Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ just imagine) would be an alternative. But I found it all interesting, except the long scene about the slaves’ names in the Copper Formation: this inevitably loses its force in any language except the original. What moved and affected me most–a real, poetic experience–was the stripping-away of the man’s whole life in riches. I am wondering if a larger selection (but with frequent omissions) from the whole romance wd. possibly be published in England.

      My brother, who is interested in everything Chinese because he spent some v. happy years in Shanghai, wd. like to read the MS. May I keep it for this purpose a week or two longer?

      There are only two places where I think your English cd. be criticised. On p. 10 you use immune as a verb. It should be ‘to make immune’: or perhaps even ‘to protect’ would do. On p. 22 ‘them five’ should be either ‘those five’ or ‘these five’-unless you intend to represent the speaker as uneducated.

      With very many thanks. Be sure to come and see me if you are in Oxford again.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD): TS

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 25th March 1953.

      My dear Arthur

      On looking into the matter further, it would suit me better to prolong our jaunt for another 48 hours, i.e. for me to cross on Monday 14th September instead of Saturday 12th. The Sunday train service on the English side is practically useless–one train, and no restaurant car. Will 14th suit you?

      Yours,

      Jack

      

       TO WILLIAM L. KINTER(BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 28/3/53

      Dear Mr Kinter

I think Ransom is a figura Christi⁹⁰ only in the same sense (‘only’-my hat!) in wh. every Christian is or should be. But the bus-driver in the Divorce is certainly, and consciously, modelled on the angel at the gates of Dis,⁹¹ just as the meeting of the ‘Tragedian’ with his wife is consciously modelled on that of Dante & Beatrice at the end of the Purgatorio:⁹² i.e. it is the same predicament, only going wrong. I intended readers to spot these resemblances: so you may go to the top of the class!

‘By the Furioso⁹³ out of the Commedia’ is not far wrong. My real model was David Lyndsay’s Voyage to Arcturus wh. first suggested to me that the form of ‘science fiction’ cd. be filled by spiritual experiences.⁹⁴ And as the Furioso was in some ways the science-fiction of its age, your analogy works. But mind you, there is already a science-fiction element in the Commedia: e.g. Inferno xxxiv 85-114.

      It’s fun laying out all my books as a cathedral. Personally I’d make Miracles and the other ‘treatises’ the cathedral school: my children’s stories are the real side-chapels, each with its own little altar.

No, I never read Perceforest.⁹⁵ The only O.R⁹⁶ prose romance I’ve read is Balain.⁹⁷ How lovely, how like water–or Grace–that limpid O.E prose is. Damn the Renaissance.

      I return cordially your wishes for a blessed Easter.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO JOHN GILFEDDER(W): ⁹⁸

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 30/iii/53

      Dear Gilfedder

      (I wish you’d call me Lewis not Sir) Thanks both for card of Florence and for your letter of the 15th.

I think a glossarial Index (I call it that because your specimens are partly index as well as glossary) wd. be a most useful addition to C.W.’s cycle.⁹⁹ But the chances of the O.U.P. ever re-printing Taliessin, let alone adding any matter to the volume, are infinitesimal. They wd. only do that if it showed signs of becoming a popular success: which of course it doesn’t.

      I am glad you are settled down and hope you are enjoying your work. Please remember me to your wife; all good wishes to both for a happy Easter.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 31/3/53

      Dear Mrs. Shelburne

      I’ve no time for a proper letter today but this is just a scrape of the pen to thank you for yours of the 27th and to wish you a v. blessed Easter. I expect Jeannie will grow up the most devoted grand-daughter ever. Your silly son-in-law doesn’t realise the charm of forbidden fruit: a grandmother one is forbidden to see rises almost into the status of a fairy godmother!

      Apropos of horrid little fat baby ‘cherubs’, did I mention that Heb. Kherub is from the same root as Gryphon? That shows what they’re really like!

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO SISTER PENELOPE CSMV(BOD):

      Magdalen

      1/4/53

      Dear Sister Penelope

I am simply delighted with The Coming of the Lord;¹⁰⁰ delighted, excited, and most grateful. I think it is the best book you have yet done, and the best theological book by anyone I have read for a long time. (You are, among other things, the only person I ever meet who gives me real light on the Old Testament). Chap VIII now convinces me completely.

I was talking nonsense when we last discussed this matter: I hadn’t really grasped the point that Man is the true Temple. That is a splendid bit on p. 76¹⁰¹ about the true sense of ‘it is finished’-the СКАЧАТЬ