Berman, Ruth

Cross, Doug

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 2 Number 3 Article 12 Winter 1-15-1971 Missives to Mythlore Doug Cross Ruth Berman Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore  Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Cross, Doug and Berman, Ruth (1971) "Missives to Mythlore," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 2 : No. 3 , Article 12. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol2/iss3/12 This Letter is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm This letter is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol2/iss3/12 Bonnie's illo is  a subtle hint to you, the read ers, that we would like to hear from  more of you, for good or ill .  Mythlore is  a labor of love, with no hope of monetary gain. It has certain  spec­ia l in terests , and we assume that you, the su bscribers , share in at least one of these in terests ; otherwise, why have you subscrib­ed? You are  invited to share your com ments, reactions and ideas. If your le tter  is  published, you get a free  contributor's copy. I hope w e'll have more "m issives" next issu e. — Editor.Doug C ross, 4 Ridgeline D r . , St. Louis, Mo. 63122I am a college freshm an (MICHIGAN!), and I've been in­terested in Tolkien and fantasy ever since my second reading of LotR . I guess that was about 5 years ago. A friend of mine kept twisting my arm  until I read the trilogy, and, upon completion, I joined a now-defunct organization called the Neo-Numenoreans.I joined m ore because of my friends'(oog!) friend's  pressure and my own curiosity than out of love for LotR . After writing to several people who were in love with LotR , and through more discussions with my friend who forced me to read the thing, I discovered that a ll these people saw something in the books that I m issed completely — a ll I felt was a mild wonder at the length of the s e r ie s  and a vague sense of fear of meeting up with a Sau­ron or one of his cohorts in a dark alley .During my second reading, a funny thing happened — every- ■ thing and everybody in the story started making sense — and, more importantly, I fe lt I was finally feeling what it was like to be a c ­tually a live. Many people — the great m ajority, in fact — don't possess this feeling. In a way, i t 's  like the difference of being awake ana asleep: aware and unaware. Heinlein certain ly  had the right idea in Stranger when he said that everyone was God, but I think it would be more co rre c t to say that everyone (or near­ly everyone) has the potential of being God — it 's  unfortunate that most people don't realize  or don't choose to ex erc ise  this potential.Do you get the sam e im pression? I probably haven't ex­pressed it  very well, but I think if  you're "awake" then you know what I'm  talking about. I've found that many people who have read Tolkien are  awake, though not n ecessarily  because of reading Tolkien. While the difference between the awake and the asleep can often be subtle, it  always ex ists .The a r tic le s  I've read in Mythlore, I've found to be out­standing, except for Louis M arvick's le tte r . I think the artwork is perhaps the best part of the ' zine, and I hope that in the future you can put even more in. So what i f  I have a slightly different im pression of a particular scene or person or thing? I 'm  very poor artistica lly , and I like to see how others envision something. The back cover in Mythlore 5 by T im  K irk is  exceptional, and I'd say the sam e thing even if  I hadn't been able to recognize it im ­mediately.((Yes, I think I know what you mean about being "awake. " Read­ing Tolkien and Lewis in high school awakened me, and the inner joy of feeling oneself really  alive, and that th is joy coula be shared (even as haltingly and crudely as it is) and communi­cated with others, has given me the im petus to found the Society, Mythlore, and Mythcon. Since I am a theist, rather than sayingwe have the potential of being God, I would agree with Lewis that we have the opportunity of being dazzling Gods and Goddesses (see Lew is' The Weight of Glory). We can be part of the process of becoming; God cannot, he is  in the eternal state of being . I often think of being "aw ake" or "a liv e" in term s of participating in the G reat D an ce.))Ruth Berm an, 5620 Edgewater B lv d ., Minneapolis, Minnesota55417It 's  interesting to see two W illiam s-type covers. I don't somehow like either B ern ie 's  or Bonnie's, but I can't pin down why. I'd  like to see more artwork based on W illiam s, though.The M erlin ar tic le  is  a helpful summary of the part that M erlin and Arthurian legend generally play in That Hideous Strength. It doesn't answer one question which has been bother­ing me -  what is  Logres? I don't re ca ll a kingdom of Logres in any of the Arthurian m aterial I've read. My memory for names is  not a ll that good, and I may just have forgotten it; but what­ever it  is ,  I suspect that opposition of Logres to B rita in  is  Lew­is ' own invention. I don't think th ere 's  anything about the F ish ­er-K ing in F ra z e r  (th ere 's  nothing in my abridged copy), and I suspect, m ore likely than Lewis' borrowing E lio t's F ish er-K ing , that Lewis went to E lio t's  source, J e s s ie  L . W atson's From  Ritual to Rom ance. The figure of the Fish er-K in g  does not ap­pear to any particular extent in those of the Arthurian sou rces mentioned as Lewis' chief sou rces which I've read (Geoffrey, Layamon, and Malory -  I haven't read Ware or the prose M er­lin). I am not fam iliar-with the G rail legends in th eir original versions, but I suspect that M iss Weston invented m ost of the significance of the figure of the Fish er-K in g  (or deduced -  she was working back through the extant versions to try  to discover what the original G rail myth was).The Galen Peoples a rtic le  is  likew ise a useful summary.B a rb i's  Frodo (it is  Frodo, isn 't it , rather than B ilb o? I imagine Frodo as thinner than Bilbo was at the same age) is  a t­tractiv e . (Come to think of it, though, the pipe and sitting on the doorstep could make it a specific illustration of Bilbo in the open­ing to The Hobbit. If  so, he looks too thin to m e .)"The Noises that W eren't T h ere" is  fascinating and absorb­ing. It 's  frustrating not to be able to go on and read the r e s t  of it . I don't see  how it can be the "straightforw ard novel" men­tioned in the headnote - unless C la r issa 's  second-sight is  to be taken as something that W illiam s believed to be possible and not supernatural in real life .One of the inconsistencies in Narnian chronology discussed by J .R .  Christopher vanishes if  we suppose that " Dawn T read er" does not take place as late as c. 1950 -  a fter a l l ,  the only evi­dence that it does take place that late is  Christopher's suggest­ion that Mr. Pevensie probably would not get an Am erican ap­pointment ju st after the war. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have. The other inconsistency is , I think, to be explained as a convention of fa iry -ta le  biology - very old men (and women) can have children (as in King L ear -  which isn 't a  fairy  tale, but employs some of the sam e conventions). The fact that Lewis doesn't bother to mention that it took Caspian and the S tar'sdaughter 45 years or so to have a  child doesn't n ece ssarily  mean that he w asn't aware of the chronology he was setting up or that he expected the reader to be unaware of it . H e's right, of course, that the rea l reason for setting up the age gap between • R ilian and Caspian is  one of sym bolism , but I don't think the sym ­bols in th is case  go against the lite ra l details.I 'm  afraid a ll the poetry in this issu e (including W illiam s') strik es  me as being quite dreadful.(( I 'm  glad you asked the question about Logres, even though I won't be able to give a definitive answ er. -Anyone for writing a full resea rch  paper on the h istory and development of Logres ? -  Ju st looking through my lib rary  I found referen ce  to Logres in Tennyson, and I suspect it goes back further than him. Of course Lewis' uses of Logres in That Hideous Strength, even though there is  e a r lie r  referen ce , is  alm ost wholly derived from  W iUiam s' A rthurian poetry -  T aliess in  Through Logres and The Region of The Summer S ta rs . W illiam s says in Arthurian T orso , page 53, that it was Chretien de Troyes in his poem Lancelot "that the name of Logres seem s f ir s t  to be f ir s t  used for King A rthu r's land; its  derivation is  said to be from  the W elsh L loegr, a land of faerie  which was also  B rita in  or within B rita in . "  W illiam s, in his p re­lude to Summer S tars , says that Logres "is  B rita in  regarded as a province of the Em pire with its. center at Byzantium. "  But what is  m ore d irectly  stated in That Hideous Strength, that is  the tension or struggle between spiritual Logres and self-serv in g  Brita in , is  also  strongly sensed in W illiam s' poetry Arthur struggling, with M erlin 's help to establish Logres, with Mordred within and the fo rces of P ' o tL 'u  without to tear it  down.As to Lew is barrowing from  Je s s ie  L . W eston's, work, I have seen no referen ce  in Lew is' writings to either disprove or affirm  your suggestion. T here is  certain ly  much m aterial on the F ish e r-  King in Weston.As to "T he Noises that W eren 'tT h ere" being a stra igh tfor­ward novel, I'm  riot so sure after reading the third chapter, which will appear in  the next issu e. I can 't spoil it  for you by saying anything definite, but i t  is  h air-raisin g,and  i f  W illiam s caUed this "straightforw ard, " I 'm  sure he didn't mean it wasn't supernatural! The whole three chapters leave the reader nearly crazed to know what the re s t would be.(continued from  page 14)If I am co rrect in my assumption about the lineainents of Lew is's geographic imagination, then the basis for geographic c ritic ism  of Lew is' fiction has been established. Thus, when Ransom in Out of the Silent Planet journeys over high p asses to Meldilorn, a c ritic  can say, "T h is is  analogous to Fledge's flight to the garden in M agician's Nephew, and to Joh n 's  journey to the sea -sh o re  in The P ilg rim 's R eg ress. "  But the analogy is  only the beginning: then he must decide what Meldilorn adds to the geographic myth, and in what ways it is  unique.E D IT O R IA LC orrection to P art I of An Introduction to Narnia: the Chronology of the Chronicles by J .  R . ChristopherSince the publication of P art One, I have noticed one m ajor blunder in my essay and one minor om ission (why does a w riter never find these things before publication?). The minor om is­sion has to do with the Narnian tim e between The M agician's  Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the W ardrobe. I stiH can­not be much m ore precise than I was in my essay  la st issu e, but I should have noted that in The M agician's  Nephew the text twice indicates that the Witch left Narnia alone for "m any hun­dred y e a rs" (pp. 134, 181) because of the Shield T ree . "Many hundred y e a rs" is  vague, but certain ly  it is  different from  "many thousand y ears. " I am, of course, assuming that her next attempt resulted in the m agical winter in The Lion, the Witch and the W ardrobe: if  she made an e a r lie r  attack on Narnia, there is  no referen ce to it.The m ajor blunder has to do with my flat statem ent (on p.25) that "T h ere  are  no instances in the books of Narnian tim e flowing at a slower rate  than earth tim e. " Unfortunately (for me) there is one instance. In The L ast B attle  (pp.. 51-2) one week p asses on earth before JiU  and Eustace are  able to get to Narnia, while only ten minutes pass for T irian , tied to a  tree . Thus Lew is' statem ent in The Voyage of the " Dawn T rea d er" about the uncertainty of the tim e relationships (which I c ite  in my essay) is  co rrect .I wait to see  what other e rro rs  other read ers will find. (I hope not m any!)LEWIS,POWER,AND SCIENCE27The above iUustration by Steve McIntosh is  very appropiate to this editorial. Sauron's Ring of Pow er has been rediscovered by the N .I .C .E .Lewis is  som etim es charged with being anti-scien ce . Such a charge seem s to me to be a faulty over-sim plification. Lewis is  often misunderstood by people who haven't read the whole body of his writings. There is  much in ter-re la tio n  of them es and con­cepts in a ll his w orks, and often one book w ill shed much back­ground inform ation on another. To view Lew is' thoughts on Science from  a wider perspective, we should consider what S c i­ence is  and the human condition.The word "s c ie n ce " means knowledge. Truly knowledge is  power, but it is  neutral power, available to be used in constructive or destructive ways. Certainly Lewis was not anti-knowledge, being one of the m ost weU read men of this century. This tool of knowledge is  ju st that, a tool. Any tool is  only as good as those who use it; unused, it has no abstract power bf itse lf. Man can and has used this tool of scien tific  knowledge to both beneficial and diastrous resu lts . I think the rea l underlying question is whether Man, as P asca l called hiin -  "the glory and shame of the universe, " is  able to handle the tremendous power made avail­able through the scien tific d iscoveries of modern tim es. While these d iscoveries are  being made available, le ss  and le ss  have those who used them  asked m oral questions involved in th eir use. Science isn 't bad or dangerous. W hat's dangerous is  the m oral and eth ical relativ ity  of those who might use the power of scien ce. The danger can bee seen on two lev els : that of torture done in the name of scien ce by Nazi doctors in the 40 's ,  and the serious abuse of ecological principles in the "technological" nations of today.I would challenge anyone who might think Lewis is  anti-Scien ce to reader carefully  his short book The Abolutiph of Man f ir s t .That Hideous Strength is  only one of many anti-utopian novels that describe the p erils of all-pow erful governments runs by a few men without any ethical standard. Lew is' warning in the 40 's  seem  more and m ore prophetic today.The ch aracter Weston is  often brough forward as the proof of Lew is' an ti-Scien ce. But what Weston says in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, isn 't scien ce at a ll, i t 's  philosphy. His though is  much like W ells in OSP and turns even less ration alistic  in Perelandra, where he become a kind of Shavian worshiper of the Life F o rce . The N .I .C .E .  is  run by bureaucrats, not sc ien ­tis t. The only bad scien tist, F ilo stra to , is  balanced out by Hengist, the scien tist kiUed by the N. I.  C . E . fo r  attempting to leave. A distiction needs to be made between technology and philosophy, since in many minds they are  both lumped together in "s c ie n c e ."MC7

Missives to Mythlore

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Missives to Mythlore

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