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

Jan 20/54

Dear Clarke–

This is about 2 hours later, having read If (I.2)

(#litres_trial_promo) in the train, and feeling how well it illustrates what is to me a bad tendency in modern S-F Your Jupiter 5

(#litres_trial_promo) is good: but–forgive me–even there, what a pity that the lost reptilian culture (a glorious idea) which is what you really want to tell us about and we really want to hear about is almost thrust into a corner by the little drama about a theft and a hoax. Similarly in M. Clifton’s

(#litres_trial_promo)The Kenzie Report the really interesting thing, & well worth the whole story, is the ants. Why, in heaven’s name, shd. [it] be pushed out of the centre & the centre taken up by an unutterably banal little laboratory intrigue?

With K Neville’s

(#litres_trial_promo)She knew he was coming we touch rock-bottom. The old theme of the sentimentalised brothel & the whore-with-a-heart-of-Gold is mawkish anyway, but tolerable; but what, in heaven’s name, is the point of locating it on Mars! Surely in a work of art all the material should be used. If a theme is introduced into a symphony, something must be made of that theme. If a poem is written in a certain metre, the particular qualities of that metre must be exploited. If you write a historical novel, the period must be essential to the effect. For whatever in art is not doing good is doing harm: no room for passengers (In a good black and white drawing the areas of white paper are essential to the whole design, just as much as the lines. It is only in a child’s drawing that they’re merely blank paper). What’s the excuse for locating one’s story on Mars unless ‘Martianity’ is through & through used* (#litres_trial_promo)

Stockham’s

(#litres_trial_promo)Circle of Flight, tho’ not at all well executed, is the real thing: i.e. the thing he professes to be doing is the thing he is really doing. And there, for once, the love interest is relevant. By the way do readers of S-F really want a ‘heart-interest’ as they call it (‘crutch-interest’ wd. be more accurate) always dragged in? Am I missing some relevant point? I’d be glad to know your views on the whole subject of this letter.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO PAULINE BAYNES (BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

21/i/54

Dear Miss Baynes

I lunched with Bles yesterday to see the drawings of The Horse and feel I must write to tell you how very much we both enjoyed them. It is delightful to find (and not only for selfish reasons) that you do each book a little bit better than the last–it is nice to see an artist growing. (If only you cd. take 6 months off and devote them to anatomy, there’s no limit to your possibilities).

Both the drawings of Lasaraleen in her litter

(#litres_trial_promo) were a rich feast of line & of fantastic-satiric imagination: my only regret was that we couldn’t have both. Shasta among the tombs (in the new technique, wh. is lovely)

(#litres_trial_promo) was exactly what I wanted. The pictures of Rabadash hanging on the hook and just turning into an ass

(#litres_trial_promo) were the best comedy you’ve done yet. The Tisroc was superb:

(#litres_trial_promo) far beyond anything you were doing 5 years ago. K. Lune etc.–were, this time, really good.

(#litres_trial_promo) The crowds are beautiful, realistic yet also lovely wavy compositions:

(#litres_trial_promo) but your crowds always were. How did you do Tashbaan?

(#litres_trial_promo) We only got the full wealth by using a magnifying glass! The result is exactly right. Thanks enormously for all the intense work you have put into them all. And more power to your elbow: congratulations.

What are you and I and the firm going to do now that Bles is retiring? Shall we seek a Literary Agent or just go to whoever buys his business? I shd. be interested in your views.

I hope you’ll have a nice 1954. I did acknowledge your v. beautiful card, didn’t I? If not, I’m a Pig, for I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Yours ever

C. S. Lewis

TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS OSB (W): PC

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

23/i/54

I have a taste for Dickens but don’t think it a low one. He is the great author on mere affection

:

(#litres_trial_promo) only he & Tolstoi (another great favourite of mine) really deal with it. Of course his error lies in thinking it will do instead of Agape.

(#litres_trial_promo) Scott, as D. Cecil said, has, not the civilised mind, but the civilised heart. Unforced nobility, generosity, liberality, flow from him.

(#litres_trial_promo)

But Thackeray I positively dislike. He is the voice of ‘the World’. And his supposedly ‘good’ women are revolting: jealous pharisiennes. The publicans and sinners will go in before Mrs Pendennis and La. Castle-wood.

(#litres_trial_promo) In haste.

C.S.L.

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

24/i/54

Dear Mrs. Shelburne

Thanks for the lovely bundle of letters and pictures from the Kilmer family which, as you anticipated, I revelled in: I have written them a joint letter

(#litres_trial_promo)–not mentioning the poem as I gather you are not supposed to have a copy. They sound a delightful family.

But surely you are not going to put the whole trilogy in their hands? I shd. have thought That Hideous Strength both unsuitable and unintelligible to children, and even Perelandra rather doubtful.