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Welcome to the Inklings Variety Hour, where fans and scholars of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and others discuss their works and lives.
Episodes
Saturday Mar 08, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
It's Season Five of The Inklings Variety Hour, episode one, and you know what that means! Time to return to the enchanting land of--
--record scratch--
--Calormen?
That's right, Ed Said. We're kicking off this season the right way, with a little trip to an unprepossessing fisherman's hut and the down-on-his-luck literary ancestor of both a refreshing soft drink and Taran the Assistant Pig-keeper.
I'm only talking 'bout Shasta. Can you dig?
You know who else is talking about Shasta? I mean, besides Bree the talking horse (no not that one) who abducts him?
Why, it's Jonathan Geltner, renowned author of Absolute Music, and Joseph Weigel, host of Men with Chests and also an author! Together, we discuss the following subjects:
- Calormene culture and Narnian culture
- Literary analogues (or lack thereof) of The Horse and His Boy
- Formal language and formulaic language
- The wider world in which Narnia exists
- Proverbs (Calormene and Narnian)
- How Tashbaan is awesome
- Freedom
Books we bring up:
- The Thousand and One Nights
- Travels in Arabia Deserta
- David Eddings' Belgariad Series
- Huck Finn
- The Prince and the Pauper
- The Worm Ouroboros
- The Faerie Queene
Copyrighted Music:
- Original BBC Narnia Theme
- Mr. Ed theme (not Ed Said)
As always, please leave a generous review if you want higher quality or quantity podcasts! This is a labor of love, and I'm currently only able to get something out once every two weeks. See you in two weeks' time, as musician Matt Wheeler joins me to talk (and sing) about his favorite Narnia book.
Saturday Mar 01, 2025
Saturday Mar 01, 2025
Sorry for the late upload, once again! I've been preparing for the new season!
The first episode of Season 5, covering The Horse and His Boy, will be coming out in a few days! See you then, and in the meantime, enjoy some more travels in Glome!
Saturday Feb 22, 2025
Saturday Feb 22, 2025
Apologies (again) for the late Saturday upload. Here's Part 7 of our Till We Have Faces series. Enjoy!
Stay tuned for the first brand new episode of Season 5. We'll start with The Horse and His Boy on March 4 and update with a new episode every two weeks.
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Original description:
If you like this podcast, please give us a review in iTunes! Also, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.
This week, Chris and Anika discuss Chapters 12 and 13 of Till We Have Faces. Subjects for discussion include:
- Santeria and the First Amendment (and also, of course, "Santeria" by Sublime)
- How Orual-the-author is being changed while telling us about Orual-the-character's refusal to change
- Possessive love and our tendency to be ruined by strong loves
- The "ferly" in Middle English literature
- Is Bardia's fear of the gods practical fear for his safety or fear of the numinous?
- Orual withholds key evidence!
- The Fox's theology and soul-houses
- How true divine nature is foolishness to the Greek and a stumbling block for the Glomian
- At the end: Various proposals for an '80s fantasy movie based on Till We Have Faces. (Someone please make a poster of this idea.)
Special thanks to my brother Jason Pipkin for the incredible '80s-style synth track used at the end! Apologies if I overuse it, but I really liked it. Other music sampled includes:
- "Our Father" in Aramaic
- "The Hurrian Hymn" as played by Michael Levy
- "Santeria," by Sublime
- "Princes of the Universe," by Queen
- "Quantum Leap" theme by Mike Post
In two weeks, we meet the God of the Mountain! Talk about numinous and sublime!
Saturday Feb 15, 2025
Saturday Feb 15, 2025
Apologies for the late upload!
A new season of The Inklings Variety Hour is coming on Tuesdays in March, starting with The Horse and His Boy.
In the meantime, enjoy this old episode, with one of our first guest-stars, Andrew Lazo, talking about his favorite Lewis book, Till We Have Faces!
Original Description:
This week, we're talking with Andrew Lazo, author, speaker, and noted Till We Have Faces and C.S. Lewis scholar. You can find additional information about Andrew's projects, current and future, at mythoflove.net. We would like to thank David Bates at Pints with Jack for connecting us with Andrew! In this episode, Anika, Chris and Andrew discuss some classical and medieval influences on Till We Have Faces, as well as concepts like mortal shame and the way physical and spiritual attitudes alter perception in Lewis' work. In some ways, this is also a broader view of Till We Have Faces itself, thanks to Andrew's expertise. Stay tuned for bonus material at the end, where we hear from Andrew about the circumstances of Lewis' writing of Till We Have Faces. Enjoy the conversation! We certainly did.
Some references in this episode:
Over the Rhine (band)
"After Ten Years," from Of Other Worlds by C.S. Lewis
Pearl, by the Gawain-poet (Tolkien's translation here) (Original text here)
If you're enjoying The Inklings Variety Hour, drop us a line to tell us so! You can email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com. Also! Please find us on iTunes and give us a rating if you like us. Additionally, if you'd ever like to guest star and talk with us about these works (whether you are a scholar or not), we'd love to have you. If you're listening to this podcast, you are already a kindred spirit, and we would enjoy meeting you. Just saying.
Saturday Feb 08, 2025
Saturday Feb 08, 2025
A new season of The Inklings Variety Hour is coming your way in March! In the meantime, here's another rerun. Old description:
This week, we are still hiking up the enchanting mountain that is Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, hearts dancing all the while. And why should they not, as we discuss such topics as:
- Fighting and work as a potential antidote for depression
- Resurrection as a potential antidote for depression
- How King Trom is a bro
- Refusal of joy and its effect on perception
- Would-be eucatastrophe
- Landscape, symbolism, and the sticky wicket of literalized metaphor
- Potential lawsuits Psyche could bring against Redival
Recommendations include:
We'd love to hear from you if you're enjoying the podcast! We'd also love to have you on the show if you'd like to join us sometime (and don't mind reading a few chapters of Till We Have Faces first)! Our email is InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.
Next time we will have Till We Have Faces scholar Andrew Lazo on to discuss Chapters 10, 11, and 12! It will be worth the wait!
Saturday Feb 01, 2025
Saturday Feb 01, 2025
From the vaults! More of C.S. Lewis' underrated final novel!
Original description:
In which Anika and Chris reveal the fairly shallow reason we had for doing Till We Have Faces this year and accidentally endorse human sacrifice.
Mostly, we talk about Chapter 7, in which Orual and Psyche say goodbye, and Chapter 8, in which Orual decides to journey to the mountain and recover Psyche's body. At issue are whether or not selfish love is still love and whether sacrifice (especially human sacrifice) is effective.
Other highlights:
Ash Wednesday Anecdotes
Anika reads Lewis' poem, "As the Ruin Falls"
Till We Have Faces as a text that changes its narrator
Finally, inspired by WandaVision, the hosts ask whether Till We Have Faces would make a good sitcom--and what kind of sitcom it would be?
Have your own thoughts? Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Music credits:
- The "Our Father" in Aramaic
- The Hurrian Hymn
- "Aase's Death," by Edvard Grieg
- "The Toy Parade," by Dave Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene
- "Everywhere You Look," by Jesse Frederick
- "With a Little Help From My Friends," by Joe Cocker
Saturday Jan 25, 2025
Saturday Jan 18, 2025
Saturday Jan 18, 2025
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!
Saturday Jan 11, 2025
Saturday Jan 11, 2025
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:
"Sick Muse" by Metric