The Inklings Variety Hour

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams (Ch. 8-10)

Sorina Higgins and Sophie Burkhardt join Chris to discuss Chapters 8-10 of Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell.

 

Episode Description to Come!

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams (Ch. 6-7)

Chris, Logan, and Sophie discuss Charles Williams' novel Descent Into Hell, chapters 6-7.

Among other things, we discuss

• The Unusual Structure of Descent and Why it Defies Summary
   
   
• Prayer for the Dead
   
   
• Distinctions between Charles Williams secondary world and those of Tolkien/Lewis'
   
   
• Influence of Williams' ideas on Lewis (and maybe Tolkien)
   
   
• That famous "Weight of Glory" quote
   
   
• Enchanted, Invisible Worlds: Williams' Unseen World versus Faerie
   
   
• Isolation and Community as Hell and Heaven
   
   
• Heaven in the Fresco at Voroneț
   
   
   
• Echoes of Chapter 7 in Lewis' The Great Divorce
   
   
• Heaven as fact and Hell as self-deception
   
   
• The personality (or lack thereof) of the dead man; his supposed lack of moral agency
   
   
• What to do if you ever see a ghost
   
   
• The dead man's groan, the earthquake, and the harrowing of hell
   
   
• All good actions as extensions of God's goodness
   
   
   
• Dopplegangers in the movies

  

Thanks to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

 

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams (Ch. 5-6)

Sophie, Anika, and Sorina join Chris to discuss Chapters 5-6 of Descent Into Hell--possibly Charles Williams' most profound novel.  You can find the new audiobook by Apocryphile press here.

Please leave us a good review on iTunes if you like this podcast!

We discuss:

Chapter 5: Return to Eden

• Wentworth's continued damnation and the interconnectedness of characters
• Rejecting joy and ignoring facts
• Williams' Romantic Theology and the Way of Affirmation of Images
• The nature of Lilith, in Hebrew myth, in George MacDonald, in pop culture, and in Charles Williams
• Rejection of beggars, lovers, and inconvenience as the path to hell

Chapter 6: The Doctrine of Substituted Love

• Does it work?
• Some theological objections
• Why is a contract necessary?
• Chasing down your shadow...

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, just email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams (Chapters 3-4)

Sophie, Meagan, David, and Sorina join us for Descent Into Hell--possibly Charles Williams' most profound novel.  You can find the new audiobook by Apocryphile press here.

 

We discuss:

Quest of Hell

• The apparent plotlessness of Descent
• Wentworth's rejection of community
• How the novel is like a play
• Modernist drama
• C.S. Lewis' disastrous dinner with T.S. Eliot and Williams

Vision of Death

• Struther's Martyrdom
• The Right and Wrong way to recite poetry
• The Four Virtues of Poetry
• The Mountain of Abnegnos, meeting yourself, Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, visualization techniques, and other occultic contexts for this chapter (thanks, Sorina!)
• Knowing yourself and knowing love
• Final Question: Adapting Descent Into Hell

Here, by the way, is the Perelandra opera.

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, just email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams (Chapters 1-2)

It's time again for that novel-est of novelists, Charles Williams!

Feel free to read Descent Into Hell here (there's a new audiobook by the way.)

Meagan, Chris, Sophie Burkhardt, and David L. Carter discuss Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell, Chapters 1-2!

They discuss...

Chapter 1: The Magus Zoroaster

(In which Pauline Anstruther, who has a bit part in that new Peter Stanhope play Battle Hill is putting on, meets her own image walking toward her on the way home.)

• Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep
• Williams' plays including Judgement at Chelmsford, and T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral.  
• "A Terrible Good": Can goodness be terrible?
• Plays and plot cohesion
• Pastorals and Woodland Tree Spirits

Chapter 2: Via Mortis

(In which a nameless construction worker, some time ago, killed himself to get back at the world, only to find that he still exists, and maybe wanders unsteadily toward redemption.)

• Mostly plot summary here
• Potential purposeless of an immortal existence (Queen song from Highlander reprise)

That's it for now!  

Check out Sophie Burkhardt's podcast here: Beneath the Willow Tree on Apple Podcasts

Check out David L. Carter's work here: Amazon.com: David L. Carter: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

 

Thanks, as always, to Logan Huggins for making us sound better than we normally would!  I wish I had him around to edit what I say in real time.

 

Next week: Sorina Higgins joins us to discuss Chapters 3-4!

Smith of Wootton Major (Part 2 of 2)

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.

Next week: Sophie, Meagan, David, and Sorina join us for Descent Into Hell--possibly Charles Williams' most profound novel.  Feel free to start reading or listening now.

Smith of Wootton Major (Part 1 of 2)

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!

Prince Caspian (Part 3: Lords and Lycanthropes? Romps and Rivers? Badgers and Bridges?)

As he discusses the third part of Prince Caspian, the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia, Chris is joined once more by three special guests:

• Logan Huggins, our producer (who did yet another amazing job with this episode)
• Mez Blume, author of Churchill's S.O.C.K.s and several other excellent books
• Sophie Burkhardt, from the podcast Beneath the Willow Tree

Among other things discussed:

• Caspian's advisors versus Miraz's advisors
• Honour (with a "u")
• Nikabrik, "talking plainly," and ends-justifies-means logic
• Fan Fiction Assignment: Caspian the Werewolf King
• Are badgers patient?
• How to challenge someone to a duel with style, Mr. Smith (hint: spell "abhominable" with an "h")
• "Would a coward have this?"
• The weak shaming the strong and Caspian's army versus Miraz's army
• Does Aslan hate infrastructure?
• Rivers, gods, and The Dry Salvages
• Miss Prizzle and the Magic School Bacchus
• Re-enchanting a modern setting within Narnia
• Childlike faith, waiting for the romp, and walking through the door

To hear Sophie Burkhardt's podcast (which has lots of MacDonald and Chesterton), go here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beneath-the-willow-tree/id1574579754

To check out Mez Blume's books, go here: https://mezblume.com/

If you want to email us, we'd love to hear from you.  Write to Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Stay tuned!  Next week, we'll be discussing Tolkien's last fairy story, "Smith of Wooton Major"!  

Prince Caspian (Part 2: Bears and Bacchanals!)

(I am releasing this episode again, just in case your podcatcher is being stubborn and refuses to yield the raw episode I inadvertently uploaded this morning--Chris)

As he discusses the second part of Prince Caspian the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia, Chris is joined by three special guests:

• Logan Huggins, our producer (who did yet another amazing job with this episode)
• Mez Blume, author of Churchill's S.O.C.K.s and several other excellent books
• Sophie Burkhardt, from the podcast Beneath the Willow Tree

(Apologies to our listeners--and Logan--for uploading the unedited version at first this morning!  That is entirely my fault, and I promise you will enjoy this one more--Chris)

Join us as we discuss Lewis' occasionally awkward but profound Narnian novel.  Among other things, we talk about:

• What stars and trees have in common
• Becoming a beast and George MacDonald's The Princess and Curdie
• Re-enchantment of (and human rule over) nature
• Aslan's Socratic rebukes
• Aslan's breath as the "ruach" that moves the trees
• Growing up without "growing up"
• Lewis on chivalry
• Play as the possible redemption of Susan
• Aslan and the gods
• Tolkien and Lewis as Lego Masters and Narnia as a grafted world

As always, if you have questions and contributions, feel free to email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

For the view that the Bacchic "romp" is a response to Tolkien, see Joe R. Christopher, "J.R.R. Tolkien: Narnian Exile," in Mythlore 55(Autumn 1988), pp. 41-42. 

To hear Sophie Burkhardt's podcast (which has lots of MacDonald and Chesterton), go here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beneath-the-willow-tree/id1574579754

To check out Mez Blume's books, go here: https://mezblume.com/

 

Stay tuned next week for our final Prince Caspian podcast! 

Prince Caspian (Part 2: Bears and Bacchanals!)

As he discusses the second part of Prince Caspian the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia, Chris is joined by three special guests:

• Logan Huggins, our producer (who did yet another amazing job with this episode)
• Mez Blume, author of Churchill's S.O.C.K.s and several other excellent books
• Sophie Burkhardt, from the podcast Beneath the Willow Tree

(Apologies to our listeners--and Logan--for uploading the unedited version at first this morning!  That is entirely my fault, and I promise you will enjoy this one more--Chris)

Join us as we discuss Lewis' occasionally awkward but profound Narnian novel.  Among other things, we talk about:

• What stars and trees have in common
• Becoming a beast and George MacDonald's The Princess and Curdie
• Re-enchantment of (and human rule over) nature
• Aslan's Socratic rebukes
• Aslan's breath as the "ruach" that moves the trees
• Growing up without "growing up"
• Lewis on chivalry
• Play as the possible redemption of Susan
• Aslan and the gods
• Tolkien and Lewis as Lego Masters and Narnia as a grafted world

As always, if you have questions and contributions, feel free to email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

For the view that the Bacchic "romp" is a response to Tolkien, see Joe R. Christopher, "J.R.R. Tolkien: Narnian Exile," in Mythlore 55(Autumn 1988), pp. 41-42. 

To hear Sophie Burkhardt's podcast (which has lots of MacDonald and Chesterton), go here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beneath-the-willow-tree/id1574579754

To check out Mez Blume's books, go here: https://mezblume.com/

 

Stay tuned next week for our final Prince Caspian podcast!