Platypus of Truth

My series on shields as symbols in Greco-Roman literature concludes with these two posts on Quintus of Smyrna 1 and 2 . This week begins a new series on ancient witches .

This post is edited from a letter on Hope Mirrlees' Lud in the Mist First, thanks for passing on "Lud in the Mist". It's the kind of book I'm constantly hunting for and have increased trouble finding lately (Phantasties, Idylls of the King, The Last Unicorn, Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, The Queen of Elfland's Daughter, anything by William Morris, and the short stories of Clark Ashton Smith having already been encountered). There are very few books that I read at a positively leisurely pace for pure pleasure anymore and this was one of them. Second, I'm a historian and connector by nature and training, so I often access a book by linking it in with everything I've already read and letting my thoughts whirl like the music of the spheres. It seems like to immediately jump in to discussing Lud like that does violence to the Art. I feel the same way about Phantastes. I don't even know if Phantastes can be discussed in that way. Hope Mirrlee...

There's a lovely little puzzle game on sale now from the Square Enix Collective: Goetia . My wife and I have just finished this beautiful little French puzzle-solver and are thoroughly impressed. The basic mechanic is similar to the Myst  games or the Monkey Island  series. Tonally, however, Goetia  is an artful blend of Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charles Williams. The plot is as gripping as the puzzles and we kept playing as much for the story and the eerie atmosphere as for the mechanic. Those who are squeamish about the occult elements the game's title suggests should know that it keeps a firm grip on Good and Evil and finishes off with a strong (but in nowise preachy) message about human nature.

There's nothing quite like arriving late to the conversation. It's why I don't like being late to Christmas parties if I can help it. When I began reading Inklings scholarship (Tom Shippey on Tolkien, Doug Gresham on Lewis), I knew that I'd arrived late to the party. Things were being referenced or scoffed at that I didn't fully understand. Over time, I began to pick up on elements of the earlier conversation and orient myself. Recently, however, I've been able to go back and look at that earlier part of the discussion; specifically, the parts before the coming of Humphrey Carpenter and his monolithic J.R.R. Tolkien , and The Inklings . The particular works in question come not from Oxford insiders or authorized biographers but academics on this side of the pond who were willing to risk professional scorn by asserting the literary greatness of the Inklings and their associates. They are, respectively, Understanding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings  (copyright...

I recently finished Grevel Lindop's landmark biography of Charles Williams, Charles Williams: The Third Inkling . It's one of the those books that can only be written when enough people have died. If that doesn't pique your interest, we can go on to "did you knows". Did you know that actor Christopher Lee met and corresponded with Williams during World War II? Did you know that Charles Williams was mainly responsible for the books picked to form the Oxford World Classics series, thus shaping the literary tastes of students across the anglo-phonic world? Did you know that the line "at the still point of the turning world" from the Four Quartets is a reference to Charles' Williams' The Greater Trumps ? Did you know that Charles Williams played a major role in promoting the poetic works of Gerard Manley Hopkins? If not, don't be surprised. Williams himself lived with the fear that he would always be a mere footnote to his friends and associated ...

The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings  is the first major comprehensive study of the influential group of Oxford writers since Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings . This is above all a book whose time has come. Since Carpenter's initial study, a veritable floodwater has passed under the academic bridge. Philip and Carol Zaleski do a fine job of organizing and synthesizing this vast body of literature into an appropriately hefty (644 pages with the notes) portrait of the group that not only covers the Big Four (Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, Williams), but also the second tier and allied-periphery (Warnie, Coghill, Dyson, Havard, Wain, Dundas-Grant, Cecil, Christopher Tolkien, Hardie, Sister Penelope, Ruth Pitter, Eddison, Sayers, and Eliot). The Zaleski's are at their best when they are weaving the complex stories of these authors' individual biographies and group interactions into a coherent narrative. They do have a bad habit of repeatedly snipping(making sharp,...

What could be cooler that J.R.R. Tolkien brandishing the Lance of Longinus along with a Grail-toting C.S. Lewis, and an apparition of Charles Williams, riding on a rocket bear with dual chain guns for arms? Pro-mo for the school's Inklings reading club.

Reading about the Inklings, the informal literary circle that gathered around C.S. Lewis in the thirties and forties, gradually begins to feel like adjusting the focus on a camera lens.  You start with a single figure in hazy focus, say J.R.R. Tolkien.  Picking up Humphrey Carpenter's biography draws the professor in a few stark lines.  A person, a personality begins to emerge.  To begin to see Tolkien, however, is for others figures to become perceptible on the edges of your vision.  C.S. Lewis enters into the picture, and Charles Williams hovers, indistinct around the edges.  Seeking to know the relationship between the three men better, you may pick up Carpenter's second work, The Inklings .  Suddenly, Lewis and Williams jump sharply into view as characters and Tolkien continues to take on life and weight.  New personages flit through the frame: Hugo Dyson, Humphrey Havard, Dorothy L. Sayers, T.S. Eliot, Warnie Lewis.  Carpenter's Lewis do...

The repentant sadist chastens rude Caucasia with the blade of too Euclidean love In that place where Simon Magus sits playing with his cards Queens Kings Knaves Placing her under the unmerited obedience of the hazel rod Which is A ruler fit for bookstore clerks and men that play at being kings Simon Magus Simon Magus Simon Magus in the mirror The unicorn has lost her mate which found her when the wild hazel was young But now it has all been turned to rods that are his horn To rub between a maiden’s bosom And she grieves for the wild hazel which was young in spring Who knows the proper use of horns Seeking him ever in the heaving breast of Gaul not knowing that he is gone to Logres Simon Magus Simon Magus Simon Magus in the mirror There at Pentecost saw Taliessin the young king Arthur crowned And Bedivere rejoiced And Balin swore As rays of vert and rose and azure smote down upon the window and danced about the king But Taliesin there in...