Did You Know...J.R.R. Tolkien

I was thinking of something to post last night and I realized that it's been a while since I wrote a Did You Know...post. So, guess what I'm posting today? You've got it--Did You Know!

I'm surprised that I haven't done this one yet. J.R.R. Tolkien is my all-time favorite author. I know all sorts of things about him and his two most popular books--The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Do you? Let's find out!

Did You Know...

• That Tolkien was born in 1892 in South Africa? His father had accepted a job there as a bank manager.
• That Tolkien's father died when he was three and his mother died when he was 12?
• By the end of World War I all but one of his closest friends was dead? The war had a profound affect upon Tolkien that would surface in his writing (such as in his description of the Dead Marshes).
• His father was Catholic and his mother converted to Catholicism? Tolkien was a staunch Catholic all his life, somewhat of a trial in England, and this affected his writing as well.
• Tolkien distrusted machines in general and cars in particular? Whenever possible, he rode his bicycle. He thought the world was being overwhelmed by machines and loved the green, peaceful English countryside.
• He fell in love with his future wife, Edith Bratt, when he was 16, but was forbidden by his guardian to communicate with her until he was  because Edith was Protestant? He kept his promise. On his 21st birthday, he wrote to Edith asking her to marry him. She was engaged to be married to someone else, but cancelled that engagement, converted to Catholicism, and married Tolkien. They were married over 50 years.
• He did the illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings himself? Although he downplayed his artistic skills, he was better than most and his publisher, much to his surprise, agreed to use his illustrations.
• Tolkien's devout faith was a major reason than his friend and fellow author C.S. Lewis converted from atheism to Christianity? Lewis chose the Church of England over Catholicism, which dismayed Tolkien to some extent, but I believe he got over it.
• The Lord of the Rings was intended to be a children's story, like The Hobbit before it, but became darker as the writing progressed? It touched more on the myths and legends of Middle Earth that Tolkien had been working on for years. This was Tolkien's true love and would be published posthumously by his son Christopher as The Silmarillion. 
• The Silmarillion was Tolkien's attempt to write a distinctly British mythology? The lack of a truly British mythology was a gap that Tolkien tried to fill through the history of The Silmarillion and his poetry.
• The Lord of the Rings took more than ten years to write? As Tolkien so aptly said in the forward, "The tale grew in the telling."
• Tolkien was a professor of languages and knew 13 languages including Latin, French, German, Middle English, Old English, Greek, Italian and Welsh? He had a working knowledge of eight others? He also developed his own Elvish languages; Quenya and Sindarin.
• Tolkien died on September 2, 1973 at the age of 81? He was buried in the same grave with his wife Edith who had passed away 21 months earlier.
• Tolkien's translation of Beowulf and a transcript of a paper he delivered on the ancient poem was published this week (no, I am not receiving money from the Tolkien estate!)?

My Favorite Books: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Hi all! Since this week's Did You Know... featured C.S. Lewis, I figured I would talk a little about a book that he wrote. As I've mentioned many times before on this blog I am a big fan of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. A while back, I wrote about the first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I thought I'd share a little bit about the third book in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I first had this book read to me by my mother when I was about 12 or so. Mom used to read a couple of chapters every night after dinner while my four brothers and sisters and I were still seated at the table. She started with the first book and wound up reading through the first four or five books before I decided to read the rest on my own because she was going too slowly!

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for this book. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader only the two youngest Pevensie children, Edmund and Lucy, return to Narnia. The are accompanied, unwillingly, by their cousin, Eustace Scrubb. Eustace is a real pill. Anyway, they land in the ocean and are picked up by King Caspian and hauled aboard his ship, the Dawn Treader. Caspian is on a journey to the Lone Islands and beyond to find the seven banished lords of Narnia. Along the way, they have many wonderful adventures.

As a youngster, this book really captured my imagination. I loved all of the interesting places they went and the things they did. The island of the Dufflepuds was both funny and suspenseful. The chilling waters of Death Island were fascinating, and their encounter with a dragon was unique to say the least. I also liked Eustace's journey from insufferable lout to a really nice guy.

As I said before, this book left an impression on me. In fact, I can see some similarities in the third book in my Deliverers series, The Golden Dragon of Ang. Now, the themes in my book differ from those in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but as I reread the book after writing it, I could see influences of Lewis' book sprinkled subtly throughout. For instance, the Deliverers travel across an island chain, the Dragon Islands. It contains a mysterious rhyme (Reepicheep the recited a rhyme that was said over him when he was little), they travel from island to island and have adventures. There is even talk of a dragon.

Do you have any thoughts about Voyage of the Dawn Treader or any of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series? If so, I'd love to hear about them!

Did You Know...C.S. Lewis

This week we take a look at an author known not only as a writer of fantastic children's books, but someone who was one of the greatest religious and philosophical thinkers of the 20th century. I'm talking of course about C.S. Lewis.

Let's see what little known facts I was able to dig up about him online.

Did you know...

• His full name was Clive Staples Lewis, but his friends called him Jack? Jack was short for Jacksie, which was the name of his dog when he was a child.
• When he was young, he loved the works of Beatrix Potter? When he was a child he was so fascinated by talking animals that he and his brother made up stories about a world called Boxen which was populated by talking animals.
• When he was a teenager he became an atheist? His regained his faith in his early thirties.
• In his teenage years, Lewis was interested in Norse, Greek and Irish mythology and literature?
• He fought in World War I and was wounded by friendly fire?
• Lewis taught at both Oxford and Cambridge?
• He married Joy Davidman Gresham in 1956 when he was in his late 50's? She was an American who grew up Jewish, but became an atheist and a communist. She converted to Christianity before coming to England with her two sons after separating from her husband.
• Lewis was part of a literary discussion group called the Inklings? It included J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord David Cecil and Nevill Coghill among others. They met every Tuesday morning to discuss literature and read from their works in progress.
• Tolkien was a major influence in bringing Lewis back to Christianity, although Tolkien was Catholic while Lewis was Anglican?
• Lewis took an "everyman" approach to his explanation of Christianity and God? His writings and lectures acknowledge the difficulty some have in believing and his arguments are focused on those who find it difficult to believe. This is most likely a direct result from having walked in those same shoes himself.
• Lewis die the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Author Aldous Huxley died the same day as well.

Here's a trailer for the film Shadowlands, which chronicles the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman Gresham. It's a really nice film, although a tad over-dramatized.

My Favorite Books: All Creatures Great & Small

Way, way, okay, waaaay back when I was but a lad, I liked to read a lot of different types of books. I read middle grade, young adult, history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, comedy--everything except romance, ugh!

When I was about 13 or so, my mother's cousin started mailing us books every once in a while. She was the original Amazon.com, only I didn't order the books, she just sent whatever she thought I'd be interested in. There was just one problem--she had no idea what I liked to read. I don't think she asked my mom, she certainly didn't ask me. I couldn't really tell her what I liked because these gifts were just sent randomly, and if I asked her for a book it would seem like I expected to receive one.

To be honest, I don't remember any of the books that she sent me. Except the ones by Alf Wight, a/k/a James Herriot. For some strange reason, I found I really liked these books about an English country vet. I think looking back it was because the books took me back to another time and place--Yorkshire in the 1940's and 50's with such vivid descriptions. Each chapter was a little individual story that dealt with universal truths about human and animal nature.

Cast of All Creatures Great and Small

I had become something of an Anglophile by that time. Many of the authors I was reading were English--J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and others. My entertainment was also decidedly Anglo-centric. I had just discovered Monty Python--don't get me started about Monty Python! Genius. My music was also dominated by English bands--Yes, Bowie, and the most English band of all--Jethro Tull. Some of their songs from the mid to late 70's were snapshots of the Yorkshire countryside.

All this combined to fuel my imagination of that green and pleasant land that English poet William Blake wrote about (sorry, English major in me coming out). Then lo and behold, while flipping channels one night (yes, those were the days when you actually had to get up and turn the knob), I chanced upon All Creatures Great and Small on PBS.

Alf Wight a/k/a James Herriot

Well, I was hooked all over again. The beautiful locations, the use of live animals on set (lots of shots of the actors sticking their hands up cows' butts), and the fact that they did all this in suits(!?), appealed to me. I loved seeing beloved characters and animals brought to life. It was awesome. So much so, that even today I love rereading the books, and my whole family likes listening to "vet stories" as the kids call the audio books and the DVDs.

So, thank you Cousin Kathy for giving me a gift that really did keep on giving. If you have children in your life, I heartily support the notion of sending them random gifts of books. You never know. You just might open up a door to a whole world of entertainment!

My Favorite Books: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Last week, I introduced this column, and I have to admit that I didn't think it through as well as I wanted. This week, I'm writing about a book that really introduced me to the whole fantasy genre, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Why is this one of my favorite books?

As I said above, this is the book that really introduced me to the fantasy genre. I've told the story before about how my mother would read us all a chapter of LWW every day at the dinner table. I was about 12 or 13, and it just sparked something in me. I think it was the idea that you could just walk through something ordinary, like a wardrobe, and enter into another world. That was something that caught my imagination.

What I didn't know when I first read it.

I had no idea when I first read any of  The Chronicles of Narnia that C.S. Lewis was anthing other than a darn fine fantasy author. I had never heard of any of his philosophical or spiritual works. I am embarassed to admit that I still haven't read much of his other writing.

I also had no idea  that the chronicles were allegorical. Now when I read them, I can see a lot of the hidden meaning. I think it's kind of cool that Lewis was able to convey a lot of the themes of Christianity in a series of books that are such good reads.

When I was writing The Deliverers, I had a hard time trying to get across the theme of Eric struggling with his father's death and his feelings of guilt. It was only after I stopped trying so hard that the message was able to come through naturally. Go figure.

I also didn't know that C.S. Lewis anf J.R.R. Tolkien were good friends, and that they were part of a writing group called The Inklings. This group of Oxford professors would gather to listen to each other read whatever they were writing at the time, and offer critiques. Believe it or not, I had no idea who Tolkien was. I would a short time later!



Why I would recommend this book to others.

I would recommend this book because of it's simplicity. There aren't a lot of wasted words in this book. It's very simple and direct, just a good story without a lot of window dressing. This book allows you to paint the pictures in your mind. I love that. There's nothing like imagination for making a book come alive.

Also, who wouldn't like to go to another world, and become a king or queen? Lucy, Peter, Edmund, and Susan liberated an entire country, just by being who they are, and remembering who they are. What a great message!

Writing--It's Fantastic!

So, how did I get started writing fantasy, and writing it for tweens? I've always loved to read. Reading has been a staple ever since I read my first book on my own about a farmer who takes a big wheel of cheese to the market in town in a wheelbarrow, and loses it. It rolls up hill and down with the farmer chasing after it.

But that's kind of beside the point. My mother was (and is) of the opinion that a love of reading should be cultivated at a young age, and nurtured through those "difficult" middle grade years. In an effort to do this, she started reading to myself and my four siblings at the dinner table.

Every night when dinner was over, and the dishes had been cleared away, my mom would read a chapter of a book. The first book she read to us was "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis, the first in the Chronicles of Narnia series. I must have been 12 or 13 and I was entranced by the book. It let my imagination take flight, and took me to places I'd never known existed. Here's a picture of the edition she read to us from:

It's the 70's version. Kind of harkens back to the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. There's something a little Paul and Ringoish about Peter and Edmund.

I'd always been a fan of fantasy to some degree. In addition to my love of "Where the Wild Things Are" when I was younger, I also loved "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Phantom Tollbooth", among others. But on some level, I connected more deeply with this book.

Mom read the whole book over the course of a couple of weeks. Then, she moved on to book 2 of the Chronicles, "Prince Caspian". She read one or two more, but by the time she'd finished with book two, I'd raced far ahead. In no time, I'd devoured all seven books of the Chronicles and was looking for more.



That's when my mom suggested I check out "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien. That was well and truly it. I was hooked. From there it was on to "The Lord of the Rings". Things haven't been the same since.



This started me on my way. I knew what I was going to do. I was going to write fantasy novels for children. I started right away. I made the mistake of trying to write an 8th book of the Chronicles of Narnia--not a good idea. Then, I started a fantasy epic of my own inspiration, complete with a map and everything.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I don't think anything has survived from that ill fated manuscript. After that I bided my time. Something else grabbed my writing attention around this time and on into high school and college--comedy. But that's a story for another day.