J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: Inevitable greatness?

Today, when we think of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, we are likely to imagine inspired storytellers, talented scholars, committed Christians—iconic men remote from the rest of us. With such gifts, many are likely to conclude there was a certain inevitability to what they accomplished.

Most examinations of these men are either granular biographies that explore their lives in detail, or treatments focused on their masterworks—the Lord of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and the like.

But was their greatness inevitable?

The formative experience of World War I trenches brutally interrupted both men’s lives, studies, and careers. Many of Tolkien’s and Lewis’ contemporaries who survived this war abandoned their faith, became cynical about life, succumbed to philosophical materialism, or were wrecked by despair and its fruits—the British “lost generation”.

Instead, Tolkien and Lewis made choices—with everything that accompanies such demanding existential choices—to be determined, even relentless, seekers of truth and beauty, wherever this search led, and however depicted or expressed. As time passed, this included the courage to sometimes appear superficial or frivolous in the academic world, as when championing serious Christianity or storytelling, thus opening themselves up to ridicule by many in academia and the arts.

The happy conjunction of these men with other committed truth seekers can’t be underestimated. Among them are Owen Barfield, Hugo Dyson, and Charles Williams, men who supported, buoyed, criticized, challenged, advanced each other’s ideas and work organically rather than in the manner circumscribed by academic or scholarly rules. Far from mere acolytes, Tolkien’s and Lewis’ Inkling companions were accomplished thinkers, artists, and scholars in their own right, to the extent that the other Inklings had a profound effect on Tolkien’s and Lewis’ work, and vice versa.

Indeed, the duo possessed natural gifts and cultivated virtue. But many talented and brilliant men and women then and now choose to pursue wealth, power, pleasure, and honor as ends in themselves. Along with Tolkien’s and Lewis’ gifts and virtues, they had weaknesses and blind spots, as we all do, but they were introspective and virtuous enough to persevere in the pursuit of truth and beauty in spite of their imperfections.

Pursuing truth and beauty also entailed depicting where the rejection of truth and beauty leads, as in Lewis’ That Hideous Strength and his White Witch, and Tolkien’s Sauron, Saruman, and Gollum, always leavened by the possibility of a redemption that requires choosing to turn from destructive paths, as Tolkien’s Boromir and Lewis’ Edmund do.

The broad spectrum of Lewis’ work is widely recognized. While Tolkien is chiefly known for The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, he was also a skilled philologist (the study of languages) and anyone who’s seriously studied The Silmarillion, sometimes hard sledding, will recognize the strong philosophical and spiritual underpinnings of this panoptic view of his mythical world, uncanny in nailing human pride and lust, and their consequences.

What we too often gloss over when considering Tolkien and Lewis is their indefatigability during decades of labor, often without expectation of worldly success or acclaim. This involved conscious choices, hard work, and rowing against academic and cultural currents all the while. You could say that Lewis’ Aslan and Tolkien’s Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf were born of this relentless commitment to seeking truth and beauty.

There was nothing inevitable about the J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis we know. Only determination to stay true to what they believed and the choices they made produced the beautiful and true works so many treasure .

Catholic World Report