Inklings About Inklings

It seems quite strange to be reading a more autobiographical work about Lewis after spending all this last semester studying his fiction. Being empirically minded it feels like I've done things in reverse - perhaps I should have known the man before I came to know his myth. A poet might say they're one and the same, and perhaps so, but understanding the man can make the myth deeper. Of course, having thought about that concept for one moment longer, it can probably go both ways. I just recalled a band, as well as a series of t.v. shows that were made worse for me by having a greater understanding of the people behind them. So it may be just as well. Regardless, I was interested to learn that Lewis had an early fascination with Norse fiction, and was an avid reader his whole life. Many of his professors would go on to remark that they had never met a man more well-read in the classics. Also I found it quite interesting that after getting a degree in Philosophy, he could not find work teaching it, and so since his dad was still willing to support him financially, Lewis went and got a degree in literature - in a third of the usual time.

Perhaps the most interesting notion I obtained from Inklings is the relationship C.S. Lewis made while he was in the military. His roommate in the barracks was someone who he was fairly neutral about, but he hit it off really well with his roommate's middle-aged mother (in a very platonic fashion, by all accounts - although subject to no end of inquiry). I am sure I am not among the first to remark at the strangeness of the bond they had, or at how Lewis moved in with the woman in question and lived with her for quite some time afterwards.

I knew before reading this work that C.S. Lewis was subject to a rough, abusive school life, so that came as little surprise to me. However, I was reminded of that strict, authoritarian fashion in which education was so often carried out at that time and place. I mused with another student about how that type of educational fashion might have impacted Lewis' writing style and beliefs.