December 9, 2025 • 35 mins
This year marks the 75th anniversary of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so Will and Mango are uncovering some seriously surprising stories about author C.S. Lewis. Did you know he was famous for his terrible fashion… but also his financial generosity? Or that he almost converted to Hinduism for reasons that involve soup? And that he had a long, complicated frenemy-ship with J.R.R. Tolkien, which led to the two authors hating on a Disney movie together? Well, you will after this episode!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope,
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what will What's that? And I go, so, did
you know.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
That Turkish delight is a real type of candy.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Like the stuff from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah. I don't know about you, but I didn't try
Turkish delight until I was in my thirties, and from
the time I read that book to the time I
was an adult, I thought it had to be the
most delicious thing in the world, just the way that
like that character Edmund craves it and he like basically
sells out his family for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Absolutely. I mean the word delight is in the name,
so you figure it must be good, but actually what
is it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It was kind of a precursor to the jellybean. So
if you imagine like no candy shell but that sweet
gummy stuff inside, that's actually what Turkish delight is. And
it can be flavored like rosewater, citrus, and it's really tasty.
It's thought to a versionate in Turkey during the seventeen hundreds,
and that's obviously why it has its name.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I feel like that's such a part time genius phrase
to say it was the precursor of the jelly bean.
I don't think you heard that on many other shows,
you know. Actually I thought it was kind of ridiculous
that Edmund would betray his family for some candy. Though,
don't see what we do need to talk about that for.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
A second, you know, I looked into it.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
First of all, Edmund's kind of a slimy character, so
I didn't feel that he wouldn't betray his family for it.
But you have to remember the book is set during
World War Two, when candy and sugar were rationed. So
when he asked the White Witch for Turkish delight, what
he's actually asking for, and Gabe told me this, because
I never would have figured it out on my own,
is that he's asking for a taste of normalcy, and
(01:56):
it's like a reminder of really happier time, Like h
That's something reader is related to in nineteen fifty when
the book was published, which you know, is just not
something you think about when you're reading it today.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and I guess that does make Edmund more more sympathetic,
or at least I suppose it does. But you got
to give c S Lewis credit for trolling generations of
kids into craving this rare candy, and I know that
wasn't his intention, but it's definitely what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Well, Thankfully, there are lots of more important things we
can credit C. S. Lewis for. Obviously, he's best known
as the author behind the Narnia books, the first of
which is celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary this year, but
he was also an esteem professor at both Oxford and Cambridge,
not to mention a poet, a theologian, and of course
the best friend or maybe best frind.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Of me of J. R. R.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Tolkien. There is a lot to cover, so open up
your wardrobes and less stuff inside.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass wearing a trucker hat. And I've never
seen him in a trucker hat, but he pulls it off.
He looks good and the hat says Aslan is my homeboy.
That's our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now, megol I
appreciate that you cleared up those misunderstandings I had about
(03:33):
Turkish delight. So here's yet another thing I've always gotten
wrong about C. S. Lewis, and that's his nationality. So
based on the settings and his books, I actually always
assumed he was born in England, but he was actually Irish.
So he was born on Dulfast on November twenty ninth,
eighteen ninety eight, which means just a couple of weeks
ago it would have been his one hundred and twenty
(03:54):
seventh birthday.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I wish I had known, I would have brought party hats.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I'm telling you, Yeah, Well, I think Dylan has enough
of a hat for us all today. But anyway, Lewis's
parents were well off and well educated as well. His
father was a solicitor, which is a type of lawyer,
and his mom graduated from the Royal University of Ireland.
This was back in a time when most women didn't
attend college, so the whole family loved reading. But CS
(04:20):
was a prodigy of sorts, like, he was reading and
writing his own stories by the age of five.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So what kind of stuff was he writing?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books had just come out,
and CS and his older brother Warren were obsessed with
these books, so they started making up their own stories
about talking animals who wore clothes and lived in a
fantasy land called Boxin and CS began writing these stories down,
so some of these were actually published years later in
a collection called Boxin the Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis.
(04:51):
I'd love to read these things.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
That is insane. I'm very curious about how readable those
five year old stories are. It does sound like C. S.
Lewis had this kind of idyllic childhood, though.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well unfortunately it actually all came crashing down the summer
before he turned ten, so his mother died of cancer tragically,
and just a few weeks later his father packed him
up and sent him off to the English boarding school
his older brother attended. Losing his mom was hugely traumatic,
as you might expect, and on top of that, he
had the culture shock of being in a new country.
(05:23):
Aside from a brief stand at a school in Belfast
in nineteen ten, he actually never lived in Ireland again,
and people like me have mistaken him for an English
writer ever since then.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm really glad we cleared that up so obviously, this
whole time, we've been calling him CS, which is the
only way I've ever known him. But it actually stands
for Clive Staples, which is such a great name and
it sounds like a soul singer, right. But CS never
actually liked it, so he insisted that his family call
him something else, and, according to his brother, Warren or Warne,
(05:56):
as he liked to be called quote. In the course
of one holiday, my brother made the momentous decision to
change his name. Dislike in Clive and feeling his various
baby names to be beneath his dignity, he marched up
to my mother, put a forefinger on his chest, and
announced he.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Is Jackxie, Jacksie.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
He's stuck to this next day and thereafter, refusing to
answer to any other name, so to intimate friends, he
was Jack.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So where did Jacksie come from?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I have no idea. There's a remember that he chose
it in honor of a family dog that was hit
by a car, but you know, we spent a lot
of time digging into it and couldn't find solid proof
that it's true. Either way, the nickname got shortened to Jack,
and that's what his friends called c. S Lewis for
the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Actually, well, I'm gonna be honest, I don't really like
calling him Jacksie for the rest of this episode, so
so why don't we stick with CS?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, that sounds like a good deal, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So back to his story. CS was away from home
and he's a studious kid who loves to read. He
loves to write, but he has a tough time at
boarding school because the other kids and even the headmaster
actually pick on him for having an Irish accent. But
that wasn't the only reason that he got bullied. I
know this sounds sort of random, but you know how
most humans have double joint in thumbs, right, Like, look
(07:14):
at your thumbs you can picture that. Well, Lewis and
Warney both had only one joint on their thumbs.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That is so weird. But how did anyone even notice?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, apparently it's difficult to catch or throw a ball
when you have a one joint in thumb. Then it's
harder to grip objects in general. I wish both of
us had that excuse now thinking about this, but fortunately
we just aren't good at catching either way. But Lewis
wasn't great at team sports, and he caught a lot
of flak for it. So for the rest of his
life he limited his exercise to running, swimming or biking,
(07:45):
you know, sort of non thumb intensive activities.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, I've never thought to categorize those sports in that way,
but I.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Will now no thumbs involved, So c has lewis defective
thumbs actually didn't prevent him from joining the army though.
During World War One. He did his training and became
a low level officer. Then just a few months after
he began university studies at Oxford, he was shipped off
to France to fight. So he was wounded on the
front lines about five months after that and returned to
(08:14):
England where he got right back to doing what he
did best and what he loved doing most, which was writing.
Now he wasn't writing novels or spiritual treatises though it
actually came later on. Instead, in his early twenties, he
mostly wrote poetry. In fact, the first book he ever
published was a collection of poems assembled from his teenage years.
It was called Spirits in Bondage and he released it
(08:36):
under the pen name Clive Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
First off, it's so strange that he chose Clive Hamilton
as the name instead of, you know, using Jack, which
he's been insisting everyone call him by. But secondly, Spirits
in Bondage is a pretty strange title.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, And I think readers felt that way as well,
because they were not into it. And his second book
of poetry also fled. So these early failures left a
bad taste in Lewis's mouth and he rarely wrote poetry
from that point on. So after the war, Lewis continued
studying at Oxford. He was actually on scholarship there and
he graduated a few years later with two degrees, and
(09:14):
then he became an English tutor at the university in
nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And to be clear, tutor at Oxford is different from
like an SAT tutor, right, It's more like a professor
who teaches students in very small groups. Often it could
be one on one, and it's this like highly personalized
discussion that Oxford's famous for.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Like it's definitely more prestigious than
sort of like after school tutoring or something like that.
And Lewis kept that position at Oxford until nineteen fifty four,
at which point he became a professor of Medieval and
Renaissance English at Cambridge, where he actually stayed until his death.
So his career in academia sounds pretty straightforward. He was like,
(09:54):
clearly brilliant. He taught at the country's top school. But
when it comes to his personal life, if things actually
get a little more unusual, no, what do you mean
by that? Well, during the war, Lewis befriended a fellow
soldier named Patty Moore, and they made a pact that
if either one of them was killed in action, the
survivor would look after the other's parents. Louis of course
(10:16):
made it through the war, but Patty didn't. So Louis
stayed true to his word and he took in Patty's mom,
a woman named Janie Moore, as well as his sister Maureen.
In fact, he cared for Janey for the rest of
her life, and actually there are rumors that they had
an affair, although most experts believe Louis broke it off
when he became more devoted to Christianity and he sort
(10:37):
of sounds like a soap opera, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And things get stranger. Louis's older brother also moves in
with them. Warney began drinking heavily after his time in
the British Army. He was actually up to three bottles
of whiskey a day according to some reports. And well,
I'm sure that all of that made for a difficult
writing environment. That's actually the backdrop against which Lewis is
writing some of his mo celebrated works, including the Narnia series.
(11:02):
But at the time most people didn't know any of
this because Lewis was super shy and also very very private.
He never talked much about his personal life or his feelings,
even with his close friends, which isn't to say he
was cold. He just always thought there was something more
interesting to talk about than himself. As one of his
friends at Cambridge put it, quote, Lewis was too shy
(11:23):
to seem to want to be known, and too modest
to think that anybody would want to know him.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Hm. That's interesting because you know, you think with that
Oxford and Cambridge pedigree, you'd think he might be more pompous.
And I mean, I will admit I do find some
of his writing a little stuffy at times.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, but he really was unpretentious. And I have a
funny story that illustrates just how down to earth he was,
but I'm going to save that for after the break.
(12:04):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're celebrating the
seventy fifth anniversary of The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe with a deep dive into CS Lewis's life. If
you're enjoying this episode, please share it with a friend
who loves the Narnia series as much as we do. Okay, well,
so before the break, we were talking about how, despite
moving in these highbrow academic circles, C. S. Lewis was
(12:27):
a pretty humble guy, and it turns out that even
extended to his wardrobe, by which I mean his actual clothes,
not his furniture. Gabe found a bunch of stories about
what a terrible dresser C. S. Lewis was. Apparently, his
favorite outfit was an old tweed coat, a pair of
baggy flannel pants, and a beat up felt hat. According
to one report, Lewis once lost his hat while on
(12:48):
a picnic, only to find it months later under a
bush with a bunch of field mice living in it. Actually,
here's how his brother Warnie tells the story. Quote Jack
once took a guest for an early morning walk on
the Magdalen College grounds after a very wet night. Presently,
the guest brought his attention to a curious lump of
cloth hanging on a bush. That looks like my hat,
(13:11):
said Jack. Then joyfully, it is my hat, and clapping
the sodden mass on his head, he continued his walk.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
That's a very great story.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
So in addition to not really caring about his looks
or the condition of his hats, he also didn't care
that much about making money. He didn't earn a lot
as a tutor, and whatever royalties he received from his books,
he gave a way to charity. And while his heart
was definitely in the right place. C. S. Lewis kind
of had his head in the clouds about his finances,
Like because he donated all his earnings, he thought he
(13:44):
was exempt from paying taxes, which the government informed him
was definitely not the case.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, sadly it doesn't exactly work that way. But all right,
So we've covered a lot of Lewis's life so far,
and there's one aspect that we've barely touched on, and
that's his spiritual which, of course we feel like we
need to get to given what he wrote in later years,
and to talk about that, we need to discuss the
other fantasy writing elephant in the room, and that's mister J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So this is the bit I've been so excited about.
I want to hear all the tea.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
All right. Well, the TLDR is that Lewis and Tolkien
had a long, complicated friendship. This is definitely one of
those friendships where you just wish you could be a
fly on the wall to hear this conversation. And the
reason things were complicated is it because they were both
fantasy authors with initials in their names. It's because they
disagreed on some pretty big things, including religion. So the
(14:39):
two first met in nineteen twenty six. This was at
a gathering for the Oxford English Department because Tolkien was
also a tutor there. But they didn't become friends until
the early nineteen thirties. They were both part of an
Oxford literary group called the Inklings, and they'd gather every
week in university offices or maybe at local pub and
they'd have these met meet to workshop their writing. And
(15:02):
to describe the way these meetings went, I have to
paint a totally cliche picture, but it's sort of the truth.
So here it goes. They would sit in leather armchairs
in front of a crackling fire, drinking brandy and smoking cigars,
and they would just talk about story ideas for hours
on end. Is that not exactly what you picture?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
When I'm so perfect? I just the only thing you
didn't describe was elbow patches.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I feel like right right on same same. Anyway, it
wasn't long before Lewis and Tolkien bonded over a mutual
love of fantasy and myth, but one of the biggest
points of contention between them was their differing views on God.
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and Lewis, who was
(15:45):
raised Irish Protestant, became an atheist in his teens and
remained one during his early career at Oxford.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That is so wild to think about if you know
his writing, that he was like an atheist. Like I
remember being in fourth grade and my friend Jeremy told
me that as in the line of the Witch in
the Wardrobe was supposed to be Jesus, and I remember
thinking that is so ridiculous. I was like, read the
text a little closer he's obviously a lion.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well. The thing is Lewis is definitely known today as
a theologian, but his spiritual journey was anything but straightforward.
Like he once wrote about having a deep spiritual longing
that he could never quite square with his disbelief. He
referred to it as the God sized hole in his life,
and it was his conversations with Tolkien that set him
on the path to filling that gap. So in nineteen
(16:35):
thirty one, Lewis and Tolkien went on a long walk
with a fellow inkling named Henry Victor. Dyson and Lewis
had been struggling to make sense of his spirituality for
a while at that point, and so during the course
of their walk, the three men began talking about the
relationship between God and myth. Tolkien expressed his belief that
folklore and mythology were ways of articulating higher truths about
(16:57):
the nature of reality, and that's how he viewed Christianity.
It was a myth, but you know, a true one.
So to Tolkien, the message of Christianity was the truth
about the world, and all the other ancient stories out
there were attempts to express that same truth. Something about
that struck a chord with Lewis, so much so that
within two weeks of that walk, he announced that he
(17:18):
was actually Christian.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Again.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I love the one.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I love that they go in these walks and just
talk about God like that's a myth. Yeah. But also
I love that something clicked with them, you know, like
they about atheist and suddenly he's hearing about myths and
he decides like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I'm totally in.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And it actually was notable in another way too. So
not only did their conversation rekindle Lewis's faith, it also
inspired not one, but two of the greatest fantasy series
ever written, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis's Chronicles
of Narnia. All that talk of myth making had the
authors itching to write their own stories, the earliest drafts
(17:56):
of which they presented to their fellow Inklings over the
next few years. Once again, to be a fly on
the wall just would have been wild.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I am curious. So were the other members of the
club into the fantasy writing as you know, the same
way that Lewis and Tolkien were, or were they kind
of like rolling their eyes like, oh great, here we
go with Elves again.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know, I sort of wish it was the Lauderan.
They were definitely into it, Like I think it helped
that they were exactly and they were all well read
writers themselves who loved classic fantasy stories like a Wolf
and Tales of King Arthur. But Gay pointed me to
this article in The Atlantic that shed some light on
other reasons why they may have been so open to fantasy,
(18:39):
particularly after their experiences in World War One. So here's
how the author James Parker puts it. Blown sky high
by the psychic rupture of the Great War, the Inklings
responded not with fragmentation and pessimism, but with a redoubled
commitment to the world behind, the world freshly visible through
this new rip in the fabric. It's pretty powerful quote there,
(19:02):
So you know, rather than focus on the surface level
ugliness that they were faced with, these guys chose to
invent fantasy worlds where they could explore a broader view
of life. It's one of the reasons why their books
remained so compelling, and it's also a big reason why
they became such close friends. They shared a similar view
of the world and of the role that writing and myths,
play and making sense of the world. But you know,
(19:24):
as we've alluded to, their friendship was rocky at times.
Tolkien was a stickler for clarity and precision, and he
felt Lewis's Narnia books lack those qualities. In fact, Tolkien
said that the series suffered from quote incoherent mythology.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So maybe he also didn't see the Lion as Jesus either, Like, like.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You're looking looking for some backup on that. Yeah, I'm
pretty sure he got that reference. But you know, in
addition to the writing, he had personal beef with Lewis
two He looked a later in their lives, and Tolkien
felt that Lewis had developed anti Catholic views, which offended him,
and he didn't approve of a romance that Lewis struck
(20:06):
up with an American divorcee. Still, the men never lost
touch completely, and in public they continue to praise one
another's work.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It is really funny and fascinating that fantasy, even in
those times, provides this space for people to see the
world as they want it to be, you know, like,
and you see how absolutely comforting fantasy can be for
like marginalized people today and how many people fall in
love with these worlds. And it's amazing to think that
(20:35):
these people who've suffered through a world war are now
looking to or too world wars, are looking to fantasy
to sort of make themselves whole and create a new world.
And that's really beautiful. But that's a great way to
put it when you're talking about this, like it is
interesting that you know, maybe it's just because Lewis is
so humble or quiet, like it sounds like Tolkien is
(20:56):
the one who's doing most of the complaining.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Well, if that's true, he may have actually regretted it.
So after Lewis died of kidney failure in nineteen sixty three,
Tolkien wrote a letter to his own daughter where he
lamented the way loss scenes to pile up in old age.
He said, referring to Lewis's death quote, so far, I
have felt like an old tree that is losing all
its leaves one by one. This feels like an axe
(21:20):
blow near the roots.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
They probably cared about each other more than they let on,
But you know, speaking of his daughter, our family actually
went to a Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan Library here
in New York some years ago and it was full
of Tolkien's drawings, including these Christmas cards he'd drawn and
written for his children, and it was so fun and
so weird and so elaborate, and it made me think
(21:45):
that like having a talented fantasy writer as your dad
and having him write you letters all the time could
be a really wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Not bad, not bad.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, you know that there's a lot we don't know
or can't quite verify about the friendship of these two,
Like there's an anne about C. S. Lewis that I'd
heard about but was never able to verify before. And
this actually comes from our friend Adam in college. He
told me that Lewis had once thought about converting to
Hinduism and that he had debated between becoming a Christian
(22:14):
and a Hindu, and honestly, it just sounded so far fetched.
But we finally got the chance to look into the
story this week and what I found was pretty interesting.
So I'm going to share it with you, But first
we got to take another quick break.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Man, you are dropping the teases in this episode. Welcome
back to part time genius. Okay, man, it sounds like
(22:47):
he did some detective work here. I love some good
detective work. So tell me about the rumor. Is it true?
Did C. S. Lewis almost become a Hindu?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, he definitely gave it some real thought. In fact,
he thought long and hard about just about every religion
out there, and he wrote about all of them. Most
of us know Lewis for his children's stories or other
works of fiction, but obviously a huge chunk of his
writing was these scholarly essays and ruminations on theology, and
the latter is where you can find Lewis's thoughts on
(23:18):
Hinduism and pretty much all the other religions too. So overall,
I get the impression that Lewis explored as many different
faiths as he could during his journey from agnosticism to
becoming a man of faith. But as he explained in
a nineteen forty five essay, he only considered two options
for himself, Christianity and Hinduism.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And why do you think those two?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Well, it comes down to the kind of person he
was and how he viewed the world. As you pointed out,
Lewis came to his religious belief thanks largely to his
connection with fantasy and myth. That was how he found
his way into it. By seeing Christianity as the truest
expression of the stories he had grown up reading. Obviously,
that's not usually how someone becomes a Christian, but that's
what worked for Lewis because it was able to satisfy
(24:03):
both sides of himself, which were the logical and the
emotional aspects, or the rational and the artful or mathemagic
as our pal Bob Pittman likes to say, but whatever
you want to call it. Lewis was a clear cut
example of that dichotomy. So on the one hand, he
was this rigorous scholar who could debate and reason with
the best of them, And on the other hand, he's
(24:26):
into Lewis Carroll and Norse mythology and he's writing about
witches and talking animals. And Lewis believed that both sides
were really important, Like to have a good story, or
a good life, or a good religion, you needed both
reason and emotion. And he decided that Christianity and Hinduism
were the only religions that did that for him.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So what do he think those two had that other
religions didn't.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, it's a good question, and I'll answer it with
a soup analogy because that's how I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Was hoping that.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Lewis said, there really aren't as many different religions as
you might imagine, because they all fall into one of
two categories. He saw them as thick or clear, and
by thick he meant archaic or primitive religions, which he
believed weren't moral enough. And then there were the philosophical, ethical,
and universalizing religions, which he didn't see as spiritual enough.
(25:18):
So for Lewis, Christianity and Hinduism were the only two
religions that didn't go too far in either of those
directions and instead kind of fell in the middle. They
appealed to both reason and imagination. And as he put it, quote,
if there is a true religion, it must be both
thick and clear, for the true God must have made
both the child and the man, both the savage and
(25:40):
the citizen, both the head and the belly. And the
only two religions that fulfill this condition are Hinduism and Christianity.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, I guess he's pretty clear on his
opinion here, But what made him become a Christian and
not Hindu? You know, that's where things get a little hairy.
Lewis said, that Hinduism didn't fully meet his criteria because
he saw it as existing only in two forms, the
quote unredeemable savage religion that goes on in the village
and that of the hermit who philosophizes in the forest.
(26:09):
But he felt Christianity was compelling to all different kinds
of people, both the highbrow and the primitive alike, and
I guess the middle brow as well. Now, obviously Lewis
betrays his understanding of these religions and he's not doing
his argument any favors by dismissing whole religions like that.
But it is true that you could split any religion
into a high and low version of itself, and also
(26:30):
how you practice it is really really wide. But I mean,
if he believed that old myths and stories were all
expressions of deeper truth, wouldn't that mean that all fates
are equally viable.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean he mixed different fables and mythology into
his books. And if you look at something like the
Narnia series, people call it a Christian allegory, but it
also borrows from Greek and Roman mythology. There's Norse mythology
in there, Germanic folklore, medieval romance. They're also European fairy tales. Also,
Santa Claus shows up at one point, which nice apparently J. R. R.
(27:04):
Tolkien very much disagreed with. That might be more than
incle hears he's talking about. Yeah, so I do think
that this kitchen sync approach to world building is a
big part of the series appeal right now. I can't
speak for C. S. Lewis the theologian, but C. S.
Lewis the artist clearly knew that if you want to
communicate something true to the most people possible, then your
(27:28):
best bet is to weave it into a story that's
really universal.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Which makes sense and actually speaking of things that are
universally enjoyed, what do you say we start today's fact off?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Did you know that CS Lewis shares his death date
with not one, but two other highly influential figures. You've
got Alvius Huxley, who wrote Brave New World, of course,
and the thirty fifth US President, John F. Kennedy. All
three men died on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
and as you might expect the deaths of those two
British authors were overshadowed by the jfk assassination and initially
(28:11):
received very little attention in the press.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, it is wild to think that C. S. Lewis
overlapsed in time with Kennedy. Yeah, like I do not
think about them in the same time period.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I'm the same way.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Okay, So here's one. Despite their differences, Lewis nominated J. R. R.
Tolkien for the nineteen sixty one Nobel Prize for Literature,
but according to the BBC, it was rejected because the
Nobel Committee felt that Tolkien's work quote has not in
any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh that is rough, And I don't mean to ruin
our chances of winning the Nobel Prize for podcasting. And
I think they're talking about one of those maybe, But
I got to say that is not a great decision. No,
all right, Well we're on the subject of Lewis and Tolkien.
Here's one thing they could agree on. They absolutely hated
Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And this is true.
(29:01):
They actually saw together in the theater. That's so funny
to it's amazing, I know. And as fantasy buffs, they
took issue with how the Dwarves were depicted on the screen, so,
as Lewis put it later, the movie Dwarves had quote bloated, drunken,
low comedy faces. She went on to say that Dwarfs
ought to be ugly, of course, but not in that way.
(29:22):
I don't know what he was thinking. High comedy, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
As for Tolkien, he agreed that the Dwarves had been
done a disservice by Disney, and furthermore, he despised the
idea of watering down fairytale concepts, calling Disney's work hopelessly
corrupted and vulgar. So I really don't think they gave
it high marks.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, I know. I wouldn't have thought of them as
Dwarf purists, but I guess they are. So. For my
next fact, I want to mention Lewis's wife, Joy Davidmanton.
They were only married for a few years towards the
end of Lewis's life before she died of cancer, and
she was a really interesting figure in her own right.
She was born in New York City, the daughter of
(30:02):
Jewish immigrants, and she was both a musical and academic prodigy.
She read Lewis's books when she was in school and
then began writing herself, and after she separated from her
first husband in the late nineteen forties, she struck up
a correspondence with Lewis, with whom she had shared a
mutual friend. They finally met in person in nineteen fifty
two when david Min traveled to the UK to work
(30:24):
on a book about the Ten Commandments, and eventually she
settled there with her two sons, hoping to keep them
away from her ex, and Lewis, as he's kind of
wont to do, decides to support them financially. The couple
married when Davidson's visa expired, and Lewis really seemed to
think he was just doing this to help a friend.
But later, when david Min was diagnosed with cancer, the
(30:46):
relationship deepened, and after her death, Lewis published a memoir
called A Grief Observed, in which she reflects on their
love and how much her loss shook his faith.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Wow, that's sad, but you know also lovely all right.
For our final fact, you remember how Lewis gave away
the royalties from all of his books. Well, he also
didn't think that his work would be worth much in
the future. In fact, he once advised a fan not
to invest too much in a first edition of The
Screw Tape Letters, saying that they shouldn't pay more than
half the original price because it was a used copy.
(31:18):
And so, of course he was wrong about all of this.
His books have sold over one hundred million copies, including
translations in over thirty different languages, and that first edition
is worth many thousands of dollars today, So he definitely
underestimated himself.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That is incredible. Well, I think, well, we've had a
lot of good facts here, but I think the snow
white fact and the fact that these two famous authors
were increasingly annoyed at a Disney movie is the best
thing I've heard all week. So it definitely gets the trophy.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, that does it for today's episode of Part Time Genius.
But before you go, I'm sure you've heard us mentioned.
We have a hotline where listeners call in and suggest
ideas for the show. Sometimes they ask questions or anything else,
and I want to share this incredible message we got
recently from a listener named Christie.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Hi, my name is Christy. I promised there's a fun
fact in this, but I also have the trauma dump.
It's the one year anniversary of my mom's death. For
two weeks before she died, she was in a coma
and they thought that she was possibly able to hear us,
but they couldn't confirm anything. So we had been playing
music for her, and it was like music she liked
(32:33):
and for contact. My parents met at a poison concert,
so it's not like hospital music really, but we could tell.
And she was sleeping because her heart rate would change,
and so she fell asleep, and I was like, I
don't want her listening to like poison. How she's think.
I just put on the podcast that I listened to
when I'm going to sleep, which is your podcast. My
(32:56):
mom loved cats, so I put on your Cat episode
and immediately her eyes shot open, which did not happen
very often. I got kind of freaked out. I told
the nurse to turn the lights off. I thought the
lights were bothering her. That didn't make her close her eyes,
So I was like, do you think just doesn't like
(33:18):
the podcast? So we turned it off and immediately closed
her eyes and heart rate went back to sleep. So
the last thing my mom ever communicated to us was
that she wasn't, but your podcast is the reason that
(33:39):
we were able to find out that she could impact
hear us and I am still a big fan, so
thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's pretty fantastic. I love that so much. You know,
it definitely took a turn, but the kind of turns
with the humor that I would love to hear from
our listeners, that is terrific.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Christy, yes, absolutely, And for fans and non fans alike,
like Christie's mom, if you'd like to leave us a message,
you can give us a call at three O two
four oh five five nine two five. You can email
us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com, or find
us on Instagram and blue Sky at part Time Genius.
(34:21):
We will be back next week, but in the meantime,
from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank you so
much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(34:43):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal
Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
That is insane to me. I'm the utter co host,
Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
actually a super pretty, so I'm going to fix that
in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also
(35:05):
known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
and then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso Rallis. If you
(35:28):
like our videos. That is all Calypso's handiwork for more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
That's it from us here at Part Time Genius. Thank
you so much for listening.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope,
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what will What's that? And I go, so, did
you know.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
That Turkish delight is a real type of candy.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Like the stuff from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah. I don't know about you, but I didn't try
Turkish delight until I was in my thirties, and from
the time I read that book to the time I
was an adult, I thought it had to be the
most delicious thing in the world, just the way that
like that character Edmund craves it and he like basically
sells out his family for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Absolutely. I mean the word delight is in the name,
so you figure it must be good, but actually what
is it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It was kind of a precursor to the jellybean. So
if you imagine like no candy shell but that sweet
gummy stuff inside, that's actually what Turkish delight is. And
it can be flavored like rosewater, citrus, and it's really tasty.
It's thought to a versionate in Turkey during the seventeen hundreds,
and that's obviously why it has its name.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I feel like that's such a part time genius phrase
to say it was the precursor of the jelly bean.
I don't think you heard that on many other shows,
you know. Actually I thought it was kind of ridiculous
that Edmund would betray his family for some candy. Though,
don't see what we do need to talk about that for.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
A second, you know, I looked into it.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
First of all, Edmund's kind of a slimy character, so
I didn't feel that he wouldn't betray his family for it.
But you have to remember the book is set during
World War Two, when candy and sugar were rationed. So
when he asked the White Witch for Turkish delight, what
he's actually asking for, and Gabe told me this, because
I never would have figured it out on my own,
is that he's asking for a taste of normalcy, and
(01:56):
it's like a reminder of really happier time, Like h
That's something reader is related to in nineteen fifty when
the book was published, which you know, is just not
something you think about when you're reading it today.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and I guess that does make Edmund more more sympathetic,
or at least I suppose it does. But you got
to give c S Lewis credit for trolling generations of
kids into craving this rare candy, and I know that
wasn't his intention, but it's definitely what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Well, Thankfully, there are lots of more important things we
can credit C. S. Lewis for. Obviously, he's best known
as the author behind the Narnia books, the first of
which is celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary this year, but
he was also an esteem professor at both Oxford and Cambridge,
not to mention a poet, a theologian, and of course
the best friend or maybe best frind.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Of me of J. R. R.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Tolkien. There is a lot to cover, so open up
your wardrobes and less stuff inside.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Hot Ticketter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass wearing a trucker hat. And I've never
seen him in a trucker hat, but he pulls it off.
He looks good and the hat says Aslan is my homeboy.
That's our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now, megol I
appreciate that you cleared up those misunderstandings I had about
(03:33):
Turkish delight. So here's yet another thing I've always gotten
wrong about C. S. Lewis, and that's his nationality. So
based on the settings and his books, I actually always
assumed he was born in England, but he was actually Irish.
So he was born on Dulfast on November twenty ninth,
eighteen ninety eight, which means just a couple of weeks
ago it would have been his one hundred and twenty
(03:54):
seventh birthday.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I wish I had known, I would have brought party hats.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I'm telling you, Yeah, Well, I think Dylan has enough
of a hat for us all today. But anyway, Lewis's
parents were well off and well educated as well. His
father was a solicitor, which is a type of lawyer,
and his mom graduated from the Royal University of Ireland.
This was back in a time when most women didn't
attend college, so the whole family loved reading. But CS
(04:20):
was a prodigy of sorts, like, he was reading and
writing his own stories by the age of five.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So what kind of stuff was he writing?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books had just come out,
and CS and his older brother Warren were obsessed with
these books, so they started making up their own stories
about talking animals who wore clothes and lived in a
fantasy land called Boxin and CS began writing these stories down,
so some of these were actually published years later in
a collection called Boxin the Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis.
(04:51):
I'd love to read these things.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
That is insane. I'm very curious about how readable those
five year old stories are. It does sound like C. S.
Lewis had this kind of idyllic childhood, though.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well unfortunately it actually all came crashing down the summer
before he turned ten, so his mother died of cancer tragically,
and just a few weeks later his father packed him
up and sent him off to the English boarding school
his older brother attended. Losing his mom was hugely traumatic,
as you might expect, and on top of that, he
had the culture shock of being in a new country.
(05:23):
Aside from a brief stand at a school in Belfast
in nineteen ten, he actually never lived in Ireland again,
and people like me have mistaken him for an English
writer ever since then.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm really glad we cleared that up so obviously, this
whole time, we've been calling him CS, which is the
only way I've ever known him. But it actually stands
for Clive Staples, which is such a great name and
it sounds like a soul singer, right. But CS never
actually liked it, so he insisted that his family call
him something else, and, according to his brother, Warren or Warne,
(05:56):
as he liked to be called quote. In the course
of one holiday, my brother made the momentous decision to
change his name. Dislike in Clive and feeling his various
baby names to be beneath his dignity, he marched up
to my mother, put a forefinger on his chest, and
announced he.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Is Jackxie, Jacksie.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
He's stuck to this next day and thereafter, refusing to
answer to any other name, so to intimate friends, he
was Jack.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So where did Jacksie come from?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I have no idea. There's a remember that he chose
it in honor of a family dog that was hit
by a car, but you know, we spent a lot
of time digging into it and couldn't find solid proof
that it's true. Either way, the nickname got shortened to Jack,
and that's what his friends called c. S Lewis for
the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Actually, well, I'm gonna be honest, I don't really like
calling him Jacksie for the rest of this episode, so
so why don't we stick with CS?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, that sounds like a good deal, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So back to his story. CS was away from home
and he's a studious kid who loves to read. He
loves to write, but he has a tough time at
boarding school because the other kids and even the headmaster
actually pick on him for having an Irish accent. But
that wasn't the only reason that he got bullied. I
know this sounds sort of random, but you know how
most humans have double joint in thumbs, right, Like, look
(07:14):
at your thumbs you can picture that. Well, Lewis and
Warney both had only one joint on their thumbs.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That is so weird. But how did anyone even notice?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, apparently it's difficult to catch or throw a ball
when you have a one joint in thumb. Then it's
harder to grip objects in general. I wish both of
us had that excuse now thinking about this, but fortunately
we just aren't good at catching either way. But Lewis
wasn't great at team sports, and he caught a lot
of flak for it. So for the rest of his
life he limited his exercise to running, swimming or biking,
(07:45):
you know, sort of non thumb intensive activities.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, I've never thought to categorize those sports in that way,
but I.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Will now no thumbs involved, So c has lewis defective
thumbs actually didn't prevent him from joining the army though.
During World War One. He did his training and became
a low level officer. Then just a few months after
he began university studies at Oxford, he was shipped off
to France to fight. So he was wounded on the
front lines about five months after that and returned to
(08:14):
England where he got right back to doing what he
did best and what he loved doing most, which was writing.
Now he wasn't writing novels or spiritual treatises though it
actually came later on. Instead, in his early twenties, he
mostly wrote poetry. In fact, the first book he ever
published was a collection of poems assembled from his teenage years.
It was called Spirits in Bondage and he released it
(08:36):
under the pen name Clive Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
First off, it's so strange that he chose Clive Hamilton
as the name instead of, you know, using Jack, which
he's been insisting everyone call him by. But secondly, Spirits
in Bondage is a pretty strange title.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, And I think readers felt that way as well,
because they were not into it. And his second book
of poetry also fled. So these early failures left a
bad taste in Lewis's mouth and he rarely wrote poetry
from that point on. So after the war, Lewis continued
studying at Oxford. He was actually on scholarship there and
he graduated a few years later with two degrees, and
(09:14):
then he became an English tutor at the university in
nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And to be clear, tutor at Oxford is different from
like an SAT tutor, right, It's more like a professor
who teaches students in very small groups. Often it could
be one on one, and it's this like highly personalized
discussion that Oxford's famous for.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Like it's definitely more prestigious than
sort of like after school tutoring or something like that.
And Lewis kept that position at Oxford until nineteen fifty four,
at which point he became a professor of Medieval and
Renaissance English at Cambridge, where he actually stayed until his death.
So his career in academia sounds pretty straightforward. He was like,
(09:54):
clearly brilliant. He taught at the country's top school. But
when it comes to his personal life, if things actually
get a little more unusual, no, what do you mean
by that? Well, during the war, Lewis befriended a fellow
soldier named Patty Moore, and they made a pact that
if either one of them was killed in action, the
survivor would look after the other's parents. Louis of course
(10:16):
made it through the war, but Patty didn't. So Louis
stayed true to his word and he took in Patty's mom,
a woman named Janie Moore, as well as his sister Maureen.
In fact, he cared for Janey for the rest of
her life, and actually there are rumors that they had
an affair, although most experts believe Louis broke it off
when he became more devoted to Christianity and he sort
(10:37):
of sounds like a soap opera, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And things get stranger. Louis's older brother also moves in
with them. Warney began drinking heavily after his time in
the British Army. He was actually up to three bottles
of whiskey a day according to some reports. And well,
I'm sure that all of that made for a difficult
writing environment. That's actually the backdrop against which Lewis is
writing some of his mo celebrated works, including the Narnia series.
(11:02):
But at the time most people didn't know any of
this because Lewis was super shy and also very very private.
He never talked much about his personal life or his feelings,
even with his close friends, which isn't to say he
was cold. He just always thought there was something more
interesting to talk about than himself. As one of his
friends at Cambridge put it, quote, Lewis was too shy
(11:23):
to seem to want to be known, and too modest
to think that anybody would want to know him.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Hm. That's interesting because you know, you think with that
Oxford and Cambridge pedigree, you'd think he might be more pompous.
And I mean, I will admit I do find some
of his writing a little stuffy at times.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, but he really was unpretentious. And I have a
funny story that illustrates just how down to earth he was,
but I'm going to save that for after the break.
(12:04):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're celebrating the
seventy fifth anniversary of The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe with a deep dive into CS Lewis's life. If
you're enjoying this episode, please share it with a friend
who loves the Narnia series as much as we do. Okay, well,
so before the break, we were talking about how, despite
moving in these highbrow academic circles, C. S. Lewis was
(12:27):
a pretty humble guy, and it turns out that even
extended to his wardrobe, by which I mean his actual clothes,
not his furniture. Gabe found a bunch of stories about
what a terrible dresser C. S. Lewis was. Apparently, his
favorite outfit was an old tweed coat, a pair of
baggy flannel pants, and a beat up felt hat. According
to one report, Lewis once lost his hat while on
(12:48):
a picnic, only to find it months later under a
bush with a bunch of field mice living in it. Actually,
here's how his brother Warnie tells the story. Quote Jack
once took a guest for an early morning walk on
the Magdalen College grounds after a very wet night. Presently,
the guest brought his attention to a curious lump of
cloth hanging on a bush. That looks like my hat,
(13:11):
said Jack. Then joyfully, it is my hat, and clapping
the sodden mass on his head, he continued his walk.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
That's a very great story.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
So in addition to not really caring about his looks
or the condition of his hats, he also didn't care
that much about making money. He didn't earn a lot
as a tutor, and whatever royalties he received from his books,
he gave a way to charity. And while his heart
was definitely in the right place. C. S. Lewis kind
of had his head in the clouds about his finances,
Like because he donated all his earnings, he thought he
(13:44):
was exempt from paying taxes, which the government informed him
was definitely not the case.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, sadly it doesn't exactly work that way. But all right,
So we've covered a lot of Lewis's life so far,
and there's one aspect that we've barely touched on, and
that's his spiritual which, of course we feel like we
need to get to given what he wrote in later years,
and to talk about that, we need to discuss the
other fantasy writing elephant in the room, and that's mister J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So this is the bit I've been so excited about.
I want to hear all the tea.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
All right. Well, the TLDR is that Lewis and Tolkien
had a long, complicated friendship. This is definitely one of
those friendships where you just wish you could be a
fly on the wall to hear this conversation. And the
reason things were complicated is it because they were both
fantasy authors with initials in their names. It's because they
disagreed on some pretty big things, including religion. So the
(14:39):
two first met in nineteen twenty six. This was at
a gathering for the Oxford English Department because Tolkien was
also a tutor there. But they didn't become friends until
the early nineteen thirties. They were both part of an
Oxford literary group called the Inklings, and they'd gather every
week in university offices or maybe at local pub and
they'd have these met meet to workshop their writing. And
(15:02):
to describe the way these meetings went, I have to
paint a totally cliche picture, but it's sort of the truth.
So here it goes. They would sit in leather armchairs
in front of a crackling fire, drinking brandy and smoking cigars,
and they would just talk about story ideas for hours
on end. Is that not exactly what you picture?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
When I'm so perfect? I just the only thing you
didn't describe was elbow patches.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I feel like right right on same same. Anyway, it
wasn't long before Lewis and Tolkien bonded over a mutual
love of fantasy and myth, but one of the biggest
points of contention between them was their differing views on God.
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and Lewis, who was
(15:45):
raised Irish Protestant, became an atheist in his teens and
remained one during his early career at Oxford.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That is so wild to think about if you know
his writing, that he was like an atheist. Like I
remember being in fourth grade and my friend Jeremy told
me that as in the line of the Witch in
the Wardrobe was supposed to be Jesus, and I remember
thinking that is so ridiculous. I was like, read the
text a little closer he's obviously a lion.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well. The thing is Lewis is definitely known today as
a theologian, but his spiritual journey was anything but straightforward.
Like he once wrote about having a deep spiritual longing
that he could never quite square with his disbelief. He
referred to it as the God sized hole in his life,
and it was his conversations with Tolkien that set him
on the path to filling that gap. So in nineteen
(16:35):
thirty one, Lewis and Tolkien went on a long walk
with a fellow inkling named Henry Victor. Dyson and Lewis
had been struggling to make sense of his spirituality for
a while at that point, and so during the course
of their walk, the three men began talking about the
relationship between God and myth. Tolkien expressed his belief that
folklore and mythology were ways of articulating higher truths about
(16:57):
the nature of reality, and that's how he viewed Christianity.
It was a myth, but you know, a true one.
So to Tolkien, the message of Christianity was the truth
about the world, and all the other ancient stories out
there were attempts to express that same truth. Something about
that struck a chord with Lewis, so much so that
within two weeks of that walk, he announced that he
(17:18):
was actually Christian.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Again.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I love the one.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I love that they go in these walks and just
talk about God like that's a myth. Yeah. But also
I love that something clicked with them, you know, like
they about atheist and suddenly he's hearing about myths and
he decides like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I'm totally in.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And it actually was notable in another way too. So
not only did their conversation rekindle Lewis's faith, it also
inspired not one, but two of the greatest fantasy series
ever written, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis's Chronicles
of Narnia. All that talk of myth making had the
authors itching to write their own stories, the earliest drafts
(17:56):
of which they presented to their fellow Inklings over the
next few years. Once again, to be a fly on
the wall just would have been wild.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I am curious. So were the other members of the
club into the fantasy writing as you know, the same
way that Lewis and Tolkien were, or were they kind
of like rolling their eyes like, oh great, here we
go with Elves again.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know, I sort of wish it was the Lauderan.
They were definitely into it, Like I think it helped
that they were exactly and they were all well read
writers themselves who loved classic fantasy stories like a Wolf
and Tales of King Arthur. But Gay pointed me to
this article in The Atlantic that shed some light on
other reasons why they may have been so open to fantasy,
(18:39):
particularly after their experiences in World War One. So here's
how the author James Parker puts it. Blown sky high
by the psychic rupture of the Great War, the Inklings
responded not with fragmentation and pessimism, but with a redoubled
commitment to the world behind, the world freshly visible through
this new rip in the fabric. It's pretty powerful quote there,
(19:02):
So you know, rather than focus on the surface level
ugliness that they were faced with, these guys chose to
invent fantasy worlds where they could explore a broader view
of life. It's one of the reasons why their books
remained so compelling, and it's also a big reason why
they became such close friends. They shared a similar view
of the world and of the role that writing and myths,
play and making sense of the world. But you know,
(19:24):
as we've alluded to, their friendship was rocky at times.
Tolkien was a stickler for clarity and precision, and he
felt Lewis's Narnia books lack those qualities. In fact, Tolkien
said that the series suffered from quote incoherent mythology.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So maybe he also didn't see the Lion as Jesus either, Like, like.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You're looking looking for some backup on that. Yeah, I'm
pretty sure he got that reference. But you know, in
addition to the writing, he had personal beef with Lewis
two He looked a later in their lives, and Tolkien
felt that Lewis had developed anti Catholic views, which offended him,
and he didn't approve of a romance that Lewis struck
(20:06):
up with an American divorcee. Still, the men never lost
touch completely, and in public they continue to praise one
another's work.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It is really funny and fascinating that fantasy, even in
those times, provides this space for people to see the
world as they want it to be, you know, like,
and you see how absolutely comforting fantasy can be for
like marginalized people today and how many people fall in
love with these worlds. And it's amazing to think that
(20:35):
these people who've suffered through a world war are now
looking to or too world wars, are looking to fantasy
to sort of make themselves whole and create a new world.
And that's really beautiful. But that's a great way to
put it when you're talking about this, like it is
interesting that you know, maybe it's just because Lewis is
so humble or quiet, like it sounds like Tolkien is
(20:56):
the one who's doing most of the complaining.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Well, if that's true, he may have actually regretted it.
So after Lewis died of kidney failure in nineteen sixty three,
Tolkien wrote a letter to his own daughter where he
lamented the way loss scenes to pile up in old age.
He said, referring to Lewis's death quote, so far, I
have felt like an old tree that is losing all
its leaves one by one. This feels like an axe
(21:20):
blow near the roots.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
They probably cared about each other more than they let on,
But you know, speaking of his daughter, our family actually
went to a Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan Library here
in New York some years ago and it was full
of Tolkien's drawings, including these Christmas cards he'd drawn and
written for his children, and it was so fun and
so weird and so elaborate, and it made me think
(21:45):
that like having a talented fantasy writer as your dad
and having him write you letters all the time could
be a really wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Not bad, not bad.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, you know that there's a lot we don't know
or can't quite verify about the friendship of these two,
Like there's an anne about C. S. Lewis that I'd
heard about but was never able to verify before. And
this actually comes from our friend Adam in college. He
told me that Lewis had once thought about converting to
Hinduism and that he had debated between becoming a Christian
(22:14):
and a Hindu, and honestly, it just sounded so far fetched.
But we finally got the chance to look into the
story this week and what I found was pretty interesting.
So I'm going to share it with you, But first
we got to take another quick break.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Man, you are dropping the teases in this episode. Welcome
back to part time genius. Okay, man, it sounds like
(22:47):
he did some detective work here. I love some good
detective work. So tell me about the rumor. Is it true?
Did C. S. Lewis almost become a Hindu?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well, he definitely gave it some real thought. In fact,
he thought long and hard about just about every religion
out there, and he wrote about all of them. Most
of us know Lewis for his children's stories or other
works of fiction, but obviously a huge chunk of his
writing was these scholarly essays and ruminations on theology, and
the latter is where you can find Lewis's thoughts on
(23:18):
Hinduism and pretty much all the other religions too. So overall,
I get the impression that Lewis explored as many different
faiths as he could during his journey from agnosticism to
becoming a man of faith. But as he explained in
a nineteen forty five essay, he only considered two options
for himself, Christianity and Hinduism.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And why do you think those two?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Well, it comes down to the kind of person he
was and how he viewed the world. As you pointed out,
Lewis came to his religious belief thanks largely to his
connection with fantasy and myth. That was how he found
his way into it. By seeing Christianity as the truest
expression of the stories he had grown up reading. Obviously,
that's not usually how someone becomes a Christian, but that's
what worked for Lewis because it was able to satisfy
(24:03):
both sides of himself, which were the logical and the
emotional aspects, or the rational and the artful or mathemagic
as our pal Bob Pittman likes to say, but whatever
you want to call it. Lewis was a clear cut
example of that dichotomy. So on the one hand, he
was this rigorous scholar who could debate and reason with
the best of them, And on the other hand, he's
(24:26):
into Lewis Carroll and Norse mythology and he's writing about
witches and talking animals. And Lewis believed that both sides
were really important, Like to have a good story, or
a good life, or a good religion, you needed both
reason and emotion. And he decided that Christianity and Hinduism
were the only religions that did that for him.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So what do he think those two had that other
religions didn't.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, it's a good question, and I'll answer it with
a soup analogy because that's how I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Was hoping that.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Lewis said, there really aren't as many different religions as
you might imagine, because they all fall into one of
two categories. He saw them as thick or clear, and
by thick he meant archaic or primitive religions, which he
believed weren't moral enough. And then there were the philosophical, ethical,
and universalizing religions, which he didn't see as spiritual enough.
(25:18):
So for Lewis, Christianity and Hinduism were the only two
religions that didn't go too far in either of those
directions and instead kind of fell in the middle. They
appealed to both reason and imagination. And as he put it, quote,
if there is a true religion, it must be both
thick and clear, for the true God must have made
both the child and the man, both the savage and
(25:40):
the citizen, both the head and the belly. And the
only two religions that fulfill this condition are Hinduism and Christianity.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, I guess he's pretty clear on his
opinion here, But what made him become a Christian and
not Hindu? You know, that's where things get a little hairy.
Lewis said, that Hinduism didn't fully meet his criteria because
he saw it as existing only in two forms, the
quote unredeemable savage religion that goes on in the village
and that of the hermit who philosophizes in the forest.
(26:09):
But he felt Christianity was compelling to all different kinds
of people, both the highbrow and the primitive alike, and
I guess the middle brow as well. Now, obviously Lewis
betrays his understanding of these religions and he's not doing
his argument any favors by dismissing whole religions like that.
But it is true that you could split any religion
into a high and low version of itself, and also
(26:30):
how you practice it is really really wide. But I mean,
if he believed that old myths and stories were all
expressions of deeper truth, wouldn't that mean that all fates
are equally viable.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean he mixed different fables and mythology into
his books. And if you look at something like the
Narnia series, people call it a Christian allegory, but it
also borrows from Greek and Roman mythology. There's Norse mythology
in there, Germanic folklore, medieval romance. They're also European fairy tales. Also,
Santa Claus shows up at one point, which nice apparently J. R. R.
(27:04):
Tolkien very much disagreed with. That might be more than
incle hears he's talking about. Yeah, so I do think
that this kitchen sync approach to world building is a
big part of the series appeal right now. I can't
speak for C. S. Lewis the theologian, but C. S.
Lewis the artist clearly knew that if you want to
communicate something true to the most people possible, then your
(27:28):
best bet is to weave it into a story that's
really universal.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Which makes sense and actually speaking of things that are
universally enjoyed, what do you say we start today's fact off?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Did you know that CS Lewis shares his death date
with not one, but two other highly influential figures. You've
got Alvius Huxley, who wrote Brave New World, of course,
and the thirty fifth US President, John F. Kennedy. All
three men died on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
and as you might expect the deaths of those two
British authors were overshadowed by the jfk assassination and initially
(28:11):
received very little attention in the press.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, it is wild to think that C. S. Lewis
overlapsed in time with Kennedy. Yeah, like I do not
think about them in the same time period.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I'm the same way.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Okay, So here's one. Despite their differences, Lewis nominated J. R. R.
Tolkien for the nineteen sixty one Nobel Prize for Literature,
but according to the BBC, it was rejected because the
Nobel Committee felt that Tolkien's work quote has not in
any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh that is rough, And I don't mean to ruin
our chances of winning the Nobel Prize for podcasting. And
I think they're talking about one of those maybe, But
I got to say that is not a great decision. No,
all right, Well we're on the subject of Lewis and Tolkien.
Here's one thing they could agree on. They absolutely hated
Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And this is true.
(29:01):
They actually saw together in the theater. That's so funny
to it's amazing, I know. And as fantasy buffs, they
took issue with how the Dwarves were depicted on the screen, so,
as Lewis put it later, the movie Dwarves had quote bloated, drunken,
low comedy faces. She went on to say that Dwarfs
ought to be ugly, of course, but not in that way.
(29:22):
I don't know what he was thinking. High comedy, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
As for Tolkien, he agreed that the Dwarves had been
done a disservice by Disney, and furthermore, he despised the
idea of watering down fairytale concepts, calling Disney's work hopelessly
corrupted and vulgar. So I really don't think they gave
it high marks.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, I know. I wouldn't have thought of them as
Dwarf purists, but I guess they are. So. For my
next fact, I want to mention Lewis's wife, Joy Davidmanton.
They were only married for a few years towards the
end of Lewis's life before she died of cancer, and
she was a really interesting figure in her own right.
She was born in New York City, the daughter of
(30:02):
Jewish immigrants, and she was both a musical and academic prodigy.
She read Lewis's books when she was in school and
then began writing herself, and after she separated from her
first husband in the late nineteen forties, she struck up
a correspondence with Lewis, with whom she had shared a
mutual friend. They finally met in person in nineteen fifty
two when david Min traveled to the UK to work
(30:24):
on a book about the Ten Commandments, and eventually she
settled there with her two sons, hoping to keep them
away from her ex, and Lewis, as he's kind of
wont to do, decides to support them financially. The couple
married when Davidson's visa expired, and Lewis really seemed to
think he was just doing this to help a friend.
But later, when david Min was diagnosed with cancer, the
(30:46):
relationship deepened, and after her death, Lewis published a memoir
called A Grief Observed, in which she reflects on their
love and how much her loss shook his faith.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Wow, that's sad, but you know also lovely all right.
For our final fact, you remember how Lewis gave away
the royalties from all of his books. Well, he also
didn't think that his work would be worth much in
the future. In fact, he once advised a fan not
to invest too much in a first edition of The
Screw Tape Letters, saying that they shouldn't pay more than
half the original price because it was a used copy.
(31:18):
And so, of course he was wrong about all of this.
His books have sold over one hundred million copies, including
translations in over thirty different languages, and that first edition
is worth many thousands of dollars today, So he definitely
underestimated himself.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That is incredible. Well, I think, well, we've had a
lot of good facts here, but I think the snow
white fact and the fact that these two famous authors
were increasingly annoyed at a Disney movie is the best
thing I've heard all week. So it definitely gets the trophy.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, that does it for today's episode of Part Time Genius.
But before you go, I'm sure you've heard us mentioned.
We have a hotline where listeners call in and suggest
ideas for the show. Sometimes they ask questions or anything else,
and I want to share this incredible message we got
recently from a listener named Christie.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Hi, my name is Christy. I promised there's a fun
fact in this, but I also have the trauma dump.
It's the one year anniversary of my mom's death. For
two weeks before she died, she was in a coma
and they thought that she was possibly able to hear us,
but they couldn't confirm anything. So we had been playing
music for her, and it was like music she liked
(32:33):
and for contact. My parents met at a poison concert,
so it's not like hospital music really, but we could tell.
And she was sleeping because her heart rate would change,
and so she fell asleep, and I was like, I
don't want her listening to like poison. How she's think.
I just put on the podcast that I listened to
when I'm going to sleep, which is your podcast. My
(32:56):
mom loved cats, so I put on your Cat episode
and immediately her eyes shot open, which did not happen
very often. I got kind of freaked out. I told
the nurse to turn the lights off. I thought the
lights were bothering her. That didn't make her close her eyes,
So I was like, do you think just doesn't like
(33:18):
the podcast? So we turned it off and immediately closed
her eyes and heart rate went back to sleep. So
the last thing my mom ever communicated to us was
that she wasn't, but your podcast is the reason that
(33:39):
we were able to find out that she could impact
hear us and I am still a big fan, so
thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's pretty fantastic. I love that so much. You know,
it definitely took a turn, but the kind of turns
with the humor that I would love to hear from
our listeners, that is terrific.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Christy, yes, absolutely, And for fans and non fans alike,
like Christie's mom, if you'd like to leave us a message,
you can give us a call at three O two
four oh five five nine two five. You can email
us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com, or find
us on Instagram and blue Sky at part Time Genius.
(34:21):
We will be back next week, but in the meantime,
from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank you so
much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(34:43):
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal
Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
That is insane to me. I'm the utter co host,
Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
actually a super pretty, so I'm going to fix that
in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also
(35:05):
known for like a decade at this point, maybe more.
Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is always dressed up,
always cheering us on, and always ready to hit record
and then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso Rallis. If you
(35:28):
like our videos. That is all Calypso's handiwork for more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
That's it from us here at Part Time Genius. Thank
you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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