In memoriam

I wasn't planning to post anything today, but then I realised what day it is. Yes, you're quite right: it is the 22nd November. Winter is getting closer and this university term is coming to an end, and I'm looking forward to studying German in the spring - but for the moment, I would like to look back rather than ahead. This day marks the 50th anniversary of the death of a very interesting man. I am sure many first and foremost think of John F Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on the 22nd November 1963 - and no wonder. His death made the headlines and was talked about for a long time, and the news of the death of another man the same day received much less attention. Who am I speaking of? 

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To his friends he was known as Jack, but his real name was Clive Staples Lewis. CS Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898, and attended several different schools in Northern Ireland and England. As a boy he loved the stories of Beatrix Potter (they are truly great; read them if you haven't!), and was later on interested in languages and mythology and Scandinavian and Icelandic stories. He was awarded a scholarship at Oxford in 1916. After his service in the First World War, he returned to Oxford and became a tutor in Philosophy as well as in English Language and Literature. He held the latter position until 1954. He called himself an atheist throughout his teenage years and early adulthood, but seems later to have re-embraced Christianity - perhaps in part thanks to his friend and Oxford colleague J.R.R. Tolkien, who was a devout Catholic. In 1956 he married American writer Joy Davidman Gresham, but Joy died of cancer four years later. Jack began to experience various medical problems in the early 60s. On the 22nd November 1963, he died at his home in Oxford.

To people of my generation, CS Lewis is probably most known for writing The Chronicles of Narnia (which were written during Lewis' final years at Oxford and deal heavily with Christian themes). He was also a member of The Inklings, an Oxford-based writing club that also included his brother Warren, Nevill Coghill, Tolkien, Owen Barfield and several others. I would have loved to attend the Inklings' meetings in the 1930s - even though Tolkien, sometimes called "Tolk" or "Toller" by his friends, was renowned for his sometimes harsh criticism and would probably rewrite most of my story ideas.

I could go on forever, or even write a whole book about Lewis' life - but there are already a number of interesting biographies floating around. When I visited Westminster Abbey last summer, I was disappointed by neither Lewis nor Tolkien having a memorial tablet in Poets' Corner. As I have been informed, this has now been fixed on Lewis' part. (If 50 years is what it takes, I'm really hoping for a Tolkien plaque in 2023.) For now, I am happy for Jack's sake - to me, he definitely belongs up there with Dickens, Keats and the Brontës.