The Inklings Variety Hour

Perelandra, Part 4: The Fight

Thanks to all who have left reviews and feedback! Due to a very busy schedule, I can no longer afford to edit/publish this podcast more than twice a month.

This may change if we pick up more listeners, so keep the positive reviews coming and share with your friends!

 

Joseph Weigel, of the Men with Chests podcast, joins Chris to talk about the fight between Ransom and the Un-man in Perelandra.

 

Maybe it's all the gimmicky '80s fight songs we feature in this episode, but Chris is feeling rather combative this podcast. He questions many of Lewis' premises in this portion, sending the two down a number of theological dark alleys.

Among other things, we talk about:

• The realistic awkwardness of this fight
• Would it have been morally acceptable to kick the Un-man in the unmentionables? What about to shoot him?
• Is it morally (or theologically) lawful to take the course Ransom does, even in a hypothetical setting? Would it really have been gnostic to refuse to finish off a man who was begging for his life?
• Why wouldn't the Un-man have had superior strength like the demoniac in Acts? And why not exorcise him?
• Does it help us to hate the Devil? Is that the same thing as hating evil? And if we're meant to hate something, what does that say about our own origins?
• Realizing that humans aren't central to creation versus "The Empirical Bogey"
• Dante's damned and the false appeal to pity
• "The Rind" and John Askins; is the possibility that everything is meaningless harder to refute than Weston's original philosophy?
• Awe at the numinous, fear of tigers, loathing of bugs, and hatred of devils
• The disquieting idea that perhaps the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's Lohengrin would have made a better soundtrack than the many 80's anthems we feature here, including:
  • "Eye of the Tiger," by Survivor
  • "Gonna Fly Now," by Bill Conti
  • "I Have Decided," by Don Potter
  • "The Final Countdown," by Europe
  • "Tonight," from West Side Story
  • "You're the Best Around," by Joe Esposito

Apologies for the extra week it took to edit this episode! If you'd like these to come out more frequently, please do leave a review and recommend the podcast to your friends. At this point, I can't justify publishing every week, but if I build up listenership, this will become more feasible.

Until then, look for this podcast to come out every two weeks for the foreseeable future! We have plenty more podcasts in store for you.

Perelandra, Part 3: Ransom? Ransom? Ransom?

If you like this podcast, please give it a five-star review on iTunes and share it with your friends. 

If you have questions, comments, or advice, email Chris at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

If you want, feel free to follow us on Instagram: @inklingsvarietyhour

 

Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast and Joseph Weigel from Men with Chests rejoin Chris to talk about Perelandra, Chapters 8-11 (or thereabouts).

Among other things, we discuss

• The nature of deception
• The division between dark and light in Perelandra
• The ever-present Center
• Diabolical psychology (or lack thereof)
• The rind and the core
• How Perelandra's vivid beauty reinforces the stakes of the dialogue
• Where, exactly, did Weston get his pack...it looks suspiciously like Ransom's, Precious, yes it does....
• How did Lewis interpret Genesis 1? (we don't really have enough time to discuss this fully, but we take a stab at it)

Next week: The fight.

 

Perelandra, Part 2: The Force Uses Weston

Charlie Carter from the Thinklings Podcast, and Joseph Weigel, from Men With Chests, join me to talk about Chapters 4-8 of Perelandra. 

We do a lot of reading on this episode--we certainly enjoyed ourselves, anyway!  Enjoy the conversations between Ransom and the Green Lady, as well as Ransom and Weston (shudder).

Among other things, we discuss:

• The human desire to have things over again, and whether it is truly the root of all evil
• How someone who is sinless could be tempted to sin
• The ambition of Lewis' portrayal of the Lady
• The precariousness of the Lady's sinlessness
• The Force
• Spiritual sins
• Mer-people, myth, and evolution

See you all next time!  

Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com, rate the podcast on Apple Music, follow us on instagram (@inklingsvarietyhour), and share us with other people who like the Inklings

Perelandra, Part 1: The Trouble with Oyarses

I hope you enjoy this, the first of a few (I think about five) episodes on Perelandra, commonly considered the best of Lewis' Ransom Trilogy books. 

It's late, so I won't say much here, except:

• Joseph Weigel, of the Men with Chests podcast is my guest. He's great, and his podcast is well worth checking out.
• Share, rate, and follow this podcast if you like what you hear. Instagram is @inklingsvarietyhour. Email is inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

That's all for now!  I may be back next week, but it may be in two weeks.  Summer has been unexpectedly busy.  Charlie Carter will be joining Joseph and me for Part 2 of Perelandra!

Owen Barfield's "Night Operation" (Conclusion)

Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast talks with Chris about the rest of Owen Barfield's dystopian novella, Night Operation. 

More description to come. 

Do check out Harry Lee Poe's The Making of C.S. Lewis and Diana Glyer's The Company They Keep and Bandersnatch.

Next time: Perelandra.

Poetry Thursday: Charles Williams does G.M. Hopkins

An unpublished imitation of Gerard Manley Hopkins' style about the "On Earth as it is" part of the "Our Father."

Charles Williams makes an astute theological point, promotes G.M. Hopkins, and benefits from imitating his style.

Win-win-win.

Can somebody say "Exchange"?

Some helpful sources for this one:

The Third Inkling

The Oddest Inkling

Owen Barfield's "Night Operation"

"Dance like no one is understanding your bizarre esoteric philosophy."

Find this and other fitness tips on this episode, when we finally get into Owen Barfield.

In this episode, I talk with Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast about Owen Barfield's ideas and the way they play out in the first part of Barfield's dystopian novella, "Night Operation."  

Apologies to Gina Dalfonzo for temporarily forgetting her last name!  Here's her book, Dorothy and Jack.

Learn more about Barfield here: www.owenbarfield.org

We'll conclude the conversation next week!

If you enjoyed this episode, you can do three things (right now) to support the show:

1. Give us a five-star review on iTunes or Apple Music.

2. Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

3. Follow us on Instagram @inklingsvarietyhour

 

Poetry Thursday(?): Sir Orfeo excerpt, Tolkien Translation

This is long and late, but I wanted to do part of Tolkien's translation of Sir Orfeo, followed by a few ideas, followed by an awkward reading of the original Middle English.  Forgive my poor audio (working out of office), as well as my poor reading of Middle English.  When I do it well, it is very difficult for modern English speakers to understand, which isn't ideal for a podcast.  I tried to split the difference, with the likely result that I did it well enough to still be difficult to follow, but poorly enough to be widely panned by people who read Middle English.  

Sir Orfeo warns, among other things, of the dangers of falling asleep under a grafted tree at noon.  You're only tempting fate (and fairies) when you do things like that.  Come on.

Here's the Tolkien translation still in existence that I was able to find.  Most of Tolkien's Sir Gawain translations also include Sir Orfeo.

As always, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

 

 

The Inklings as Writing Group with Diana Glyer

If there's one scholar whose work captures the spirit of what this podcast tries to do, it's Diana Glyer, author of The Company They Keep, Bandersnatch, and The Major and the Missionary. She joins Chris to talk about what we can learn from the Inklings' approach to writing in community.

This was a rich discussion, and I hope you get a lot from it. Diana and I discuss the following:

• Creativity, community, and writing groups
• Paper-reading groups in Oxford
• Typical Inklings meetings
• Resonators
• Types of critique
• Criticism versus dismissiveness
• Did Hugo Dyson end the Inklings?
• The perilous journeys of the one manuscript of the Lord of the Rings
• Christopher Tolkien, Mordor, WWI, and WWII
• Exclusivity and the Inklings
• Charles Williams' bracing effect on the Inklings
• Williams' influence on Tolkien?
• Lewis, Tolkien, and "Numinor"
• Tolkien's increasing crankiness
• Just what is influence?

Feel free to check out Diana's website at dianaglyer.com to see what she's currently up to!

If you enjoyed this podcast, let us know by doing the following:

• Giving us a five-star review on iTunes so that other people can find us more easily
• Emailing us (inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com)
• If you have Instagram, follow us @inklingsvarietyhour

Next week: Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast joins me to talk Owen Barfield and his dystopian novella, Night Operation!

Finally!  Some Barfield!

[Music: George Winston's "Lullaby," from Summer]

Poetry Thursday: "The Adam Unparadised," by C.S. Lewis

Another of Lewis' "Adam" poems.  This time, with monsters.

Apologies for my unchancy pronunciation of "wind." Just pretend he's playing the "winding horn," which was invented by Jubal, the half-troll.