chose Clive Hamilton
Speaker 1: as the name instead of, you know, using Jack, which
Speaker 1: he's been insisting everyone call him by. But secondly, Spirits
Speaker 1: in Bondage is a pretty strange title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think readers felt that way as well,
Speaker 2: because they were not into it. And his second book
Speaker 2: of poetry also fled. So these early failures left a
Speaker 2: bad taste in Lewis's mouth and he rarely wrote poetry
Speaker 2: from that point on. So after the war, Lewis continued
Speaker 2: studying at Oxford. He was actually on scholarship there and
Speaker 2: he graduated a few years later with two degrees, and
Speaker 2: then he became an English tutor at the university in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, tutor at Oxford is different from
Speaker 1: like an SAT tutor, right, It's more like a professor
Speaker 1: who teaches students in very small groups. Often it could
Speaker 1: be one on one, and it's this like highly personalized
Speaker 1: discussion that Oxford's famous for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. Like it's definitely more prestigious than
Speaker 2: sort of like after school tutoring or something like that.
Speaker 2: And Lewis kept that position at Oxford until nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 2: at which point he became a professor of Medieval and
Speaker 2: Renaissance English at Cambridge, where he actually stayed until his death.
Speaker 2: So his career in academia sounds pretty straightforward. He was like,
Speaker 2: clearly brilliant. He taught at the country's top school. But
Speaker 2: when it comes to his personal life, if things actually
Speaker 2: get a little more unusual, no, what do you mean
Speaker 2: by that? Well, during the war, Lewis befriended a fellow
Speaker 2: soldier named Patty Moore, and they made a pact that
Speaker 2: if either one of them was killed in action, the
Speaker 2: survivor would look after the other's parents. Louis of course
Speaker 2: made it through the war, but Patty didn't. So Louis
Speaker 2: stayed true to his word and he took in Patty's mom,
Speaker 2: a woman named Janie Moore, as well as his sister Maureen.
Speaker 2: In fact, he cared for Janey for the rest of
Speaker 2: her life, and actually there are rumors that they had
Speaker 2: an affair, although most experts believe Louis broke it off
Speaker 2: when he became more devoted to Christianity and he sort
Speaker 2: of sounds like a soap opera, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: And things get stranger. Louis's older brother also moves in
Speaker 1: with them. Warney began drinking heavily after his time in
Speaker 1: the British Army. He was actually up to three bottles
Speaker 1: of whiskey a day according to some reports. And well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that all of that made for a difficult
Speaker 1: writing environment. That's actually the backdrop against which Lewis is
Speaker 1: writing some of his mo celebrated works, including the Narnia series.
Speaker 1: But at the time most people didn't know any of
Speaker 1: this because Lewis was super shy and also very very private.
Speaker 1: He never talked much about his personal life or his feelings,
Speaker 1: even with his close friends, which isn't to say he
Speaker 1: was cold. He just always thought there was something more
Speaker 1: interesting to talk about than himself. As one of his
Speaker 1: friends at Cambridge put it, quote, Lewis was too shy
Speaker 1: to seem to want to be known, and too modest
Speaker 1: to think that anybody would want to know him.
Speaker 2: Hm. That's interesting because you know, you think with that
Speaker 2: Oxford and Cambridge pedigree, you'd think he might be more pompous.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I will admit I do find some
Speaker 2: of his writing a little stuffy at times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he really was unpretentious. And I have a
Speaker 1: funny story that illustrates just how down to earth he was,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to save that for after the break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're celebrating the
Speaker 1: seventy fifth anniversary of The Lion, the Witch, and the
Speaker 1: Wardrobe with a deep dive into CS Lewis's life. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this episode, please share it with a friend
Speaker 1: who loves the Narnia series as much as we do. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so before the break, we were talking about how, despite
Speaker 1: moving in these highbrow academic circles, C. S. Lewis was
Speaker 1: a pretty humble guy, and it turns out that even
Speaker 1: extended to his wardrobe, by which I mean his actual clothes,
Speaker 1: not his furniture. Gabe found a bunch of stories about
Speaker 1: what a terrible dresser C. S. Lewis was. Apparently, his
Speaker 1: favorite outfit was an old tweed coat, a pair of
Speaker 1: baggy flannel pants, and a beat up felt hat. According
Speaker 1: to one report, Lewis once lost his hat while on
Speaker 1: a picnic, only to find it months later under a
Speaker 1: bush with a bunch of field mice living in it. Actually,
Speaker 1: here's how his brother Warnie tells the story. Quote Jack
Speaker 1: once took a guest for an early morning walk on
Speaker 1: the Magdalen College grounds after a very wet night. Presently,
Speaker 1: the guest brought his attention to a curious lump of
Speaker 1: cloth hanging on a bush. That looks like my hat,
Speaker 1: said Jack. Then joyfully, it is my hat, and clapping
Speaker 1: the sodden mass on his head, he continued his walk.
Speaker 2: That's a very great story.
Speaker 1: So in addition to not really caring about his looks
Speaker 1: or the condition of his hats, he also didn't care
Speaker 1: that much about making money. He didn't earn a lot
Speaker 1: as a tutor, and whatever royalties he received from his books,
Speaker 1: he gave a way to charity. And while his heart
Speaker 1: was definitely in the right place. C. S. Lewis kind
Speaker 1: of had his head in the clouds about his finances,
Speaker 1: Like because he donated all his earnings, he thought he
Speaker 1: was exempt from paying taxes, which the government informed him
Speaker 1: was definitely not the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sadly it doesn't exactly work that way. But all right,
Speaker 2: So we've covered a lot of Lewis's life so far,
Speaker 2: and there's one aspect that we've barely touched on, and
Speaker 2: that's his spiritual which, of course we feel like we
Speaker 2: need to get to given what he wrote in later years,
Speaker 2: and to talk about that, we need to discuss the
Speaker 2: other fantasy writing elephant in the room, and that's mister J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 1: So this is the bit I've been so excited about.
Speaker 1: I want to hear all the tea.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, the TLDR is that Lewis and Tolkien
Speaker 2: had a long, complicated friendship. This is definitely one of
Speaker 2: those friendships where you just wish you could be a
Speaker 2: fly on the wall to hear this conversation. And the
Speaker 2: reason things were complicated is it because they were both
Speaker 2: fantasy authors with initials in their names. It's because they
Speaker 2: disagreed on some pretty big things, including religion. So the
Speaker 2: two first met in nineteen twenty six. This was at
Speaker 2: a gathering for the Oxford English Department because Tolkien was
Speaker 2: also a tutor there. But they didn't become friends until
Speaker 2: the early nineteen thirties. They were both part of an
Speaker 2: Oxford literary group called the Inklings, and they'd gather every
Speaker 2: week in university offices or maybe at local pub and
Speaker 2: they'd have these met meet to workshop their writing. And
Speaker 2: to describe the way these meetings went, I have to
Speaker 2: paint a totally cliche picture, but it's sort of the truth.
Speaker 2: So here it goes. They would sit in leather armchairs
Speaker 2: in front of a crackling fire, drinking brandy and smoking cigars,
Speaker 2: and they would just talk about story ideas for hours
Speaker 2: on end. Is that not exactly what you picture?
Speaker 1: When I'm so perfect? I just the only thing you
Speaker 1: didn't describe was elbow patches.
Speaker 2: I feel like right right on same same. Anyway, it
Speaker 2: wasn't long before Lewis and Tolkien bonded over a mutual
Speaker 2: love of fantasy and myth, but one of the biggest
Speaker 2: points of contention between them was their differing views on God.
Speaker 2: Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and Lewis, who was
Speaker 2: raised Irish Protestant, became an atheist in his teens and
Speaker 2: remained one during his early career at Oxford.
Speaker 1: That is so wild to think about if you know
Speaker 1: his writing, that he was like an atheist. Like I
Speaker 1: remember being in fourth grade and my friend Jeremy told
Speaker 1: me that as in the line of the Witch in
Speaker 1: the Wardrobe was supposed to be Jesus, and I remember
Speaker 1: thinking that is so ridiculous. I was like, read the
Speaker 1: text a little closer he's obviously a lion.
Speaker 2: Well. The thing is Lewis is definitely known today as
Speaker 2: a theologian, but his spiritual journey was anything but straightforward.
Speaker 2: Like he once wrote about having a deep spiritual longing
Speaker 2: that he could never quite square with his disbelief. He
Speaker 2: referred to it as the God sized hole in his life,
Speaker 2: and it was his conversations with Tolkien that set him
Speaker 2: on the path to filling that gap. So in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty one, Lewis and Tolkien went on a long walk
Speaker 2: with a fellow inkling named Henry Victor. Dyson and Lewis
Speaker 2: had been struggling to make sense of his spirituality for
Speaker 2: a while at that point, and so during the course
Speaker 2: of their walk, the three men began talking about the
Speaker 2: relationship between God and myth. Tolkien expressed his belief that
Speaker 2: folklore and mythology were ways of articulating higher truths about
Speaker 2: the nature of reality, and that's how he viewed Christianity.
Speaker 2: It was a myth, but you know, a true one.
Speaker 2: So to Tolkien, the message of Christianity was the truth
Speaker 2: about the world, and all the other ancient stories out
Speaker 2: there were attempts to express that same truth. Something about
Speaker 2: that struck a chord with Lewis, so much so that
Speaker 2: within two weeks of that walk, he announced that he
Speaker 2: was actually Christian.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: I love the one.
Speaker 1: I love that they go in these walks and just
Speaker 1: talk about God like that's a myth. Yeah. But also
Speaker 1: I love that something clicked with them, you know, like
Speaker 1: they about atheist and suddenly he's hearing about myths and
Speaker 1: he decides like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I'm in.
Speaker 2: I'm totally in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it actually was notable in another way too. So
Speaker 2: not only did their conversation rekindle Lewis's faith, it also
Speaker 2: inspired not one, but two of the greatest fantasy series
Speaker 2: ever written, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis's Chronicles
Speaker 2: of Narnia. All that talk of myth making had the
Speaker 2: authors itching to write their own stories, the earliest drafts
Speaker 2: of which they presented to their fellow Inklings over the
Speaker 2: next few years. Once again, to be a fly on
Speaker 2: the wall just would have been wild.
Speaker 1: I am curious. So were the other members of the
Speaker 1: club into the fantasy writing as you know, the same
Speaker 1: way that Lewis and Tolkien were, or were they kind
Speaker 1: of like rolling their eyes like, oh great, here we
Speaker 1: go with Elves again.
Speaker 2: You know, I sort of wish it was the Lauderan.
Speaker 2: They were definitely into it, Like I think it helped
Speaker 2: that they were exactly and they were all well read
Speaker 2: writers themselves who loved classic fantasy stories like a Wolf
Speaker 2: and Tales of King Arthur. But Gay pointed me to
Speaker 2: this article in The Atlantic that shed some light on
Speaker 2: other reasons why they may have been so open to fantasy,
Speaker 2: particularly after their experiences in World War One. So here's
Speaker 2: how the author James Parker puts it. Blown sky high
Speaker 2: by the psychic rupture of the Great War, the Inklings
Speaker 2: responded not with fragmentation and pessimism, but with a redoubled
Speaker 2: commitment to the world behind, the world freshly visible through
Speaker 2: this new rip in the fabric. It's pretty powerful quote there,
Speaker 2: So you know, rather than focus on the surface level
Speaker 2: ugliness that they were faced with, these guys chose to
Speaker 2: invent fantasy worlds where they could explore a broader view
Speaker 2: of life. It's one of the reasons why their books
Speaker 2: remained so compelling, and it's also a big reason why
Speaker 2: they became such close friends. They shared a similar view
Speaker 2: of the world and of the role that writing and myths,
Speaker 2: play and making sense of the world. But you know,
Speaker 2: as we've alluded to, their friendship was rocky at times.
Speaker 2: Tolkien was a stickler for clarity and precision, and he
Speaker 2: felt Lewis's Narnia books lack those qualities. In fact, Tolkien
Speaker 2: said that the series suffered from quote incoherent mythology.
Speaker 1: So maybe he also didn't see the Lion as Jesus either, Like, like.
Speaker 2: You're looking looking for some backup on that. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure he got that reference. But you know, in
Speaker 2: addition to the writing, he had personal beef with Lewis
Speaker 2: two He looked a later in their lives, and Tolkien
Speaker 2: felt that Lewis had developed anti Catholic views, which offended him,
Speaker 2: and he didn't approve of a romance that Lewis struck
Speaker 2: up with an American divorcee. Still, the men never lost
Speaker 2: touch completely, and in public they continue to praise one
Speaker 2: another's work.
Speaker 1: It is really funny and fascinating that fantasy, even in
Speaker 1: those times, provides this space for people to see the
Speaker 1: world as they want it to be, you know, like,
Speaker 1: and you see how absolutely comforting fantasy can be for
Speaker 1: like marginalized people today and how many people fall in
Speaker 1: love with these worlds. And it's amazing to think that
Speaker 1: these people who've suffered through a world war are now
Speaker 1: looking to or too world wars, are looking to fantasy
Speaker 1: to sort of make themselves whole and create a new world.
Speaker 1: And that's really beautiful. But that's a great way to
Speaker 1: put it when you're talking about this, like it is
Speaker 1: interesting that you know, maybe it's just because Lewis is
Speaker 1: so humble or quiet, like it sounds like Tolkien is
Speaker 1: the one who's doing most of the complaining.
Speaker 2: Well, if that's true, he may have actually regretted it.
Speaker 2: So after Lewis died of kidney failure in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: Tolkien wrote a letter to his own daughter where he
Speaker 2: lamented the way loss scenes to pile up in old age.
Speaker 2: He said, referring to Lewis's death quote, so far, I
Speaker 2: have felt like an old tree that is losing all
Speaker 2: its leaves one by one. This feels like an axe
Speaker 2: blow near the roots.
Speaker 1: They probably cared about each other more than they let on,
Speaker 1: But you know, speaking of his daughter, our family actually
Speaker 1: went to a Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan Library here
Speaker 1: in New York some years ago and it was full
Speaker 1: of Tolkien's drawings, including these Christmas cards he'd drawn and
Speaker 1: written for his children, and it was so fun and
Speaker 1: so weird and so elaborate, and it made me think
Speaker 1: that like having a talented fantasy writer as your dad
Speaker 1: and having him write you letters all the time could
Speaker 1: be a really wonderful thing.
Speaker 2: Not bad, not bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that there's a lot we don't know
Speaker 1: or can't quite verify about the friendship of these two,
Speaker 1: Like there's an anne about C. S. Lewis that I'd
Speaker 1: heard about but was never able to verify before. And
Speaker 1: this actually comes from our friend Adam in college. He
Speaker 1: told me that Lewis had once thought about converting to
Speaker 1: Hinduism and that he had debated between becoming a Christian
Speaker 1: and a Hindu, and honestly, it just sounded so far fetched.
Speaker 1: But we finally got the chance to look into the
Speaker 1: story this week and what I found was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to share it with you, But first
Speaker 1: we got to take another quick break.
Speaker 2: Man, you are dropping the teases in this episode. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to part time genius. Okay, man, it sounds like
Speaker 2: he did some detective work here. I love some good
Speaker 2: detective work. So tell me about the rumor. Is it true?
Speaker 2: Did C. S. Lewis almost become a Hindu?
Speaker 1: Well, he definitely gave it some real thought. In fact,
Speaker 1: he thought long and hard about just about every religion
Speaker 1: out there, and he wrote about all of them. Most
Speaker 1: of us know Lewis for his children's stories or other
Speaker 1: works of fiction, but obviously a huge chunk of his
Speaker 1: writing was these scholarly essays and ruminations on theology, and
Speaker 1: the latter is where you can find Lewis's thoughts on
Speaker 1: Hinduism and pretty much all the other religions too. So overall,
Speaker 1: I get the impression that Lewis explored as many different
Speaker 1: faiths as he could during his journey from agnosticism to
Speaker 1: becoming a man of faith. But as he explained in
Speaker 1: a nineteen forty five essay, he only considered two options
Speaker 1: for himself, Christianity and Hinduism.
Speaker 2: And why do you think those two?
Speaker 1: Well, it comes down to the kind of person he
Speaker 1: was and how he viewed the world. As you pointed out,
Speaker 1: Lewis came to his religious belief thanks largely to his
Speaker 1: connection with fantasy and myth. That was how he found
Speaker 1: his way into it. By seeing Christianity as the truest
Speaker 1: expression of the stories he had grown up reading. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's not usually how someone becomes a Christian, but that's
Speaker 1: what worked for Lewis because it was able to satisfy
Speaker 1: both sides of himself, which were the logical and the
Speaker 1: emotional aspects, or the rational and the artful or mathemagic
Speaker 1: as our pal Bob Pittman likes to say, but whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. Lewis was a clear cut
Speaker 1: example of that dichotomy. So on the one hand, he
Speaker 1: was this rigorous scholar who could debate and reason with
Speaker 1: the best of them, And on the other hand, he's
Speaker 1: into Lewis Carroll and Norse mythology and he's writing about
Speaker 1: witches and talking animals. And Lewis believed that both sides
Speaker 1: were really important, Like to have a good story, or
Speaker 1: a good life, or a good religion, you needed both
Speaker 1: reason and emotion. And he decided that Christianity and Hinduism
Speaker 1: were the only religions that did that for him.
Speaker 2: So what do he think those two had that other
Speaker 2: religions didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question, and I'll answer it with
Speaker 1: a soup analogy because that's how I.
Speaker 2: Was hoping that.
Speaker 1: Lewis said, there really aren't as many different religions as
Speaker 1: you might imagine, because they all fall into one of
Speaker 1: two categories. He saw them as thick or clear, and
Speaker 1: by thick he meant archaic or primitive religions, which he
Speaker 1: believed weren't moral enough. And then there were the philosophical, ethical,
Speaker 1: and universalizing religions, which he didn't see as spiritual enough.
Speaker 1: So for Lewis, Christianity and Hinduism were the only two
Speaker 1: religions that didn't go too far in either of those
Speaker 1: directions and instead kind of fell in the middle. They
Speaker 1: appealed to both reason and imagination. And as he put it, quote,
Speaker 1: if there is a true religion, it must be both
Speaker 1: thick and clear, for the true God must have made
Speaker 1: both the child and the man, both the savage and
Speaker 1: the citizen, both the head and the belly. And the
Speaker 1: only two religions that fulfill this condition are Hinduism and Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess he's pretty clear on his
Speaker 2: opinion here, But what made him become a Christian and
Speaker 2: not Hindu? You know, that's where things get a little hairy.
Speaker 2: Lewis said, that Hinduism didn't fully meet his criteria because
Speaker 2: he saw it as existing only in two forms, the
Speaker 2: quote unredeemable savage religion that goes on in the village
Speaker 2: and that of the hermit who philosophizes in the forest.
Speaker 2: But he felt Christianity was compelling to all different kinds
Speaker 2: of people, both the highbrow and the primitive alike, and
Speaker 2: I guess the middle brow as well. Now, obviously Lewis
Speaker 2: betrays his understanding of these religions and he's not doing
Speaker 2: his argument any favors by dismissing whole religions like that.
Speaker 2: But it is true that you could split any religion
Speaker 2: into a high and low version of itself, and also
Speaker 2: how you practice it is really really wide. But I mean,
Speaker 2: if he believed that old myths and stories were all
Speaker 2: expressions of deeper truth, wouldn't that mean that all fates
Speaker 2: are equally viable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he mixed different fables and mythology into
Speaker 1: his books. And if you look at something like the
Speaker 1: Narnia series, people call it a Christian allegory, but it
Speaker 1: also borrows from Greek and Roman mythology. There's Norse mythology
Speaker 1: in there, Germanic folklore, medieval romance. They're also European fairy tales. Also,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus shows up at one point, which nice apparently J. R. R.
Speaker 1: Tolkien very much disagreed with. That might be more than
Speaker 1: incle hears he's talking about. Yeah, so I do think
Speaker 1: that this kitchen sync approach to world building is a
Speaker 1: big part of the series appeal right now. I can't
Speaker 1: speak for C. S. Lewis the theologian, but C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis the artist clearly knew that if you want to
Speaker 1: communicate something true to the most people possible, then your
Speaker 1: best bet is to weave it into a story that's
Speaker 1: really universal.
Speaker 2: Which makes sense and actually speaking of things that are
Speaker 2: universally enjoyed, what do you say we start today's fact off?
Speaker 1: Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Did you know that CS Lewis shares his death date
Speaker 2: with not one, but two other highly influential figures. You've
Speaker 2: got Alvius Huxley, who wrote Brave New World, of course,
Speaker 2: and the thirty fifth US President, John F. Kennedy. All
Speaker 2: three men died on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: and as you might expect the deaths of those two
Speaker 2: British authors were overshadowed by the jfk assassination and initially
Speaker 2: received very little attention in the press.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is wild to think that C. S. Lewis
Speaker 1: overlapsed in time with Kennedy. Yeah, like I do not
Speaker 1: think about them in the same time period.
Speaker 2: I'm the same way.
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's one. Despite their differences, Lewis nominated J. R. R.
Speaker 1: Tolkien for the nineteen sixty one Nobel Prize for Literature,
Speaker 1: but according to the BBC, it was rejected because the
Speaker 1: Nobel Committee felt that Tolkien's work quote has not in
Speaker 1: any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.
Speaker 2: Oh that is rough, And I don't mean to ruin
Speaker 2: our chances of winning the Nobel Prize for podcasting. And
Speaker 2: I think they're talking about one of those maybe, But
Speaker 2: I got to say that is not a great decision. No,
Speaker 2: all right, Well we're on the subject of Lewis and Tolkien.
Speaker 2: Here's one thing they could agree on. They absolutely hated
Speaker 2: Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And this is true.
Speaker 2: They actually saw together in the theater. That's so funny
Speaker 2: to it's amazing, I know. And as fantasy buffs, they
Speaker 2: took issue with how the Dwarves were depicted on the screen, so,
Speaker 2: as Lewis put it later, the movie Dwarves had quote bloated, drunken,
Speaker 2: low comedy faces. She went on to say that Dwarfs
Speaker 2: ought to be ugly, of course, but not in that way.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he was thinking. High comedy, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: As for Tolkien, he agreed that the Dwarves had been
Speaker 2: done a disservice by Disney, and furthermore, he despised the
Speaker 2: idea of watering down fairytale concepts, calling Disney's work hopelessly
Speaker 2: corrupted and vulgar. So I really don't think they gave
Speaker 2: it high marks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I wouldn't have thought of them as
Speaker 1: Dwarf purists, but I guess they are. So. For my
Speaker 1: next fact, I want to mention Lewis's wife, Joy Davidmanton.
Speaker 1: They were only married for a few years towards the
Speaker 1: end of Lewis's life before she died of cancer, and
Speaker 1: she was a really interesting figure in her own right.
Speaker 1: She was born in New York City, the daughter of
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrants, and she was both a musical and academic prodigy.
Speaker 1: She read Lewis's books when she was in school and
Speaker 1: then began writing herself, and after she separated from her
Speaker 1: first husband in the late nineteen forties, she struck up
Speaker 1: a correspondence with Lewis, with whom she had shared a
Speaker 1: mutual friend. They finally met in person in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: two when david Min traveled to the UK to work
Speaker 1: on a book about the Ten Commandments, and eventually she
Speaker 1: settled there with her two sons, hoping to keep them
Speaker 1: away from her ex, and Lewis, as he's kind of
Speaker 1: wont to do, decides to support them financially. The couple
Speaker 1: married when Davidson's visa expired, and Lewis really seemed to
Speaker 1: think he was just doing this to help a friend.
Speaker 1: But later, when david Min was diagnosed with cancer, the
Speaker 1: relationship deepened, and after her death, Lewis published a memoir
Speaker 1: called A Grief Observed, in which she reflects on their
Speaker 1: love and how much her loss shook his faith.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's sad, but you know also lovely all right.
Speaker 2: For our final fact, you remember how Lewis gave away
Speaker 2: the royalties from all of his books. Well, he also
Speaker 2: didn't think that his work would be worth much in
Speaker 2: the future. In fact, he once advised a fan not
Speaker 2: to invest too much in a first edition of The
Speaker 2: Screw Tape Letters, saying that they shouldn't pay more than
Speaker 2: half the original price because it was a used copy.
Speaker 2: And so, of course he was wrong about all of this.
Speaker 2: His books have sold over one hundred million copies, including
Speaker 2: translations in over thirty different languages, and that first edition
Speaker 2: is worth many thousands of dollars today, So he definitely
Speaker 2: underestimated himself.
Speaker 1: That is incredible. Well, I think, well, we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of good facts here, but I think the snow
Speaker 1: white fact and the fact that these two famous authors
Speaker 1: were increasingly annoyed at a Disney movie is the best
Speaker 1: thing I've heard all week. So it definitely gets the trophy.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Well, that does it for today's episode of Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: But before you go, I'm sure you've heard us mentioned.
Speaker 1: We have a hotline where listeners call in and suggest
Speaker 1: ideas for the show. Sometimes they ask questions or anything else,
Speaker 1: and I want to share this incredible message we got
Speaker 1: recently from a listener named Christie.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Christy. I promised there's a fun
Speaker 3: fact in this, but I also have the trauma dump.
Speaker 3: It's the one year anniversary of my mom's death. For
Speaker 3: two weeks before she died, she was in a coma
Speaker 3: and they thought that she was possibly able to hear us,
Speaker 3: but they couldn't confirm anything. So we had been playing
Speaker 3: music for her, and it was like music she liked
Speaker 3: and for contact. My parents met at a poison concert,
Speaker 3: so it's not like hospital music really, but we could tell.
Speaker 3: And she was sleeping because her heart rate would change,
Speaker 3: and so she fell asleep, and I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't want her listening to like poison. How she's think.
Speaker 3: I just put on the podcast that I listened to
Speaker 3: when I'm going to sleep, which is your podcast. My
Speaker 3: mom loved cats, so I put on your Cat episode
Speaker 3: and immediately her eyes shot open, which did not happen
Speaker 3: very often. I got kind of freaked out. I told
Speaker 3: the nurse to turn the lights off. I thought the
Speaker 3: lights were bothering her. That didn't make her close her eyes,
Speaker 3: So I was like, do you think just doesn't like
Speaker 3: the podcast? So we turned it off and immediately closed
Speaker 3: her eyes and heart rate went back to sleep. So
Speaker 3: the last thing my mom ever communicated to us was
Speaker 3: that she wasn't, but your podcast is the reason that
Speaker 3: we were able to find out that she could impact
Speaker 3: hear us and I am still a big fan, so
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: That's pretty fantastic. I love that so much. You know,
Speaker 2: it definitely took a turn, but the kind of turns
Speaker 2: with the humor that I would love to hear from
Speaker 2: our listeners, that is terrific.
Speaker 1: Christy, yes, absolutely, And for fans and non fans alike,
Speaker 1: like Christie's mom, if you'd like to leave us a message,
Speaker 1: you can give us a call at three O two
Speaker 1: four oh five five nine two five. You can email
Speaker 1: us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com, or find
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and blue Sky at part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
Speaker 1: That is insane to me. I'm the utter co host,
Speaker 1: Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
Speaker 1: actually a super pretty, so I'm going to fix that
Speaker 1: in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also
Speaker 1: known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
Speaker 1: always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
Speaker 1: and then mix the show after he does a great job.
Speaker 1: I also want to shout out the executive producers from
Speaker 1: iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
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Speaker 1: That's it from us here at Part Time Genius. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening.