Into the Wardrobe

I'm sorry if I'm duplicating material otherwise posted (I've not been as active in the Wardrobe as usual), but I just heard of the publication of materials that may verify, definitively, The Dark Tower as authetically from Lewis. The just published C. S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections,* contains an essay by Alastair Fower in which Fowler recounts having been loaned copies of Dark Tower and Till We Have Faces by Lewis in the early 1950s.

It has been my opinion for a while that Tower was authentic, but I wanted to ask who else has heard this? Comments?

Thanks.

* By the way, this anthology, edited by H. E. & R. W. Poe and published by Zondervan is a different work than the similarly titled Remembering C. S. Lewis, edited by J. T. Como, published by Ignatius, which is a reprint of C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table.

Thanks for the heads-up, Adam. I had not heard that.
I guess Lindskoog will have to go back and re-do her research. *throwing out my copy of the C.S.Lewis Hoax*
Although I have to admit that her arguments about some of the rather vulgar symbolism in Dark Tower pointing to an author other than Lewis did have me convinced.
I haven't read Dark Tower, and frankly don't intend to do so. It doesn't really sound like my type of book.

You're welcome, A# minor.

Actually, Lindskoog passed away a couple of years ago.

I've read The Dark Tower and would have to say that it has to be among my least favorite of Lewis' writings. The fact that he did not continue with it himself might say something about his own assesment.

I've thought for a while that the interests of Tolkien and Lewis described in The Notion Club Papers (History of Middle-earth, Vol. IX) do provide a very credible context for Tower.

I know that it has been a very heated debate, at times; unfortunately so. And while I certainly think that Lindskoog was working in good intentions, I believe, for my part, that her aguments had already been fairly decisively refuted. We've had lively conversations here in the Wardrobe on the topic.

Regards.

I have read Dark Tower and always thought that it WAS authentic. I don't think that the symbolism is particularly vulgar either - certainly not as much so as some passages in That Hideous Strength. Though as someone else pointed out, Lindskoog would have a hard job retracting her claims now ;)

Stanley,

Wow, I didn't even realize that the accusations were that thick with malcontent...sheesh. Talk about "poisoning the well"... All I know is that I am a completely unimportant Nobody, and there is really no reason for Hooper to have even seen my wife and I for tea, and yet he did--not just once but twice. I had brought my copy of his biography on Lewis for him to sign, but I left it at his home on accident. So I rang him the next day so that I could pick it up, and when I stopped by, despite the fact that he was extremely busy trying to get Volume 3 of the letters finished, he invited my wife and me in for tea yet again, and we talked for another hour. Not only that, but he got a brand new copy of a more recent version of his biography (which is only available in England), and he said, "Was this what you were looking for?" And he had put a note in it and signed it and everything. Also, I was really astonished at how genuinely interested he seemed to be in both my wife and me--again, completely unimportant people. As we conversed, he would ask questions about us, and look us in the eye, and smile... This is not something you typically get from "important" people such as Hooper. For example, later we had the privilege of spending some time with another very "important" figure in the Lewis legacy, and did not receive near the kind of humble, warm reception as we did from Hooper. It seems like a "con-man" (give me a break...) would not take such great pains for people who can't do anything for him.

Also, I think I'd agree with you on what I've heard about Lindskoog's accusations. If Till We Had Faces were to be published post-humously, I imagine that she would have brought some of the same accusations because it is almost completely different style from what we get in his other books. In Lindkoog's Finding the Landlord (which, by the way, is an excellent resource on Pilgrim's Regress), she sews her dissatisfaction with "the editor" (I will at least tip my hat to her for not mentioning his name) especially when speaking of Lewis's poems and their titles. I tend to agree with her on some of her suggestions regarding the poems, but her criticisms just seemed out of place in a book about Regress. Oh well... I guess I have to at least hand it to her for having the ... (well...I guess that wouldn't be appropriate)... "guts" to stand up for what she believed in, despite people like me shaking our heads and rolling our eyes.

I never had any doubts. I really enjoyed it but I wished it had been finished. Quite dark to, but not more so than That Hideous Strength or the Unman part in Perelandra (talk about terrifying!).

I really didn't see vulgar symbolism either (until it was pointed out) and even then I just thought it was the empty talk of some sex-obsessed Freudian individual! :shocked: