I used to think of the patron saint of evangelicalism's imagination as living in Narnia all the time, his whole existence shot up with that unearthly beauty which pervades his books (even the non-fiction ones). Lewis talked about how George MacDonald baptized his imagination--but surely I am one of many for whom Lewis' work was the baptism of my imagintion. And I used to think he must have maintained that spiritual/aesthetic/imaginative "high" all the time.
But I got a chance to go to Oxford a few years back, only to find it to be a rather noisy, busy town; if I hadn't had known it was Oxford, I would have taken it to be just one more English town with beautiful architecture and a lot of noisy cars. (The noise of the cars and buses, roaring down along the roads we walked, is the dominant impression of Oxford that remains with me.) The colleges are very nice and quiet, of course, but you have to pay to get into those, so I just looked in from the outside. And the pub that Lewis and Tolkein and his friends met in: it's just an ordinary pub, nothing special.
It's been so easy for me to project a heavenly, easy, blessed existence onto others as a way of vicariously escaping the inevitability of plodding along in my own shoes. But Lewis doubtless had to plod as well: to grade papers and put up with complaints and deal with exhaustion and the disappointment of sitting down to write and finding only words on the page, and no magic. But, in spite of that, he was able to write some of the most heavenly stories I've ever read--not through an escape from everyday keeping-at-it, but exactly in that context, he had the vision to write about a wardrobe, and a little girl who opened it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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8 comments:
Reading this I am reminded, in my own life, how magic can, not only, come despite the everyday busyness but be birthed from it.
I was watching a video a couple weeks ago about how Claudio Sanchez (lead singer from concept band "Coheed and Cambria") was inspired (for his comic book/space story/songs) from things that he saw everyday in the busyness of working in a pet shop and living at home with his parents, and that being his whole world.
Thanks for posting Eric :)
Hey, thanks for checking in, lomed!
I too love Oxford town, but my dominant recollections of it are the noisiness and bustle as well.
Your post as a whole, and your mention of 'plod' in particular, recalled to me G.M. Hopkins' poem "The Windhover," at the end of which:
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Please Lord, your grace amidst the sheer plod.
Wow, love to see more Hopkins on the web, gold vermillion gashes and all!
Lisa Gertz just posted some photos of Oxford on her blog. http://lisablythgertz.blogspot.com/2009/04/oxford-city-centre.html
In C.S. Lewis' day, it was probably quieter and less busy, but I'm sure he still had his share of mundane days.
Eric, I've enjoyed your last several posts. Its helpful to remember the mundaneness of someone like Lewis' life - I remember having that impression after watching shadowlands - even just watching him in everyday situations reminds you that he was a normal dude like the rest of us. You also see it in his letters when he complains about being busy with grading and such.
On Oxford, I don't remember it being particularly noisy, but thats probably because I spent all my time in the library!
Erin, I enjoyed seeing those pictures! Brought back many memories.
Don't you think that in many ways Lewis was in dialogue both with peers and with epics (Milton, the Chivalric Romances, Spencer, Eddas, Plato) and that this dialogue drove much of the magic that you feel in Narnia and the Thulcandra cycle?
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