The Inklings Variety Hour

From the Old Winyards: Till We Have Faces, Part 2 (Saturday Rerun)

Till We Have Faces, Part 2!

Here are the original shownotes:

In the spirit of Groundhog's Day, Chris and Anika dig into Chapters 3-4 of Lewis' Till We Have Faces, which retells the Cupid and Psyche myth.  

We discuss, among other things:

• The apparent popularity of J.G. Frazer in Glome
• "Foxy Redival's Flirtations" 
• Whether we're the worst at what we care about most (and other cheering thoughts)
• Soup and Religion (and other metaphors)
• Narrative asides about weeping in Lewis
• Our ideas for movie adaptations of TWHF

Music:

The Hurrian Hymn

"Our Father" in Aramaic 

They say that behind every groundhog is a Shadowbrute requiring human sacrifice.  May the good town officials of Punxsutawney fail to see it this year.  For all our sakes.

As always, please give us ratings on iTunes if you enjoy this!  It means a lot to us and helps others find the podcast!  Also--feel free to send us your thoughts at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com

Thank you for joining us!  

Next time (in two weeks), we will be joined by special guest and Inklings scholar Sorina Higgins!

From the Old Winyards: Till We Have Faces, Part 1 (Saturday Rerun)

Sorry about the late upload! Enjoy!

 

From the original episode description:

Welcome back to The Inklings Variety Hour!  It's a new year, and Ungit has only just hatched out of her egg-house (or something), but already, your intrepid hosts are tackling C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces (1956)--widely considered the best novel he ever wrote.  Chris, Anika, and Meagan discuss this retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth as only the Inklings Variety Hour can--with lots of digressions, reading of passages, and laughter.

If you're enjoying this podcast, we're glad to have you along for the ride, and we'd love to know you!  Drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Ratings on the iTunes store would be most welcome also.

Music for this episode includes:

The Hurrian Hymn

The "Our Father" in Aramaic

"Sick Muse" by Metric

 

From the Old Winyards: Smith of Wootton Major, Part 2 (Saturday Rerun)

Happy New Year!

Kora Burton rejoins Chris to discuss Tolkien's last fairy (or is it faerie?) story, "Smith of Wootton Major" (1967). 

Smith of Wootton Major is a short story, a parable about the nature of what Tolkien called “fayery” or “Faerie,” an evocative fairy tale in its own right, as well as a melancholy meditation on the loss of artistic capacity.  Though told simply enough for children to understand its plot, Tolkien called it “an old man’s book.”

 

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

 

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, please do so at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

From the Old Winyards: Smith of Wootton Major, Part 1 (Saturday Rerun)

From the Old Winyards: It's Time for the Feast of Good Children (to which not many are invited).

___________________________________

Kora Burton joins Chris to discuss Tolkien's last fairy (or is it faerie?) story, "Smith of Wootton Major."  

Smith of Wootton Major (1967) is Tolkien’s last work of fiction and was begun as part of an Introduction to an edition of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key–an edition that was never published.  Tolkien began by writing a kind of parable about a stupid baker making a cake for children that inadvertently had something faerian in it.  But when he found this illustration was taking on a life of its own, he discarded the introduction entirely and worked on the story–which he realized was in part a critique of the things he did not like about George MacDonald, among other Victorians (still, I find it owes a real debt to The Golden Key and Phantastes, as much as it does to anything medieval).  Smith of Wootton Major is a short story, a parable about the nature of what Tolkien called “fayery” or “Faerie,” an evocative fairy tale in its own right, as well as a melancholy meditation on the loss of artistic capacity.  Though told simply enough for children to understand its plot, Tolkien called it “an old man’s book.”

One of my favorite history of English podcasts, just in case you want more philology or historical linguistics: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

 

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, please do so at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Next week: We enter Faerie with Smith!

An Inklings Christmas Carol (Repeat)

For the first time, all three parts of last year's Christmas play are edited together. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas.

Previous description:

At last!  Here is the first part of a (Zoom) table reading of my "play" (loosely defined), "An Inklings Christmas Carol."  

Two more (longer) parts are to come!  Gee, it's a good thing Christmas begins on December 25, or I'd be out of time. Twelve Tide, etc., etc.!

Special thanks to Anika Smith, Sørina Higgins, and Joe Hoffman for reading this episode.  Thanks in general to Sørina's Author's Circle, which you can find out more about (and even join) here. 

Hope you enjoy it--keep in mind this is a first draft, none of us are professional actors, and I'm not making a cent off this episode! As with any holiday movie or play, if you keep your expectations low, you'll have a pretty good time!

Feel free to send me feedback at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  And please rate the show if you like it!

From the Old Winyards: Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters (Saturday Rerun)

Enjoy this gently used Christmas gift from Ghost of Inklings Variety Hours Past!

It's an Inklings Variety Hour Jovial Christmas Extravaganza!  Featuring:

A Discussion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas!

Chris Pipkin and his children, Davey and Virginia!  

Anika Smith! (First half of show) 

Meagan Logsdon!  (Second half of show) 

A cringeworthy impersonation of an old British person by Chris Pipkin!

Bits of music by Steeleye Span and Maddy Prior (The Boar's Head Carol), and Martin Romberg (A Elbereth Gilthoniel), (as well as Virginia Pipkin).

Pipkins' Christmas site promoted: 12tide.com

Thanks for listening to us this year!  As always, if you enjoy this podcast, recommend it to a friend and give us a review on iTunes.  And please do feel more than free to drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you!  Merry Christmas.

The Wind in the Willows

Chris is joined by Angela Teal and Marena Bleech of In the Burrow Books to discuss Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows!

More episode description to come! In the meantime, enjoy!

Twelve Tide (Saturday Rerun)

Original Description:

O.G. Host Anika Smith rejoins the podcast to interview Chris and his beautiful and omnicompetent wife, Glencora, about their new Christmas resource book, Twelve Tide. 

Part of what we're trying to do with this book is make Christmas less a single-morning present binge preceded by anxiety and followed by anticlimax--and more a season of twelve days of giving, feasting, and learning to celebrate better.

Want an idea of what's in the book? Check out our website, 12tide.com.

We are all Niatirbians now (and Lewis was dismayed by godless Christmas cards).  We want to reconcile sacred and "secular" aspects of Christmas and equip people with some old ways to celebrate this season. 

Music from this episode includes:

• George Winston's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Choir of Christchurch's "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Loreena McKennitt's "Gloucestershire Wassail"
• The Chieftains' "Boar's Head Carol"
• Maddy Prior's "Coventry Carol"
• Medieval Baebes' "Adam Lay Ybounden"
• Maddy Prior's "Wassail!"

Also, if you're interested in the Twelve Tide Spotify list Anika suggested on the show, here it is.

Stay tuned...I'm done with grading and I'm turning my attention to an Inklings Christmas Carol.  Won't be easy to finish in time, but I'll do my level best.  If you are interested in reading a part for it, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

God bless and keep you this Advent Season. See you at Christmas!

Romanticism and the Inklings

Author Jonathan Geltner and newcomer James Lapeyre join Chris to discuss the question that has doubtless kept all of us awake in the pre-dawn hours:

Who was more of a Romantic: C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Yes, the stakes have never been higher.

We also talk generally about how the Inklings' view of their own roles overlapped with (and were influenced by) those of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romantics. To what extent were the Inklings the real Romantics of their own age?

I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks to both James and Jonathan for coming on the show. 

Apologies to all of you for the poor sound quality of my microphone. Also, a little more than halfway through, the Internet goes out--apologies for that, though we do find our footing pretty quickly thereafter.

Many, many thanks to James for fixing the sound so that I'm actually intelligible here. Check out his substack at otterhat.substack.com/. Check out Jonathan's at jonathangeltner.substack.com/

I appreciate everyone's patience for this episode! Circumstances have conspired so that I have less time to edit since the semester ended, but I'll keep grinding these out occasionally if you all keep listening! I'll also try to keep putting out the old episodes Saturdays.

Also! As always, my wife and I have a Christmas site and a Christmas book. If you're looking for ways to celebrate Advent and Christmas that both engage with the storehouse of tradition available to us--while allowing you and your family to forge your own Christmas traditions, you might find them helpful! The basic premise is that rather than having one day of Christmas (so much pressure!), we spread gift-giving out over the traditional twelve days of Christmas and pair it with reflection and other activities. It's really worked wonderfully for our family.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com if you have thoughts! And give us a five-star rating on iTunes (why not, it's Christmas) if you like what you hear.

Also, I am planning to record on The Horse and His Boy this month (to be released at the beginning of Season 5 in March). If you'd like to join us to talk about it, just let me know!

Friendship (from the Old, Old Winyards)

Apologies for the audio quality on this one! It's the very first podcast Anika and I recorded, along with my wife, Glencora! It dates from 2018, when audio was much rougher. I'm sure you remember. Cleaned up what I could. Minimal swearing, too.

I thought I'd post it in preparation for the C.S. Lewis Reading Day livestream.  You can find it here: C. S. Lewis Reading Day 2024 - Pints With Jack