Dangerous splendors

 I wrote recently about a little book I had found at the local thrift store, and while a nifty little story, the main attraction was its introduction of Charles Williams, a hitherto unknown to myself compatriot of C.S.Lewis, J.R.R.Tolkien and the other 'Inklings.'  Curious, as the aforementioned authors are some of my personal favorites, I plunged into some of his writings.  Whereas Lewis and Tolkien write fantasy set in another world, place, or time, Williams prefers to haunt 1930s England with his own visions.  I read all seven of his novels and discovered an excellent writer, his writings are as deep and vivid and perplexing as 'That Hideous Strength' and 'The Man Who Was Thursday,' but a disquiet shadow, barely discerned, looms over them.

When asked about his 'Screwtape Letters,' Lewis remarked that it was quite easy to keep going on in that infernal vein once one got in the habit, but it was so disconcerting that he daren't continue overlong in such a study for his own sake and that of his readers.  I wonder if that is what haunts William's novels, especially his last two.  I haven't read up on his history or writing or personal beliefs or the reaction of his contemporaries to his works, but I did read a brief overview on a blog dedicated to the subject and was rather disturbed to find him an avid occultist, one with questionable intentions towards young ladies, in that light his final two novels don't surprise me in the least.

From his writing I can discern that he was a man of supreme spiritual vision, with the ability to craft a story that draws his reader into that fabulous and terrifying world, but underlying it all seems to be a gradual drift in thought away from the good and the right and the true, into a spectral grey world of ambivalent evil and banal light, wherein there is only Power and all ends the same.  Did that gifted writer, that great spiritual visionary, unlike Lewis, drift ever more gradually into the darkness, did he take Lewis's surest road to Hell, unmarked, gradual, easy underfoot?  Was he so blinded by spiritual splendors and terrors beyond his comprehension and his fascination therewith that he gradually drifted into a sort of moral stupor in which the Power was everything and the Truth nothing, in which all ends were the same and the means certainly justified thereby?  An addict of spiritual phenomena drawn inevitably to destruction like so many others drawn likewise by the more common addictions of drink, drugs, lust, or gambling?

Would I recommend his books?  Lewis really liked 'The Place of the Lion," and I believe it had some influence upon his 'That Hideous Strength.'  I certainly rank them highly as far as literary experience, quality of the writing, philosophical questions posed, and overall a satisfying experience, but they are haunted and haunting.  'The Shadows of Ecstasy' is probably his most problematic book in that light and I found very little redeeming virtues therein.  'The Greater Trumps' is a fascinating and beautiful work, if falling utterly flat at the end and failing to make much sense of what started out to be an intriguing idea.  The others are excellent books in their own right, and I would not hesitate to recommend them save for that lingering whiff of brimstone, barely discerned in most of them, but ever stronger in each successive work.  If you are looking for something to fascinate and challenge your spiritual sensibilities and you have already tackled Lewis and Chesterton, then you might be ready for Williams.  If you are wishy-washy in your faith or lax in your literary habits, start with Lewis, not 'That Hideous Strength,' and build up your spiritual and literary muscles before tackling something so alluring yet also potentially dangerous as Williams, lest you find yourself following unwittingly down that easy road to Hell, so enamored of the terrific visions that you lose sight of the 'Way, the Truth, and the Life.'   

A real book review about a real book!

 How long has it been since I've read something new...wow, I can't remember, which might mean it was two weeks ago but more likely several years.  I just finished 'Here There Be Dragons' by James Owens, a novel I found at the local thrift store, the title alone requiring my purchase thereof.  Usually I get sucked into good books and end up staying up too late trying to finish them, something that old age and kids and life responsibilities have made untenable any more, which is why I rarely read anything new but spend my rare reading time treading old and beloved paths, that and I've been so disappointed with modern writers that I invest so much time and emotion into their worlds only to give up in dismay halfway through and move on with my life.  Pern has grown merely political and tawdry, the Wheel of Time went flat, Harry Potter lost its magic, and the entire Star Wars extended universe was chucked in a wormhole to be replaced with films whose plots were taped together at random out of discards from the cutting room floor of the original trilogy.  So needless to say, I am very wary of starting anything new, especially in a modern sense.  Ware, for there be slight spoilers ahead!

On the surface this is a delightful book, and if you, like a dabbling duck, just stay on the surface and happily paddle along, it is an enjoyable read with a nifty little twist at the end, but if you are a diving duck, fearless of the watery depths, beware, for the bubble of heedless literary abandon will burst and leave you rather muddled and flat.  I love the idea, the very concept of this book, the literary Easter eggs, but like modern culture, which has reduced the celebration of the pivotal moment in human history to a celebration of a fat rabbit depositing strangely painted unripe chickens in random locations, this book has turned three of the foremost writers of fantasy and Christian thought into flat, witless, uninteresting bozos who can't see a plot point the size of a freight train bearing down on them.  While Lewis and Tolkien (I have not read anything of Charles William's yet, but I intend to, the one redeeming part of this whole book!) write with the unshakeable undergirding of their faith (as does Williams supposedly) firmly beneath their own created realities, this book seems to take dibs and dabs from just about everywhere (everything from Greek Mythology to Sherlock Holmes), pastes a classic 'conflict of good vs. evil' montage over the whole thing, with a little 'look inside yourself' mantra to soothe modern sensibilities and tries to pass it off as the inspiration to some of the world's most beloved writers.

The problem is you need to believe in good and evil, truth and deception, right and wrong, light and darkness, like the three protagonist's actual faith inspired in their own lives and writings, to write a compelling story about it.  Lewis had all sorts of pagan deities and mythological creatures peopling Narnia, but they were subservient to 'the deeper magic,' they were aware of the Emperor Across the Sea, the whole world was a product of a greater reality from which the rules of their own were derived, not a bevy of random literary characters thrown together in a seemingly random collage of all stories with only the barest threads of magic and disbelief to connect them.  It is a happy little dream, this bold little book, but to paraphrase Lewis, 'five minutes real toothache (or actual thought) would put all this fluff to flight.'  The Inklings believed this stuff and could therefore actually write compellingly about it, I have no idea what Owens believes, but I don't want to read anything written by his protagonists, if they are as vapid as he portrays them to be, though in reality two of the three are some of my favorite writers.

And why pick on these three if you aren't a closet believer yourself?  It seems weird to write a fantastic account of three overtly Christian writers if you don't want their mythos to creep into your world, unless you are trying to portray their writing as the result of their immersion in a completely different mythology that was only misinterpreted by later readers to be of a Christian flavor and thus more culturally acceptable at the time (which might make a far more interesting story, come to think of it!), but then anything is possible in this convoluted and perplexing age wherein the barricade scene in Les Mis is considered some sort of pivotal and epochal moment for social justice and the whole point of the book when it is only a minor plot point to move the story ahead and the man voicing Aslan in the live action Narnia movies seems to think them to portray all faiths and none, to say nothing of biological realities being a mere societal construct!  Or maybe these books were written to discourage people from reading the books by said authors (another fabulous novel idea!)?  Why not pick three random authors without a common faith but who might theoretically have known one another?  G.K.Chesterton provides a lovely selection in his book on Heretics!  These three were straight out of Orthodoxy, but if you want fluffy reading that doesn't lack in depth, his essays like Tremendous Trifles are delicious.

Overall, a nice little bit of literary fluff but not a series I am going to pursue due to a jarring fault in its worldview that can't decide if it is postmodern or vaguely deistic or a syncretistic hash when its three protagonists are all in reality brilliant men, deep thinkers all, and certainly Christian in their writing, worldview, thought life, and legacy.  Try 'Surprised By Joy' if you want to learn more about the real Jack, in his own words.  Or visit Narnia for real, rather than sailing off in a flimsy imitation of the Dawn Treader and experiencing it second hand.  A good premise but an unsound foundation.  A flashy paint job but the engine is a mess.