"Oh f***, not another elf!"

Although I knew that they were writing around the same times, it never occured to me that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis knew each other, let alone that they had this much influence on each other’s lives and works.

Both authors have had a huge influence on me personally, and the idea that they shaped each other’s creations is just…magical.

TLOTR was the first series that I loved as a kid, and I remember the weeks I spent curled up reading the dog eared copies that my dad had loaned me. I didn’t read any Lewis til I was a grown-up (John blames my Catholic upbringing), but The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the most lovely and simply moving things I’ve ever read.

I guess my fascination with this is also tied in to the summer that I spent at Oxford. I didn’t meet anyone even half as interesting, but I do remember feeling smarter, braver, and more true to myself than I had ever felt before. Part of that was just me being drunk a lot of the time, but I think there was also something in the air — history, maybe, but more like an electricity that left you feeling like great things were happening all around you.

So, maybe exchanges like this one are where that feeling comes from.

Posted by becky at December 3, 2003 1:02 PM