Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship

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Summary: I agree - this book is the business!
Review: Colin Duriez is a genius and it is very exciting to see how well this wonderful and beautifully written book is doing in the USA. Colin was by far the best person on the Lord of the Rings Two Towers DVD on the friendship of these two uniquely successful and inspiring authors and this book easily matches the indepth insight that Colin gives us. My mother was taught by both these people in the 1940s and Colin has got their relationship exactly right. Be inspired, buy this book and then enjoy their writings in a way you had not before. Evangelical Christians will especially enjoy this great book, as will Christians of all kinds. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE and WHOSE SIDE IS GOD ON?

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Summary: Congrats to Duriez
Review: 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!

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Summary: Showing the fruitfulness of a great friendship
Review: Colin Duriez's biography is a unique contribution for its specific attention to the two men together. While others have recounted the unusual marvel of the select reading group known as the Inklings that was based on the special friendship between Lewis and Tolkien, it is precisely that central friendship of the two which Duriez brings forward to show the importance of each man for the other, and the many ways that their writing and thinking was each influenced or empowered by the overlap of their lives. To accomplish his focused study, Duriez spends the bulk of the book on the decade of years when Lewis and Tolkien were closest and most collaborative. Though not intended as such, the biography is a guide to their writing, an introduction to what they were trying to do and why from a Christian theological perspective, as well as summarizing the high points of their work, especially in terms of theological significance.

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Summary: I agree - this book is the business!
Review: I agree - this book is the business! Colin Duriez was cool when he was on the Lord of the Rings DVD. Now we can read him too!

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Summary: Numinousity reflected
Review: I may be the only person in North America never to have read either J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth books or C.S. Lewis' Narnia series (though I have read some of Lewis' theological works). Nevertheless, I find both these men fascinating. The vision of them seated by a fire in an Oxford college in the 1930s, enjoying wide-ranging and casual discussion, is almost iconic. If other readers share this vision, Colin Duriez's "The Gift of Friendship" will be a warmly rewarding read.

Duriez is an expert on Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings. And although, so far as I could tell, he breaks no new ground in this parallel biography, that's not to sell short the value of what he does give us -- especially for non-specialists. Duriez takes the image and makes it real. Both men come through as distinct individuals -- personalities, creators, and friends, with similarities, differences, tensions, estrangements, and reconciliations.

Part biography, part literary criticism, "The Gift of Friendship" goes a lot more deeply into the lives and work of both men than I expected it to. As an introduction to them, their influence on each other, their amazing productivity, and (to an extent) their influence on the wider world, this very interesting and worthwhile book is proof of the Biblical admonition that "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

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Summary: Pen pals
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Pen pals
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A casual joint biography
Review: Rather than a study of their friendship, this volume - a great improvement on Duriez's "Inklings Handbook" - is a joint biography, popping back and forth between the two even in their most intertwined years. Duriez uses both primary and secondary sources fairly well, skillfully skating over weak spots (e.g. that little is known of the early years of the Inklings) and sticky points (especially the causes of the friendship fading). It's a soft-minded book with little original to say, and Duriez's greatest achievement may be in writing imaginary vignettes of the subjects' lives that are not wincingly terrible. This book is for casual fans of the two authors who warm to the thought of them being pals together.

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Summary: Well ... not exactly what I was expecting
Review: 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 ecpected 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.

Rating:
Summary: Pure genius - simply the best
Review: This is pure genius - simply the best book around on these two brilliant guys. Buy your pastor and all the deacons/elders in your church this great book - and don't forget one for all your friends. They will all LOVE this book.