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Review
‘A constantly enjoyable volume’ John Carey, Sunday Times
‘A triumph of skill and tact… not one dull or slack sentence’ Kingsley Amis, New Statesman
‘It must be technically very difficult to write a biography of more than one person at a time: it is still more difficult to capture the atmosphere of a group… Mr Carpenter has managed both things admirably’ Mary Warnock, Sunday Telegraph
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Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award for Best Biography
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Through the years, I've had numerous friends who've been fascinated/inspired by the life and works of C.S. Lewis. Due to that, I read both Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity while in college, though I didn't really enjoy them until I reread these works in 2009. I also enjoyed the 1993 film Shadowlands, but didn't have a great interest into learning about Lewis' life until more recently. Two issues of Christian History whet my appetite, and I eventually read The Narnian earlier this year. C.S. Lewis not only had a voluminous literary output, but his life itself proved a strong example of Christian faith in action. Yet, how did his books come together?
The Inklings, Humphrey Carpenter's engaging work from 1978, sets out to answer that question. It shows how Lewis benefited greatly from the feedback of others, and how the creator of Narnia conversely aided fellow authors with their respective works. This text also gives the reader helpful insight into how Lewis and Tolkien's philosophical and theological differences led to their regrettable estrangement. It further demonstrates how lesser-known characters, such as Charles Williams, played a role in Lewis' intellectual journey and social life.
If one is looking for an extensive biography on Tolkien, this is probably not the best place to go. Humphrey Carpenter wrote a much-praised volume about him one year before The Inklings, so Tolkien's interactions with fellow Inklings are a primary focus here. As part of that, the reader does get the feeling that C.S. Lewis helped to make the Lord of the Rings a reality through his constant encouragement. At the end of The Inklings, it's obvious that Tolkien never forgot Lewis' personal and professional contributions to his own life story.
This work is full of other "nuggets" as well, including one chapter devoted to creating a hypothetical Inklings meeting. If you're in the market for a Lewis-related biography, you won't go wrong here.
The Inklings, Humphrey Carpenter's engaging work from 1978, sets out to answer that question. It shows how Lewis benefited greatly from the feedback of others, and how the creator of Narnia conversely aided fellow authors with their respective works. This text also gives the reader helpful insight into how Lewis and Tolkien's philosophical and theological differences led to their regrettable estrangement. It further demonstrates how lesser-known characters, such as Charles Williams, played a role in Lewis' intellectual journey and social life.
If one is looking for an extensive biography on Tolkien, this is probably not the best place to go. Humphrey Carpenter wrote a much-praised volume about him one year before The Inklings, so Tolkien's interactions with fellow Inklings are a primary focus here. As part of that, the reader does get the feeling that C.S. Lewis helped to make the Lord of the Rings a reality through his constant encouragement. At the end of The Inklings, it's obvious that Tolkien never forgot Lewis' personal and professional contributions to his own life story.
This work is full of other "nuggets" as well, including one chapter devoted to creating a hypothetical Inklings meeting. If you're in the market for a Lewis-related biography, you won't go wrong here.
35 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read this book just prior to working on my own commission - a biography of folk singer Bert Jansch within the context of the British folk and blues scenes of the early 60s (published as 'Dazzling stranger: Bert Jansch and the British folk and blues revival', bloomsbury 2000) - I found it immensely inspirational. The content, of course, had no bearing on my own work but Carpenter's book gave me confidence that complex interweaving of what are effectively multiple biographies within one book and within a single, binding and (most importantly) eminently readable narrative thrust COULD be done. Further, Carpenter's lean and accessible writing style belies the comprehensiveness of his research. True, one can find more detailed biography on Tolkien and Lewis as individuals elsewhere but Carpenter paints a particularly intriguing portrait of the relatively obscure Charles Williams and builds up a compelling portrait of these writers' interactions from minimal documentary sources but filling the gaps of formal knowledge with great insight and convincing conjecture. His recreation in one chapter, for example, of a typical Inklings meeting in Lewis' rooms is brilliantly done through recreating as conversation views known to have been held by all the participants and, as far as possible, by importing actual sentences and arguments from the various letters and writings of each one. This kind of work is rarely successful in my judgement, but Carpenter pulls it off wonderfully. This book is both a good read for those casually interested in the main protagonists, and - in my view - an inspirational work of research and realisation for other biographical writers. Brilliant!
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is absolutely great if you want to discover more about Tolkien and Lewis. But what if found the best part is that you discover loads about their friends whom you almost never heard about (at least I didn't). If you want to know more about the ties Tolkien, Lewis and their friends (and their work) had this is the book for you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I regret reading this book
All the comments made by previous reviewers are accurate. It is a brilliant and fascinating book. In my case too fascinating by half. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Post enlightenment
VERY VERY READABLE
I'm currently doing a research paper on the Inklings and I found Carpenter's biography extremely useful, easy to read, and exciting. Read more
Published on 10 April 2006 by lzlzzzz
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