Among other things, we discuss the following:

• Uncle Andrew's adult silliness
• Jadis, Hempress of Colney 'Atch!
• Why the Wood Between the Worlds affects Jadis the way it does
• Digory v. Edmund and Eustace
• Uncle Andrew and Renaissance Magic
• The Cabby's Hymn
• The Songs of Aslan
• Mixing of Mythologies
• Witches v. Hags in Narnia

Enjoy! I'll be back in two weeks to talk about The Magician's Nephew, Part 3, with Jonathan Geltner and Luke Mills!

Would you like a present to mark the occasion? One of these fine rings, perhaps?

No, not the green ones. No, I don't care if it's St. Patrick's Day. You. Can't. Have. The. Green. Ones. 

But have a yellow ring. No, seriously, go for it. Why are you hesitating?

But that's preposterous. They won't make you disappear. What do you think this is, The Hobbit?

Why does it always come back to rings? I say none of this on today's episode, but perhaps it's that the Inklings knew that rings bind you to someone else. Or something else. 

In this case, the Wood Between the Worlds? Or Faerie? Or to your evil and intimidating uncle who is a mad magician-scientist with a furnished room that you don't know about and a dead fairy godmother named Mrs. Lefay?

What's up with the strange parallels in this book, anyway? You've got children in England exploring inside because it's rainy. You've got Uncle Andrew and Jadis making essentially the same speeches. You've also got the wood between the worlds and the crawlspace between houses, as well as the troubling ways in which Digory resembles his uncle--both of whom, by the way, end up technically responsible for sending children to another world when they're old men. But what kind of an old man who sends children into peril will Digory grow up to be? The sort who thinks rules don't apply to him, or the sort who makes endless inside jokes with himself about Plato? Character matters.

To talk about some of these riddles, or at least allude to them as we talk about things that are probably more interesting, I have Dr. Luke Mills. Join us on a whirlwind tour through Edwardian England, tunnels behind houses, Guinea Pig paradises that maybe aren't good for humans, and desolate worlds with very strange women among very strange waxworks that definitely aren't good for humans. (Seriously, though, what are the waxworks?)

This may be your last chance to travel to Charn before Netflix ruins it forever with Pink Floyd or the 1950s or whatever-the-[deplorable word] a Barbie auteur wants to put in there.

Among other things, Luke and Chris talk about the figure of Lilith--and why this account of Jadis' origin may not differ so much from that given in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We also discuss ways to tell whether or not that special someone in your life may not, in fact, be evil.

Let's dive in! Or wonder, till it drives you mad, what would have followed...etc., etc.

I think this may be from 2020. 

It's an Inklings Variety Hour Jovial Christmas Extravaganza!  Featuring:

A Discussion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas!

Chris Pipkin and his children, Davey and Virginia!  

Anika Smith! (First half of show) 

Meagan Logsdon!  (Second half of show) 

A cringeworthy impersonation of an old British person by Chris Pipkin!

Bits of music by Steeleye Span and Maddy Prior (The Boar's Head Carol), and Martin Romberg (A Elbereth Gilthoniel), (as well as Virginia Pipkin).

Pipkins' Christmas site promoted: 12tide.com

Thanks for listening to us this year!  As always, if you enjoy this podcast, recommend it to a friend and give us a review on iTunes.  And please do feel more than free to drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you!  Merry Christmas.

Part of what we're trying to do with this book is make Christmas less a single-morning present binge preceded by anxiety and followed by anticlimax--and more a season of twelve days of giving, feasting, and learning to celebrate better.

Want an idea of what's in the book? Check out our website, 12tide.com. It is likely that if you order now, you will not receive the book before Christmas, but you can find all of the content on our website and order the book (if you like) in time for subsequent days of Christmas (the season lasts until January 6, after all). 

We are all Niatirbians now (and Lewis was dismayed by godless Christmas cards).  We want to reconcile sacred and "secular" aspects of Christmas and equip people with some old ways to celebrate this season. 

Music from this episode includes:

• George Winston's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Choir of Christchurch's "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Loreena McKennitt's "Gloucestershire Wassail"
• The Chieftains' "Boar's Head Carol"
• Maddy Prior's "Coventry Carol"
• Medieval Baebes' "Adam Lay Ybounden"
• Maddy Prior's "Wassail!"

Also, if you're interested in the Twelve Tide Spotify list Anika suggested on the show, here it is.

Stay tuned...I'm done with grading and I'm turning my attention to an Inklings Christmas Carol.  Won't be easy to finish in time, but I'll do my level best.  If you are interested in reading a part for it, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

God bless and keep you this Advent Season. See you at Christmas!

Previous description:

Enjoy a (Zoom) table reading of my "play" (loosely defined), "An Inklings Christmas Carol."  

Special thanks to Anika Smith, Sørina Higgins, Joe Hoffman, and Ed Powell for reading this episode.  Thanks in general to Sørina's Author's Circle, which you can find out more about (and even join) here. 

Hope you enjoy it--keep in mind this is a first draft, none of us are professional actors, and I'm not making a cent off this episode! As with any holiday movie or play, if you keep your expectations low, you'll have a pretty good time!

Feel free to send me feedback at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  And please rate the show if you like it!

By the way, if you want more Christmas resources from the Pipkins, you can find our Christmas site here: https://12tide.com/

Among other things, we discuss:

• Lewis' familiarity with (and attitude toward) the Bible, before and after his conversion.
• Biblical scholars (like Gore) who influenced Lewis' views of Scripture.
• Lewis and the doctrine of inerrancy
• The trouble with the liar/lunatic/Lord trilemma.
• John and the Synoptics.
• Biblical allusions in Narnia (and Lewis' other imaginative work).

Also:

• Footnotes versus endnotes!
• Epigraphs!
• Bertie Wooster!
• Evangelion and Potatoes at Beaversdam!

A big thank-you to Dr. Baynes for a great conversation. Click here to purchase her book.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Crumpets? Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

We'll have a few Christmas episodes (mostly rebroadcasts), but this marks the end of Season 5. We'll put a few more bonus episodes out in the next months, then pick back up in March with Season 6.

Shameless self-promotion: 

If, in the meantime, you feel starved for Pipkin-related content, you can feel free to buy the book Chris and his wife, Glencora, have written about celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas: Twelve Tide. If you want a free, blog-based version, just go to 12tide.com, and feel free to sign up for our email list while you're at it.

Also, there's always this, from Chris' (or Dr. Pipkin's) recent King Arthur class. 

A parody of the excellent Camp Monsters podcast.

Apologies for posting this twice--people with Apple Podcasts didn't seem to be getting it, so I'm trying again with a new file!

inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Cryptids in Narnia!

Parody of the excellent Camp Monsters podcast.

Happy Halloween!

Feel free to email us at

inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

if you have other ideas for Narnia fan fiction (such as that Caspian the Werewolf one).

Or, as he called it, the OHEL. It lay, he said, "like a nightmare on my chest."

It's a brilliant work of scholarship, and we highly recommend it. But just in case you can't make it through 700 pages of paradigm-shattering, witty and insightful prose about the greatest (and worst) poets of the sixteenth century, we've got you covered. We'll be discussing the highlights from the Introduction here, and from subsequent chapters in subsequent podcasts.

So, put on your best pair of pantaloons and join us for this romp through what used to be called the Renaissance (but isn't usually anymore, thanks in part to Lewis).

Today, we'll cover just the introduction to his work, entitled: New Learning and New Ignorance. 

Questions? Concerns? Criticisms? Compliments? Complaints? Condolements? Candy?

Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

Feel free to watch it here before you listen! It is...something.

By the way, I am aware of the fact that the sound is not ideal in this, and I apologize for some of the problems in quality. I am taking steps (as soon as possible) to remedy this.

As always, feel more than free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and I'd love to hear from you.

By the way, I have no idea why my software cut off the music at the end, but it seems to have. Hopefully no one was too bothered by that.

If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to take Sørina's course on the same, go here: https://wyrdhoard.com/2025/07/18/come-through-the-wardrobe-with-me/

We get into a lot of really interesting subjects related to Narnia here, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in particular. I don't have time to detail them in the show notes this time.

See you in two weeks! There will be far less of a break between seasons this year, as I still have plenty of material to share (and quite a few upcoming conversations). It's just a matter of finding time to edit as the school year begins.

Stay tuned! 

To what extent is Lewis' The Abolition of Man prescient or prophetic? 

I really enjoyed this roundtable discussion between:

• Nathan Gilmour
• James LaPeyre
• Joseph Weigel

and

• Jonathan Geltner

I hope you will, too. 

We talk a lot about the following subjects:

• What Lewis means by "nature"
• Whether Lewis is, being coy, retreating into simplicity, playing a "forced card trick" or some other manner of knavish chicanery
• Whether Lewis eternalizes historically contingent ideas, such as the Romantic view of the sublime
• Wittgenstein
• McIntyre
• Barfield
• The importance of story
• Whether the difference between moderns and ancients is as great as Lewis assumes
• Whether we should have that appendix out or not

Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to add your two cents!

I know, this isn't exactly beach listening, but I sure enjoyed it. We'll be back again in two weeks with lighter fare.

It's unlikely, in fact, that they would have been able to describe the adventures of, say, Elwin Ransom, or the three friends in Night Operation if they didn't take these rambles (and write about them!) from time to time. 

With me to talk about the Inklings' walking tours are Inklings scholars Sørina Higgins, Don W. King, and (for the first time), Owen A. Barfield, grandson of Owen Barfield. 

We cover a lot of ground during this conversation. Topics include:

• What exactly a walking tour is/was
• The walking tours Jack and Warnie took versus those Jack took with the "Cretaceous Perambulators" (Barfield and others)
• Why these excursions tended to be documented a bit better than Inklings' meetings at Magdalen
• Humor and bawdy among the Inklings
• Connection between walking, talking, and working ideas out
• "The Inkling Impulse"
• What different Inklings looked for in a successful walking tour
• Influence of the walking tours in the Inklings' fiction

My thanks to all three of my illustrious guests for joining me. You can find more about them and their work here:

• Sørina Higgins
• Don W. King
• Owen A. Barfield

See you in two weeks' time! As always, please do rate the podcast, and if you have ideas or responses, please do email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

By which I don't mean, "Whoa, that was some really sweet alchemy you were doing just now, dude! NICE!"

But rather, the connection between science and magic as practiced by the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) in C.S. Lewis' final novel in his space trilogy, That Hideous Strength. It's weird stuff. And Merlin's involved, naturally. That guy.

This is part discussion, part interview, because Joseph has recently published an article in Sehnsucht about connections between the N.I.C.E.'s experiments and alchemy. Read it here: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol18/iss1/11/

Also, be on the lookout for Joseph's forthcoming book, Planet Thulcandra. It hasn't come out as of the publication of this podcast, but it's on its way!

Be sure to check out Men With Chests while you're at it!

There is a lot more to come this season! It seems likely that (because this is only coming out once every two weeks), it will extend well into the Fall.

In the vault, I have:

A roundtable on The Abolition of Man

A conversation about the Walking Tours that members of the Inklings took

A discussion of George MacDonald's Lilith

A series on the OHEL

...and quite a bit more.

Shoot me an email to say hi if you're listening--I appreciate hearing from people who enjoy this podcast! And please do leave a rating and review if you can. It's nice to know when this is actually getting heard by someone!

Enjoy! I am quite excited about this episode.

And check out Ned and Matt's stuff! I will post links! I will! In the meantime, I've given you the spelling of their first and last names, above. Notable works include, but are not restricted to: Every Moment Holy, The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, The Wonder of It All. You're welcome.

More episode description to come, but it's been another late night editing, and I have small children who wake up early, you monster! Think of them.

Liked the episode? Give us a five-star review. Want to weigh in on the red-hot-button allegory controversy? Shoot me an email: inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

It's been a long-held goal of this podcast to devote at least one episode to Pauline Baynes--who, while not an Inkling, illustrated both the Narnia chronicles and many of Tolkien's short stories--in addition to being one of the best illustrators of the 20th Century.

Luckily, Katie Wray Schon has just written and published a children's picture book about Baynes' life, and she joins me to talk about both her work and Baynes'. We talk about Baynes' life--her childhood in India, her discovery of storybooks at dreary British boarding school, her work for the British Navy in WWII, and her career as an illustrator.

Sadly, many of the non-Narnian books Baynes illustrated or created are now out of print or hard to obtain. They include, but aren't limited to:

I Believe: The Nicene Creed

Noah and the Ark

Questionable Creatures: A Bestiary

Good King Wenceslas

A Dictionary of Chivalry, by Grant Uden

Miracle Plays: Seven Medieval Plays for Modern Players, by Anne Malcolmson

All Things Bright and Beautiful

The Arabian Nights, by Amabel Williams-Ellis

The Snail and the Caterpillar, by Helen Piers

Let There Be Light

It would be a worthy project for someone (perhaps a new small press, or even an old, big one) to begin publishing these books again. 

In the meantime, of course, pick up Katie Wray Schon's book!

Thanks for listening, as always! We'll see you again in two weeks!

To drop me a note or an episode suggestion, write inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

To encourage all those (okay, mainly me) who make this podcast possible, leave us (or me) a five-star review on itunes!

We've (okay, I've) got a lot more fantastic episodes coming this season, including:

• Leaf by Niggle with Ned Bustard and Matt Wheeler
• The Abolition of Man: A Roundtable Discussion
• Lilith, by George MacDonald
• The Oxford History of English Literature (O-HEL Yes!) with Katherine Wyma
• That Hideous Strength with Joseph Weigel
• Tolkien's Poetry, with Jonathan Geltner
• Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 80's Narnia Book (That's right), with Matt Wheeler

And quite a bit more, but I am tired of listing things...

Eric Geddes, Jonathan Geltner, and Charlie Carter join me to talk Tolkien's Father Giles of Ham.

Episode description to come!

Many more podcasts on the way this summer!

Leave me a review! It's really the only way I know anyone is listening. 

More episode description to come!

Featuring "Wonder of It All" by Matt Wheeler.

Singer-songwriter Matt Wheeler once again joins me to discuss his favorite Narnia book, The Horse and His Boy. 

Among other things, we talk about:

• Hermits and the nature of freedom
• Allegory and biblical allusion in Narnia
• Fear as motivation
• Self-pity as incomplete story
• Matt's song, "Worn Thin"

Enjoy, and join us next week for the conclusion of The Horse and His Boy.

Feel free to get in touch with me, as always, at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. 

Thanks for listening!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

(From the Old Winyards. Yes, these are reruns.)

But a new episode on The Horse and His Boy comes your way in one week!

Stay tuned...there are about nine more to come today.

Original episode description:

Welcome to the finale of Till We Have Faces on The Inklings Variety Hour!

Author and speaker Andrew Lazo from Pints with Jack joins Chris and Anika for our final discussion of Till We Have Faces.  It was, as always, a delight and an epiphany, Andrew!

Among other things, we discuss:

• The Four Loves
• Williams-esque redemption of Orual and Psyche
• Lewis' poem Reason
• Names in Till We Have Faces
• What in the world is Ungit?
• Orual's last word (hint: it's probably not "arrrgghhh")
• Joy's role in helping to write (and inspire) TWHF

Many, many thanks to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

If you'd like to join one of our conversations, odds are, we'd love to have you!  We'd also love to hear from you, so feel free to email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  

Next time: Hold on to your electric torches! Season Two of The Inklings Variety Hour begins with Prince Caspian!

Before that, we talk about the following:

• The right way (or lack thereof) to pronounce Shasta and Aravis (and Aslan)
• Ghouls, ghouls, ghouls
• Cats and tombs
• Lewis' characterization of Lasarleen and Aravis
• The Tisroc (may he live forever)
• Freedom
• Calormene view of Narnian history
• Lapsed Bear!
• And after the song, Chris throws a little bit of shade at English pronunciation of foreign words to make himself feel better about the fact that he's been mispronouncing Aslan all his life.

For more of Matt's music, click here.

See you in two weeks, when Matt Wheeler will rejoin us to talk about the journey across the desert!

--record scratch--

--Calormen?

That's right, Ed Said. We're kicking off this season the right way, with a little trip to an unprepossessing fisherman's hut and the down-on-his-luck literary ancestor of both a refreshing soft drink and Taran the Assistant Pig-keeper. 

I'm only talking 'bout Shasta. Can you dig?

You know who else is talking about Shasta? I mean, besides Bree the talking horse (no not that one) who abducts him? 

Why, it's Jonathan Geltner, renowned author of Absolute Music, and Joseph Weigel, host of Men with Chests and also an author! Together, we discuss the following subjects:

• Calormene culture and Narnian culture
• Literary analogues (or lack thereof) of The Horse and His Boy
• Formal language and formulaic language
• The wider world in which Narnia exists
• Proverbs (Calormene and Narnian)
• How Tashbaan is awesome
• Freedom

Books we bring up:

• The Thousand and One Nights
• Travels in Arabia Deserta
• David Eddings' Belgariad Series
• Huck Finn
• The Prince and the Pauper
• The Worm Ouroboros
• The Faerie Queene

Copyrighted Music:

• Original BBC Narnia Theme
• Mr. Ed theme (not Ed Said)

As always, please leave a generous review if you want higher quality or quantity podcasts! This is a labor of love, and I'm currently only able to get something out once every two weeks. See you in two weeks' time, as musician Matt Wheeler joins me to talk (and sing) about his favorite Narnia book. 

The first episode of Season 5, covering The Horse and His Boy, will be coming out in a few days! See you then, and in the meantime, enjoy some more travels in Glome!

Stay tuned for the first brand new episode of Season 5. We'll start with The Horse and His Boy on March 4 and update with a new episode every two weeks.

---------------------------------------------------------

Original description:

If you like this podcast, please give us a review in iTunes!  Also, we'd love to hear from you!  Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  

This week, Chris and Anika discuss Chapters 12 and 13 of Till We Have Faces.  Subjects for discussion include:

• Santeria and the First Amendment (and also, of course, "Santeria" by Sublime)
• How Orual-the-author is being changed while telling us about Orual-the-character's refusal to change
• Possessive love and our tendency to be ruined by strong loves
• The "ferly" in Middle English literature
• Is Bardia's fear of the gods practical fear for his safety or fear of the numinous?
• Orual withholds key evidence!
• The Fox's theology and soul-houses
• How true divine nature is foolishness to the Greek and a stumbling block for the Glomian
• At the end: Various proposals for an '80s fantasy movie based on Till We Have Faces.  (Someone please make a poster of this idea.)

Special thanks to my brother Jason Pipkin for the incredible '80s-style synth track used at the end!  Apologies if I overuse it, but I really liked it.  Other music sampled includes:

• "Our Father" in Aramaic
• "The Hurrian Hymn" as played by Michael Levy
• "Santeria," by Sublime
• "Princes of the Universe," by Queen
• "Quantum Leap" theme by Mike Post

In two weeks, we meet the God of the Mountain!  Talk about numinous and sublime!  

A new season of The Inklings Variety Hour is coming on Tuesdays in March, starting with The Horse and His Boy. 

In the meantime, enjoy this old episode, with one of our first guest-stars, Andrew Lazo, talking about his favorite Lewis book, Till We Have Faces!

Original Description:

This week, we're talking with Andrew Lazo, author, speaker, and noted Till We Have Faces  and C.S. Lewis scholar.  You can find additional information about Andrew's projects, current and future, at mythoflove.net.  We would like to thank David Bates at Pints with Jack for connecting us with Andrew!  In this episode, Anika, Chris and Andrew discuss some classical and medieval influences on Till We Have Faces, as well as concepts like mortal shame and the way physical and spiritual attitudes alter perception in Lewis' work.  In some ways, this is also a broader view of Till We Have Faces itself, thanks to Andrew's expertise.  Stay tuned for bonus material at the end, where we hear from Andrew about the circumstances of Lewis' writing of Till We Have Faces.  Enjoy the conversation!  We certainly did.

Some references in this episode:

A Naked Tree, by Joy Davidman  

Becoming Mrs. Lewis

Over the Rhine (band)

Weeping Bay, by Joy Davidman

"After Ten Years," from Of Other Worlds by C.S. Lewis

Pearl, by the Gawain-poet (Tolkien's translation here)  (Original text here)

If you're enjoying The Inklings Variety Hour, drop us a line to tell us so!  You can email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Also!  Please find us on iTunes and give us a rating if you like us.  Additionally, if you'd ever like to guest star and talk with us about these works (whether you are a scholar or not), we'd love to have you.  If you're listening to this podcast, you are already a kindred spirit, and we would enjoy meeting you.  Just saying.  

This week, we are still hiking up the enchanting mountain that is Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, hearts dancing all the while.  And why should they not, as we discuss such topics as:

• Fighting and work as a potential antidote for depression
• Resurrection as a potential antidote for depression
• How King Trom is a bro
• Refusal of joy and its effect on perception
• Would-be eucatastrophe
• Landscape, symbolism, and the sticky wicket of literalized metaphor
• Potential lawsuits Psyche could bring against Redival

Recommendations include:

• cslewisdoodle
• Hunting the Unicorn: A Critical Biography of Ruth Pitter

We'd love to hear from you if you're enjoying the podcast!  We'd also love to have you on the show if you'd like to join us sometime (and don't mind reading a few chapters of Till We Have Faces first)!  Our email is InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  

Next time we will have Till We Have Faces scholar Andrew Lazo on to discuss Chapters 10, 11, and 12!  It will be worth the wait!

Original description:

In which Anika and Chris reveal the fairly shallow reason we had for doing Till We Have Faces this year and accidentally endorse human sacrifice. 

Mostly, we talk about Chapter 7, in which Orual and Psyche say goodbye, and Chapter 8, in which Orual decides to journey to the mountain and recover Psyche's body.  At issue are whether or not selfish love is still love and whether sacrifice (especially human sacrifice) is effective.

Other highlights:

Ash Wednesday Anecdotes

Anika reads Lewis' poem, "As the Ruin Falls"

Till We Have Faces as a text that changes its narrator

Finally, inspired by WandaVision, the hosts ask whether Till We Have Faces would make a good sitcom--and what kind of sitcom it would be?

Have your own thoughts?  Email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Music credits:

• The "Our Father" in Aramaic
• The Hurrian Hymn
• "Aase's Death," by Edvard Grieg
• "The Toy Parade," by Dave Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene
• "Everywhere You Look," by Jesse Frederick
• "With a Little Help From My Friends," by Joe Cocker

Original Episode Description:

Here are the original shownotes:

In the spirit of Groundhog's Day, Chris and Anika dig into Chapters 3-4 of Lewis' Till We Have Faces, which retells the Cupid and Psyche myth.  

We discuss, among other things:

• The apparent popularity of J.G. Frazer in Glome
• "Foxy Redival's Flirtations" 
• Whether we're the worst at what we care about most (and other cheering thoughts)
• Soup and Religion (and other metaphors)
• Narrative asides about weeping in Lewis
• Our ideas for movie adaptations of TWHF

Music:

The Hurrian Hymn

"Our Father" in Aramaic 

They say that behind every groundhog is a Shadowbrute requiring human sacrifice.  May the good town officials of Punxsutawney fail to see it this year.  For all our sakes.

As always, please give us ratings on iTunes if you enjoy this!  It means a lot to us and helps others find the podcast!  Also--feel free to send us your thoughts at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com

Thank you for joining us!  

Next time (in two weeks), we will be joined by special guest and Inklings scholar Sorina Higgins!

From the original episode description:

Welcome back to The Inklings Variety Hour!  It's a new year, and Ungit has only just hatched out of her egg-house (or something), but already, your intrepid hosts are tackling C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces (1956)--widely considered the best novel he ever wrote.  Chris, Anika, and Meagan discuss this retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth as only the Inklings Variety Hour can--with lots of digressions, reading of passages, and laughter.

If you're enjoying this podcast, we're glad to have you along for the ride, and we'd love to know you!  Drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Ratings on the iTunes store would be most welcome also.

Music for this episode includes:

The Hurrian Hymn

The "Our Father" in Aramaic

"Sick Muse" by Metric

Kora Burton rejoins Chris to discuss Tolkien's last fairy (or is it faerie?) story, "Smith of Wootton Major" (1967). 

Smith of Wootton Major is a short story, a parable about the nature of what Tolkien called “fayery” or “Faerie,” an evocative fairy tale in its own right, as well as a melancholy meditation on the loss of artistic capacity.  Though told simply enough for children to understand its plot, Tolkien called it “an old man’s book.”

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, please do so at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

___________________________________

Kora Burton joins Chris to discuss Tolkien's last fairy (or is it faerie?) story, "Smith of Wootton Major."  

Smith of Wootton Major (1967) is Tolkien’s last work of fiction and was begun as part of an Introduction to an edition of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key–an edition that was never published.  Tolkien began by writing a kind of parable about a stupid baker making a cake for children that inadvertently had something faerian in it.  But when he found this illustration was taking on a life of its own, he discarded the introduction entirely and worked on the story–which he realized was in part a critique of the things he did not like about George MacDonald, among other Victorians (still, I find it owes a real debt to The Golden Key and Phantastes, as much as it does to anything medieval).  Smith of Wootton Major is a short story, a parable about the nature of what Tolkien called “fayery” or “Faerie,” an evocative fairy tale in its own right, as well as a melancholy meditation on the loss of artistic capacity.  Though told simply enough for children to understand its plot, Tolkien called it “an old man’s book.”

One of my favorite history of English podcasts, just in case you want more philology or historical linguistics: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, please do so at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Next week: We enter Faerie with Smith!

More episode description to come! In the meantime, enjoy!

O.G. Host Anika Smith rejoins the podcast to interview Chris and his beautiful and omnicompetent wife, Glencora, about their new Christmas resource book, Twelve Tide. 

Part of what we're trying to do with this book is make Christmas less a single-morning present binge preceded by anxiety and followed by anticlimax--and more a season of twelve days of giving, feasting, and learning to celebrate better.

Want an idea of what's in the book? Check out our website, 12tide.com.

We are all Niatirbians now (and Lewis was dismayed by godless Christmas cards).  We want to reconcile sacred and "secular" aspects of Christmas and equip people with some old ways to celebrate this season. 

Music from this episode includes:

• George Winston's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Choir of Christchurch's "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Loreena McKennitt's "Gloucestershire Wassail"
• The Chieftains' "Boar's Head Carol"
• Maddy Prior's "Coventry Carol"
• Medieval Baebes' "Adam Lay Ybounden"
• Maddy Prior's "Wassail!"

Also, if you're interested in the Twelve Tide Spotify list Anika suggested on the show, here it is.

Stay tuned...I'm done with grading and I'm turning my attention to an Inklings Christmas Carol.  Won't be easy to finish in time, but I'll do my level best.  If you are interested in reading a part for it, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

God bless and keep you this Advent Season. See you at Christmas!

Who was more of a Romantic: C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Yes, the stakes have never been higher.

We also talk generally about how the Inklings' view of their own roles overlapped with (and were influenced by) those of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romantics. To what extent were the Inklings the real Romantics of their own age?

I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks to both James and Jonathan for coming on the show. 

Apologies to all of you for the poor sound quality of my microphone. Also, a little more than halfway through, the Internet goes out--apologies for that, though we do find our footing pretty quickly thereafter.

Many, many thanks to James for fixing the sound so that I'm actually intelligible here. Check out his substack at otterhat.substack.com/. Check out Jonathan's at jonathangeltner.substack.com/

I appreciate everyone's patience for this episode! Circumstances have conspired so that I have less time to edit since the semester ended, but I'll keep grinding these out occasionally if you all keep listening! I'll also try to keep putting out the old episodes Saturdays.

Also! As always, my wife and I have a Christmas site and a Christmas book. If you're looking for ways to celebrate Advent and Christmas that both engage with the storehouse of tradition available to us--while allowing you and your family to forge your own Christmas traditions, you might find them helpful! The basic premise is that rather than having one day of Christmas (so much pressure!), we spread gift-giving out over the traditional twelve days of Christmas and pair it with reflection and other activities. It's really worked wonderfully for our family.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com if you have thoughts! And give us a five-star rating on iTunes (why not, it's Christmas) if you like what you hear.

Also, I am planning to record on The Horse and His Boy this month (to be released at the beginning of Season 5 in March). If you'd like to join us to talk about it, just let me know!

I thought I'd post it in preparation for the C.S. Lewis Reading Day livestream.  You can find it here: C. S. Lewis Reading Day 2024 - Pints With Jack

You can find it here: C. S. Lewis Reading Day 2024 - Pints With Jack

Thanks, as always, to Pints with Jack, for their generosity and initiative! 

I think my releasing it the afternoon before Halloween (rather than the week before) meant that it wasn't on many people's radar. 

I'm quite proud of it (and worked hard on it), so I'm re-releasing. I know it's not Halloween anymore, but, hey--it's also not Christmas, and you don't see that deterring most businesses from playing Bing Crosby.

Original description: 

Parody of the excellent Camp Monsters podcast.

Happy Halloween!

inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

We begin this second part of our series on War in Heaven with the Archdeacon's words to the Holy Graal (yes, that's how it's spelled).  We end as a Georgia thunderstorm knocks out the Internet.  In between, we discuss Chapters 4-8 of Charles Williams' supernatural thriller.

You can find War in Heaven here.  It is pretty inexpensive to buy on Kindle ($0.99 the last I checked).

Other than the usual Lohengrin/Jazz mash-up, the music used is from Uranus, one of the pieces in Gustav Holst's Planets suite.

The poetry excerpt at the end is from "On the Circuit," by W.H. Auden (read by the author).

Stay tuned for Part 3 next week!  

If you're enjoying these episodes and have constructive feedback, we'd love to hear from you!  Our email is InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Feel free also to leave us a review on iTunes if you want to see more of this sort of thing.

Here's the link to the book from JD's page.

We've still got a lot of episodes for Season 4. Thanks for the very kind five-star reviews! At the moment, it's all I can do to juggle my teaching load and editing/releasing twice a month, but please do keep the ratings and reviews coming, and as always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com with any responses, requests, or ideas.

Next time: The Inklings and Romanticism!

This is the first of a series of conversations on Charles Williams' 1930 novel, War in Heaven, in which the Holy Graal (yes, that's how it's spelled here) is discovered in a tiny church in the English countryside.  Hijinks and shenanigans ensue, along with a heavy dose of black magic, car chases, and ecumenism.  You'll also find out whether the hosts would prefer to read a book called Christianity and the League of Nations or Foxy Flossie's Flirtations. 

We'll be covering the first three chapters of War in Heaven, which you can purchase here if you want to read along.

Most of our conversation this episode will be about Charles Williams' life, interest in the occult, and influence.  A few works mentioned include:

• The Third Inkling, by Grevel Lindop
• The Oxford Inklings, by Colin Duriez
• The Fellowship, by Philip and Carol Zaleski
• Hell, by Dorothy Sayers
• Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, by Charles Williams
• The Figure of Beatrice, by Charles Williams

To read the first letters Lewis and Williams wrote to each other, go here!

Stay tuned for Part 2!  If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving us a review, as it is the best way to ensure the podcast will continue.  Also, feel free to drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  

This week, we follow up on our discussion of Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" by applying some of his ideas to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  We're trying to assess whether (despite Tolkien's low view of it), Lewis' children's tale actually works as a Tolkienian "Fairy Story."  Works mentioned include:

• On Fairy Stories
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• The Black Bull of Norroway
• Preface to Paradise Lost (when discussing Primary v. Secondary Epic)

Chris also promotes the blog he and his wife do--12tide.com--that includes resources to help people celebrate a twelve-day Christmas Season.   

You can read Jonathan's stuff at Romance and Apocalypse | Jonathan Geltner | Substack and check out his debut novel here.

You can read more of Søri's stuff here, and here, and some of her books here.

Also, if you want Williams' poetry and the Torso is a bit too pricey, she's edited those too, here.

Many thanks for the kind reviews of the podcast! Please keep them coming!

And as always, feel free to reach out to me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

I thought I'd record a fairly off-the-cuff episode on Hobbit birthdays in light of Bilbo's and Frodo's shared birthday, September 22.

I'm reading part of Tolkien's Letter 214, which is in response to A.C. Nunn (and never sent), who points out the discrepancy between Gollum expecting a birthday present and Hobbits giving presents on their birthdays. 

The letter is much longer than this (and, quite characteristically, apparently not sent). 

If you want to read more of Tolkien's response, as well as his letters in general, grab a copy of Tolkien's Collected Letters.

Original shownotes:

The third and final installment of our conversation on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe enters some interesting territory as Chris, Anika, and Meagan explore Lewis's (inadvertent?) use of Aslan-as-Trickster imagery, proper Narnian politics, and kangaroos. Also witness the precise moment in which the trio realizes that Lewis may have ruined their childhoods.

Works referenced include:

• A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Outro poetry sample: "On the Circuit" by W. H. Auden

Email the show! InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com

More episode description to come!

Original shownotes: 

Return to Narnia for the second part of our (three-part) discussion on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Find out the intrepid trio's thoughts on such questions as:

• Why shouldn't we be too hard on Edmund?
• How exactly does Father Christmas fit into this story, anyway?
• Why is it so important to remember to wipe your sword?

Works referenced include:

• Planet Narnia by Michael Ward
• Boxen by C. S. Lewis

As always, the outro poetry sample is from W. H. Auden's "On the Circuit".

Write to us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com!

Find out more about Sori's class here: ONLINE CLASS: The Architecture of a Short Story | The Oddest Inkling (wordpress.com)

Original shownotes:

Chris, Anika, and Meagan introduce themselves and the podcast before promptly stepping through that magical wardrobe in the first (yes, first) of C. S. Lewis's Narnia chronicles. Why are robins trustworthy? Was Lewis wrong about his preferred reading order for the Narnia books? Will the hosts be able to overcome initial podcast jitters?

Works discussed include:

• The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
• The Company They Keep, by Diana Pavlac Glyer
• The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis
• “On the Circuit,” by W.H. Auden

This is the first podcast any of us have done, so if you want to see more of this sort of thing, we’d love five-star reviews with suggestions for improvement!  Or feel free to email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Tune in next week for Part 2 of our discussion of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  And bring your coats.  It’s not stealing.

In this episode, he ropes Christiana Hale, author of Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C.S. Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, into coming on the show to discuss contemplation, enjoyment, poetry, literary allusions, myth, and the figure of Ransom as Martial prophet.

Her book is as interesting and edifying as it is clear and accessible--but don't take my word for it. (And by that I mean, get it for yourself.)

In two weeks, the Perelandra extravaganza continues as Chris welcomes Don W. King back on the show to discuss the cycle of Spenserian poems Ruth Pitter wrote about Perelandra.

Again, I can only really afford to put these out every two weeks. This might change if I pick up a larger audience, so please do recommend the show to your friends and leave five-star reviews, for (Deep) Heaven's sake.

See you all next time, and as always, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

This may change if we pick up more listeners, so keep the positive reviews coming and share with your friends! 

Charlie Carter (Thinklings Podcast) and Joseph Weigel (Men with Chests Podcast) join Chris to talk about the conclusion of Perelandra! Among other things, they discuss:

• The "three tracks" of a Lewis novel
• Culmination in Dante's Paradiso and the influence of the Divine Comedy 
• Tor, Ransom, and Christ
• The Green Knight and "The Anthropological Approach"
• Flora and fauna
• Why it's a coffin
• Venus as a place where God brings non-dying people
• Venus as Third Heaven
• The Two Witnesses
• Changing Room Montage of the Gods
• Gender and Spirits
• Seven Genders
• The Truth of Myth
• Two Ways of Looking at Myth
• Repetition of Stories

Besides the usual Descript audio, I've included Faure's In Paradisum Requiem

Next time (in two weeks), we'll continue talking about Perelandra with scholar Christiana Hale, whose Deeper Heaven I highly recommend.

Thanks, as always, for listening, and please do drop me a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

This may change if we pick up more listeners, so keep the positive reviews coming and share with your friends!

Joseph Weigel, of the Men with Chests podcast, joins Chris to talk about the fight between Ransom and the Un-man in Perelandra.

Maybe it's all the gimmicky '80s fight songs we feature in this episode, but Chris is feeling rather combative this podcast. He questions many of Lewis' premises in this portion, sending the two down a number of theological dark alleys.

Among other things, we talk about:

• The realistic awkwardness of this fight
• Would it have been morally acceptable to kick the Un-man in the unmentionables? What about to shoot him?
• Is it morally (or theologically) lawful to take the course Ransom does, even in a hypothetical setting? Would it really have been gnostic to refuse to finish off a man who was begging for his life?
• Why wouldn't the Un-man have had superior strength like the demoniac in Acts? And why not exorcise him?
• Does it help us to hate the Devil? Is that the same thing as hating evil? And if we're meant to hate something, what does that say about our own origins?
• Realizing that humans aren't central to creation versus "The Empirical Bogey"
• Dante's damned and the false appeal to pity
• "The Rind" and John Askins; is the possibility that everything is meaningless harder to refute than Weston's original philosophy?
• Awe at the numinous, fear of tigers, loathing of bugs, and hatred of devils
• The disquieting idea that perhaps the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's Lohengrin would have made a better soundtrack than the many 80's anthems we feature here, including:
  • "Eye of the Tiger," by Survivor
  • "Gonna Fly Now," by Bill Conti
  • "I Have Decided," by Don Potter
  • "The Final Countdown," by Europe
  • "Tonight," from West Side Story
  • "You're the Best Around," by Joe Esposito

Apologies for the extra week it took to edit this episode! If you'd like these to come out more frequently, please do leave a review and recommend the podcast to your friends. At this point, I can't justify publishing every week, but if I build up listenership, this will become more feasible.

Until then, look for this podcast to come out every two weeks for the foreseeable future! We have plenty more podcasts in store for you.

If you have questions, comments, or advice, email Chris at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

If you want, feel free to follow us on Instagram: @inklingsvarietyhour

Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast and Joseph Weigel from Men with Chests rejoin Chris to talk about Perelandra, Chapters 8-11 (or thereabouts).

Among other things, we discuss

• The nature of deception
• The division between dark and light in Perelandra
• The ever-present Center
• Diabolical psychology (or lack thereof)
• The rind and the core
• How Perelandra's vivid beauty reinforces the stakes of the dialogue
• Where, exactly, did Weston get his pack...it looks suspiciously like Ransom's, Precious, yes it does....
• How did Lewis interpret Genesis 1? (we don't really have enough time to discuss this fully, but we take a stab at it)

Next week: The fight.

We do a lot of reading on this episode--we certainly enjoyed ourselves, anyway!  Enjoy the conversations between Ransom and the Green Lady, as well as Ransom and Weston (shudder).

Among other things, we discuss:

• The human desire to have things over again, and whether it is truly the root of all evil
• How someone who is sinless could be tempted to sin
• The ambition of Lewis' portrayal of the Lady
• The precariousness of the Lady's sinlessness
• The Force
• Spiritual sins
• Mer-people, myth, and evolution

See you all next time!  

Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com, rate the podcast on Apple Music, follow us on instagram (@inklingsvarietyhour), and share us with other people who like the Inklings

It's late, so I won't say much here, except:

• Joseph Weigel, of the Men with Chests podcast is my guest. He's great, and his podcast is well worth checking out.
• Share, rate, and follow this podcast if you like what you hear. Instagram is @inklingsvarietyhour. Email is inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

That's all for now!  I may be back next week, but it may be in two weeks.  Summer has been unexpectedly busy.  Charlie Carter will be joining Joseph and me for Part 2 of Perelandra!

More description to come. 

5/30: Owen A. Barfield, grandson of Owen Barfield, was kind enough to listen to this episode, and put forward his own interpretation of the parachutes--that they represent "Ethers," by which he means "Warmth, Light, Sound, Life".

While you are ruminating on that, here are a few of his other notes:

- OB referred to himself as the "First and Last Inkling" ... particularly as he was the first and last to be published. And he knew he was behind the Inkling impulse.

- OB was not a vegetarian.

- It was Maud (grandmother) who was concerned about children being trapped in wardrobes.

Maud was a good friend to CSL and is much overlooked.

See:  https://www.owenbarfield.org/the-inklings/the-inkling-impulse/

- Lucy Barfield (OB's daughter) was CSL's God-daughter; as her God-father he wrote LW&W for her first.

See: https://www.owenbarfield.org/research/lucy-barfield-and-narnia/

- OB was a poet, author, playwriter, lawyer etc., but also had a career as a Professor in North America. This is much overlooked.

See: https://www.owenbarfield.org/research/recordings/

- OB's theory of 'Ancient Semantic Unity' is what so much influenced CSL & Tolkien and changed their worldview etc.

- The importance of naming for OB, as noted and also in 'The Silver Trumpet'.

- OB was the Philosopher of the Inklings.

- OB is the first to use the phrase 'Evolution of Consciousness' in publication. [He also uses the term co-inherence about a decade before CW.]

Next time: Perelandra.

Charles Williams makes an astute theological point, promotes G.M. Hopkins, and benefits from imitating his style.

Win-win-win.

Can somebody say "Exchange"?

Some helpful sources for this one:

The Third Inkling

The Oddest Inkling

Find this and other fitness tips on this episode, when we finally get into Owen Barfield.

In this episode, I talk with Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast about Owen Barfield's ideas and the way they play out in the first part of Barfield's dystopian novella, "Night Operation."  

Apologies to Gina Dalfonzo for temporarily forgetting her last name!  Here's her book, Dorothy and Jack.

Learn more about Barfield here: www.owenbarfield.org

We'll conclude the conversation next week!

If you enjoyed this episode, you can do three things (right now) to support the show:

1. Give us a five-star review on iTunes or Apple Music.

2. Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

3. Follow us on Instagram @inklingsvarietyhour

May 30, 2025: Owen A. Barfield (grandson of Owen Barfield) was kind enough to listen to this episode, and sent along the following corrections:

- OB referred to himself as the "First and Last Inkling" ... particularly as he was the first and last to be published. And he knew he was behind the Inkling impulse.

- OB was not a vegetarian.

- It was Maud (grandmother) who was concerned about children being trapped in wardrobes.

Maud was a good friend to CSL and is much overlooked.

See:  https://www.owenbarfield.org/the-inklings/the-inkling-impulse/

- Lucy Barfield (OB's daughter) was CSL's God-daughter; as her God-father he wrote LW&Wfor her first.

See: https://www.owenbarfield.org/research/lucy-barfield-and-narnia/

- OB was a poet, author, playwriter, lawyer etc., but also had a career as a Professor in North America. This is much overlooked.

See: https://www.owenbarfield.org/research/recordings/

- OB's theory of 'Ancient Semantic Unity' is what so much influenced CSL & Tolkien and changed their worldview etc.

- The importance of naming for OB, as noted and also in 'The Silver Trumpet'.

- OB was the Philosopher of the Inklings.

- OB is the first to use the phrase 'Evolution of Consciousness' in publication. [He also uses the term co-inherence about a decade before CW.]

Sir Orfeo warns, among other things, of the dangers of falling asleep under a grafted tree at noon.  You're only tempting fate (and fairies) when you do things like that.  Come on.

Here's the Tolkien translation still in existence that I was able to find.  Most of Tolkien's Sir Gawain translations also include Sir Orfeo.

As always, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

This was a rich discussion, and I hope you get a lot from it. Diana and I discuss the following:

• Creativity, community, and writing groups
• Paper-reading groups in Oxford
• Typical Inklings meetings
• Resonators
• Types of critique
• Criticism versus dismissiveness
• Did Hugo Dyson end the Inklings?
• The perilous journeys of the one manuscript of the Lord of the Rings
• Christopher Tolkien, Mordor, WWI, and WWII
• Exclusivity and the Inklings
• Charles Williams' bracing effect on the Inklings
• Williams' influence on Tolkien?
• Lewis, Tolkien, and "Numinor"
• Tolkien's increasing crankiness
• Just what is influence?

Feel free to check out Diana's website at dianaglyer.com to see what she's currently up to!

If you enjoyed this podcast, let us know by doing the following:

• Giving us a five-star review on iTunes so that other people can find us more easily
• Emailing us (inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com)
• If you have Instagram, follow us @inklingsvarietyhour

Next week: Charlie Carter from the Thinklings podcast joins me to talk Owen Barfield and his dystopian novella, Night Operation!

Finally!  Some Barfield!

[Music: George Winston's "Lullaby," from Summer]

Apologies for my unchancy pronunciation of "wind." Just pretend he's playing the "winding horn," which was invented by Jubal, the half-troll.

This is a shorter episode, as I didn't have much time to edit (on vacation with family).

Among other things, we discuss:

• Sørina's writing consultancy service, which you can find here
• The Inklings and Atmosphere (or "Donegality")
• The relationship between poetry and prose
• Clarity, poetry, and mysticism
• The Oxbridge tutor system as ideal for helping students write well

If you liked what you heard this week, there are a few things you can do:

• Check out wyrdhoard.com.  
• Give us a five-star review on iTunes.
• Shoot us an email at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com
• Follow us on instagram: @inklingsvarietyhour

Next time: Diana Glyer joins to talk with me a bit more about the Inklings as writers in community!

You can find it in Poems. Not sure where else.

As always, please do give us a five-star review on iTunes if you like this podcast.

J.D. Peabody joins Chris once again to talk about the state of Christian middle-grade publishing.  You can find his article/interview for Christianity Today on the same subject here.  It is well worth reading.

Among other things, we discuss:

• Current changes to traditionally published Middle Grade fiction
• How those changes apply to Christian Middle Grade fiction
• What would The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit have to change to be published today?
• Redacting books
• "On the Reading of Old Books," by C.S. Lewis
• The rise of independent publishing/self-publishing
• Helping your child develop good judgment
• Book recommendations
• Advice for modern Christian Middle Grade authors
• Monty Python, of course (or maybe just John Cleese?)

Feel free to follow us @inklingsvarietyhour for more summer reading recommendations (both for grown-ups and children).

Email me anytime at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Next week: I'm still deciding, but there's a lot of great stuff to choose from.  You'll like it, I promise!

Music is "Fragrant Fields," by George Winston, from Summer

See you Tuesday!

You can find this poem in the chapter "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony" in The Fellowship of the Ring, as well as in Tales from the Perilous Realm. It was originally printed on its own in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Enjoy!

When a character in Narnia has "read all the wrong books," you know they're in for a difficult time. But spending time in Narnia does a lot to compensate for a bad literary diet.

What, though, about our kids, who all live well after the Narnian apocalypse and need good books to thrive in our world?

What are "the right books," and how do we get our children to read them? Heck, how do we find them for ourselves, for that matter?

Chris' guests this week are Angela Teal and Marena Bleech, who, with their powers combined, form In The Burrow Books.  You can follow them on Instagram for more recommendations: @intheburrowbooks.

You can also find Angela Teal's (a.k.a. J. Reese Bradley's) books, the Brumbletide series (which my eight-year-old is currently enjoying), here.

Among other things, we discuss:

• Why Christians should go to the library
• Ideological conformity among "top five" publishers
• Motivating kids and competing with screens
• "On Fairy Stories," by J.R.R. Tolkien
• "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," by C.S. Lewis
• Why you should judge books by their illustrations

Post-show recommendations from Marena:

• Amy Grimes does some of the most beautiful work. I highly recommend her book(s) and giving her a follow.
• I adore these Enid Blyton picture books. They're great for early readers.
• I think one of my favorite picture books (which of course, I didn't mention) is The Cottage At the End of the Lane which is worth having if you can get it. 
• Like I said, Brambly Hedge is the best!
• Astrid Sheckels was one I mentioned that's a great current author/illustrator. 
• Of course, A Book of Narnians is wonderful.
• This is such a beautiful book of poetry. (And anything by Tasha Tudor is worth having)
• I'm also a big Winnie-the-Pooh fan, and any book with Ernest Shepherd illustrations.

Post-show recommendations from Chris:

• My friend J.D. Peabody’s middle grade book series, The Inkwell Chronicles is a lot of fun (“The Inklings” is a secret society of authors far larger and older than the Oxford group with Lewis and Tolkien). He also wrote an article on middle grade books for Christianity Today that I’m going to release a podcast about soon.
• I didn’t talk about the Prydain Chronicles or the Earthsea books as great fantasy books that aren’t necessarily Christian, but they were absolutely vital (though I didn’t get into Earthsea until college)
• I have a Pauline Baynes (out of print) book that is a beautiful illustration of the Nicene Creed. 
• Spells of Enchantment (collection of stories), edited by Jack Zipes
• Tales before Tolkien (collection of stories), edited by Douglas Anderson
• My wife Glencora’s children’s book and my far less successful one, where we tried to create engaging (if not very professional) illustrations for good poems
• Our book about Christmas, Twelve Tide, which has lots of literature excerpts and has done a bit better.
• The Never Ending Story (the book!) by Michael Ende
• The Half Magic series, by Edward Eager
• Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
• The Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany

Among other things, we recommend:

• Harry Potter
• Inkheart
• The Wrinkle in Time series
• Anything by Roald Dahl, who was a mean old cuss
• The Borrowers
• Grimm's Fairy Tales
• The Wind in the Willows (illustrated by Arthur Rackham)
• Anne of Green Gables
• The Secret Garden
• Peter and Wendy
• Brambly Hedge
• Beatrix Potter
• Beverly Cleary's Ramona books
• The Indian in the Cupboard
• The Magic Treehouse series

Picture books:

• The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
• The Naming and I Believe:The Nicene Creed illustrated by Pauline Baynes
• Beatrix Potter's books (but avoid the new fake stuff not drawn by her as you would avoid Mr. MacGregor's garden--sold under her name, too!).
• Astrid Sheckels' Hector Fox series
• Mr. Bliss, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf

Movies and TV Series:

• The Secret World of Arrietty (there are actually better Miyazaki films (such as the most recent one), though, and they are all absolutely gorgeous.  He’s not afraid to be still.
• I have to mention two of the hand-drawn Irish films influenced by Miyazaki, The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea.
• Best of all (and most American), the series Over the Garden Wall, which is funny, beautiful, moral, and creepy.  Here’s the first episode (though the rest you have to buy—worth it!)

But what about new children's books and middle-grade fiction?

Next time: Middle-grade author J.D. Peabody weighs in. Check out his article on the subject in Christianity Today.

Music: "Living in the Country," from Summer, by George Winston

Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram @inklingsvarietyhour

Here's an article Connor wrote for "A Pilgrim in Narnia" that compares the themes of Nightmare Alley with those of Lewis' work.

Connor Salter joins Chris to discuss Bill Gresham, Joy's first husband, and the movie Nightmare Alley, based on Gresham's bestselling book.

Among other things, we discuss

• The plot of the film
• Possible meanings of the film
• Noir films and the search for God
• Community among carnival performers
• Bill Gresham's life (and death)
• Bill's and Joy's involvement with Dianetics

A few other works that get mentioned include:

• Monster Midway
• The Greater Trumps

And you can find Connor's stuff here, as well as at Fellowship & Fairydust.

• Please do the following if you like this show:
• Follow us on Instagram @inklingsvarietyhour
• Give the show a five-star review on iTunes
• Email us to say hi!  inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Next week: What are "the right books" Eustace didn't read, and how can your kids find them in an increasingly bizarre middle grade marketplace?  Ideas for kids' summer reading in the spirit of the Inklings.

Luckily, he is visited today by three spirits who know more about the show and the lore behind it than he does.

Can Sørina Higgins, Connor Salter, and Jordan Key cause him to believe in Tolkien adaptations again? Or will he drag them down with him into the cynical abyss, full of zombie swordfish and indistinct symbiote goo? (I mean, can a crossover with the MCU be far away--it's clearly Venom.)

We talk about:

1. How Tolkienian is the trailer?

2. What each image in the trailer might be.

3. What would they have to announce about the new season to make us excited (or at least less grumpy) about it?

Apologies for doing almost no editing on this one!  It needed to be churned out fast to be even the tiniest bit relevant.

Drop us a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and feel free to share your thoughts about the series.

Notice: We'll have the normal IVH episode (about Nightmare Alley) on Thursday, in place of the poem--this week.  In future weeks, we'll return to the Hour-Tuesday/Poetry-Thursday format.

By the way, here's where the conversation between Sørina Higgins and Jordan Key about Season One will become available.

This is a fairly rambly meditation on C.S. Lewis' "The Future of Forestry."  Also, intellectual and political history painted with a very, very broad brush. Edgy! (Or maybe just careless.)

The views expressed here (which are solely Chris's and might be wrong as many of them were formulated while writing), please do write in at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com! I'd love to hear from you! If anyone would like a longer episode with many contrasting views of Lewis' and Tolkien's conservative conservationism, let me know--that could be a lot of fun. 

Next week--come visit Nightmare Alley with me and Connor Salter!

Thanks again to Sørina Higgins for her readings!

Chris is joined by actor Jason Will to discuss Charles Williams' nativity play, The House by the Stable, recently staged by the Acacia Theater Company with Grab and Grace.

Together, they weigh the following questions (among others):

• How can modern theater companies make up for the fact that audiences are not familiar with verse plays?
• What is the context of this play?
• Who was Ruth Spalding?
• Why did Williams' choose to combine medieval allegorical and medieval Bible ("mystery") plays, and what does that have to do with Man, Pride, Hell, Gabriel, and the Holy Family?
• How should one read verse drama?
• Could this be Williams' clearest piece of fiction?
• Also, is there tobacco in heaven?

Episode links:

• The House by the Stable
• Grab and Grace
• Acacia Theater Company
• What Prominent Charles Williams Scholars Are Saying
• Also, see the Oddest Inkling Blog entry
• What Critics Are Saying

Next week: We're talking with Connor Salter about Nightmare Alley by Joy Davidman's ex, Bill Gresham!  At long last, a connection between the Inklings and film noir!  And it's a really good film noir, too (and yes, I know that Gresham didn't direct the movie but wrote the book that inspired the movie--don't be such a geek).

Feel free to read it first, or listen to it on Librivox: Part 1, Part 2

We talk about the following:

• George MacDonald's life
• The "plot" (or lack thereof--hang in there!) of "The Golden Key"
• Parallels with C.S. Lewis' work (especially The Problem of Pain)
• Tolkien's reaction and general crotchetiness in old age
• Other works like "The Golden Key"
• I probably bring up Miyazaki a bit too much

Recommended books and films:

• Tales Before Tolkien (ed. by Douglas Anderson)
• Spells of Enchantment (ed. by Jack Zipes)
• Peter and Wendy, by J.M Barrie
• The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis
• Smith of Wootton Major, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Boy and the Heron and Howl's Moving Castle (films) by Hayao Miyazaki
• The Song of Bernadette movie that Tolkien liked when he seemed to like very little else--starring (among others) a young Vincent Price!

If you enjoy The Inklings Variety Hour, please leave us a five-star review on Apple Music or iTunes.  Thanks very much to those who have, including (most recently) Virginicus, who says, "It’s amazing how many different things the Inklings can be connected to. Chris follows them all over the map. I like the new Thursday poetry readings best."  Thanks, Virginicus!  Very much obliged!

As always, feel free to drop us a line to let us know what you like and what you would like to see more of: inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

We're also on Instagram now @inklingsvarietyhour

Next week: The House by the Stable, by Charles Williams

Quotations come from The Making of C.S. Lewis, by Harry Lee Poe, and Collected Letters, vol. 2, edited by Walter Hooper.

Thanks again to Sørina Higgins for her excellent reading!

But here's the thing...all of those episodes need to be edited by yours truly. And it's the last week of the semester, and I have a lot of grading (and parenting) to do, so, it's time to treat yourself to a rerun.

Luckily, it's a good one!

Enjoy this old episode about adapting Tolkien!  We'll be back next week!

Old description:

Jonathan Geltner and Eric Geddes join Chris to talk about their favorite adaptations of Tolkien's Legendarium in this fairly self-indulgent and digressive conversation.  Join us!

Do you have a favorite (or least favorite) Tolkien adaptation?  Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and tell us about it.

Probably, yes.

Thanks again to Sørina Higgins for selecting and reading this week's (and last week's) poem!

Here's the poem, by the way: Surprised by Joy by William Wordsworth | Poetry Foundation

And here's Ben Jonson's "On My First Son," which is a real tear-jerker: On my First Son by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation

If you enjoy Poetry Thursdays, be sure to let us know at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Dr. Katherine Wyma joins Chris to talk about how Lewis' writing reflects his experiences in World War I.  In particular, she suggests that his writing about World War II may be a form of narrative therapy that helped him cope with psychological wounds from the previous war.

Katherine mentions a few books listeners might want to check out:

The Maisie Dobbs mystery series

A Morning After War, by K.J. Gilchrist

C.S. Lewis and the BBC, by Justin Phillips

If you want to drop us a line, or join us for an episode (we're recording on Perelandra just now), email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Many thanks to Sørina Higgins for reading (as well as her counsel and help with this podcast generally).

Find Williams' poem and her commentary (from ten years ago, nearly exactly) here: On Meeting Shakespeare | The Oddest Inkling (wordpress.com)

Next week: Tolkien and Lewis and the World Wars!

please...

leave us a review with five stars

on iTunes or Apple Music, or whatever.

Yes, we're talking to you through these shownotes, 

and it's all very eerie

and annoying.

*ahem*

Middle-grade author J.D. Peabody rejoins Chris to talk about The Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa, the second book in his Inkwell Chronicles series.  

You may want to read the book before listening--or feel free to listen to get an idea of how another author draws on the work of the Inklings to create his own excellent middle-grade fiction. It's pretty inspiring.

Stick around post "credits" to hear Mr. Peabody talk with Chris' 10-year-old son.  

Here, by the way, is Jeff's secret Inkwell Chronicles invisible ink page.  Worth looking through.

Apologies for the late posting! Life has been a perfect storm of grading, kids getting sick, meetings, etc.  

Also--we're on Instagram now.  Follow us @inklingsvarietyhour and feel free to respond there.

As always, email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Again, the idea for this format comes from "The Daily Poem," so check it out if you haven't already done so.

See you Tuesday!

My guests are Eric Geddes, Jonathan Geltner (whose blogs you should find and whose books you should buy), and Joseph Weigel (whose podcast you should listen to). My wife Glencora also makes a brief appearance.

You can now find us on Instagram @inklingsvarietyhour.  We'd love to hear from you.

Next week, we'll be talking to J.D. Peabody about his middle-grade fantasy, The Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa.  Feel free to look it up and give it a read before then or wait until you hear the episode.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com, and please leave a five-star review on iTunes if you're enjoying the podcast.

No. No, he wasn't.

But have we played him reading a stanza of this poem (in which he mentions Williams and Tolkien) every week we've published an episode?  

Yes. Yes, we have.

So here's the whole thing in full, for the sake of sweet context.

Again, I am absolutely stealing the pattern of Poetry Thursdays from the wonderful Daily Poem podcast by Goldberry Studios.  Listen to it and be enlightened, if you like this sort of thing.

Next time: We wrap up our Silver Chair discussion!

Feel free to follow us on Instagram: @inklingsvarietyhour

And shoot us an email to tell us that our work this week has not been in vain: inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

This week, Chris is joined by a panoply of first-time and returning guests, such as Eric Geddes, Jonathan Geltner, Joseph Weigel, and Glencora Pipkin, to talk about The Silver Chair, Chapters 7-9.  Hopefully you'll find our many digressions refreshing and stimulating--not irritating and uncomfortable, like so many irregular trenches carved into a hill.

Among other things, we discuss:

• Whether we're more afraid of heights or depths (we'd love to hear from you on this question).
• Chris feels vindicated that Lewis had trouble finding a name for this book.
• The V-structure (see Planet Narnia) of The Silver Chair
• The Faerie Queene and the fringes of England and Narnia
• Sources, and Eric's hypothesis about "Narnia and the North"
• Education and The Silver Chair
• Loss of Agency Resulting from Comfort
• The Nature of Dreams
• The Children's Cascading Epiphanies!
•  Humor and Tension in Harfang
• "It's a Cookbook!"
• "It's only cannibalism if your meal was hnau."
• Education as instilling virtue

Here's a link to Jonathan Weigel's podcast, "Men with Chests": Men with Chests on Apple Podcasts

Here's a link to Jonathan Geltner's substack, blog, and books.

This Thursday: A poem!  By one of the Inklings, probably!  You'll know when I do!

Next week: Finale of The Silver Chair!

As always, feel free to email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com!

Welcome back to Poetry Thursday.

Here's something from the planet Mercury for you all!

Also, the show now has an Instagram--follow us @inklingsvarietyhour

Feel free to let me know if there are poems by Inklings you'd really like to hear.  

We'll be back Tuesday with more of The Silver Chair!

In the meantime, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Happy Easter to you! Cristos Anviat!

If you'd like to reach out to us or suggest ideas for an episode, email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Also, we have an Instagram account now.  Follow us at inklingsvarietyhour.

Chris resumes his conversation with Jonathan Geltner and Eric Geddes about the first half of Lewis' fourth Narnia book, The Silver Chair.

Among other things, we discuss:

• A bit more of Chapter 4, "Parliament of Owls."
• Rilian's Predicament: Oedipal or just Literary?
• Puddleglum: Origins
  • Fred Paxford
  • John Studley's Bad Translation of Hippolytus (16th Century, OHEL)
  • Geographical
  • Literary American "Indian Guides"
• English dourness, Thorin and Company, and Dickens
• Rock Giants at Play in The Silver Chair and The Hobbit
• Jill and Eustace: Pilgrims or T-r-r-r-r-avelers?
• The Ever-r-r-r-Glamorous Art of R-Trilling
• Parallels with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Other Romances, such as:
  • Lanval, by Marie de France
  • Sir Orfeo (based on Orpheus but with Fairies--here's Tolkien's translation)
• Post-script: Arthurian Torso

Thanks to Jonathan Geltner and Eric Geddes for a great conversation. Follow Jonathan's work at his blog and his substack, and buy his book.

This Week's Poetry Thursday: C.S. Lewis' "The Birth of Language."

Next Tuesday: Joined by Joseph Weigel from the Men with Chests podcast, we'll discuss civilized giants!  And maybe we'll even get to the Underworld. Stay tuned!

Coming this Season:

Perelandra, more podcast crossovers (Thinklings, Men with Chests), Arthurian Torso, "The Golden Key," Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa, Lewis and Tolkien and a whole lot more. 

This week, we're reading a poem by Ruth Pitter, someone who was not an Inkling but knew C.S. Lewis and a few of the other Inklings.  I had Don W. King on the show to talk about her, and you can find that interview here.

You can find the poem I read here, by the way.

And here's a book of Pitter's poetry.

I hope you enjoy--if you do, please leave a five-star review on iTunes so that others will be more likely to find the show.

Also, please feel free to write me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com if you have ideas for poems you would like to hear read on the show.

The idea for the format of Poetry Thursday is ripped pretty shamelessly from The Daily Poem, which is a great podcast.

Chris' wife, Glencora, joins him to talk about chapters 3 and 4 of The Silver Chair. Among other things, we discuss:

• The Signs and Sudden Quizzes
• Muppet Silver Chair (not really a thing, but it should be)
• The Many Types of Narnians
• Knowledge, Experience, Recognition
• Meditation in a Toolshed
• The Nature of Wisdom?
• Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls and other ancient/medieval works referenced in Chapter 4...also Keats.
• Fetching green caps that say "Oui"

Hopefully you'll enjoy this episode, which is slightly more lighthearted and relaxed than usual.  Also, happy birthday to Glencora!

If not, I'll be back with Eric and Jonathan next week to talk about Puddleglum!

Next: 

• Poetry Thursday: "The Sparrow's Skull," by Ruth Pitter

This Season:

Shows on their way include:

• Interview with J.D. Peabody about The Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa
• C.S. Lewis and World War I
• Interview with Connor Salter about Bill Gresham
• George MacDonald's "The Golden Key"
• Owen Barfield
• Perelandra
• Arthurian Torso
• And quite a bit more. Stay tuned and let me know what else you'd like to see.

Apologies for any sound problems on this one!  We were in the same room, and I am not a professional sound guy.

This is more or less directly inspired by the excellent podcast, The Daily Poem by Goldberry Studios, so check it out and subscribe if you want more of this sort of thing.

The poem this week is "Imram," by J.R.R. Tolkien.

You can find a text of the poem here.

You can find it reprinted in Sauron Defeated in the History of Middle Earth Series.

Do you have a favorite poem by one of the Inklings (or someone associated with them in some way) that you'd like to hear read on the podcast?  Feel free to shoot me an email if so, at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

As always, give us a five-star rating if you want to encourage us to keep doing what we do.

See you Tuesday for The Silver Chair, Part 2!

We'd also love to hear from you--feel free to send us an email at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Welcome to Season Four!  

Chris is joined by Eric Geddes and author Jonathan Geltner to discuss Chapters 1 and 2 of the fourth book in the Narniad (is that what we're calling that now?), The Silver Chair. 

Among other things, we discuss:

• How we're all graduates of Experiment House now
• The school Experiment House was maybe sort of kind of based on
• The real means of getting into Narnia this time (is it the door or Aslan's breath?)
• Aslan's Country as Eden/The Terrestrial Paradise, and Pole and Scrubb's very literal Fall
• The role of the four signs and memory
• Knowledge, experience, and recognition
• The name of the book
• Silverchair (who were, as it turns out, fans of Narnia)

Things we didn't discuss but I'd planned to:

• The Door in the Wall, a beautiful fairy-story by H.G. Wells

Next:

• I'll be releasing brief recordings of poetry by the Inklings each Thursday. This coming Thursday, it'll be "Imram," by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Next Week:

• My wife Glencora and I will discuss Chapters 3 and 4 of The Silver Chair. Never fear--we will get to Puddleglum the following week!

This Season:

Shows on their way include:

• Interview with J.D. Peabody about The Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa
• C.S. Lewis and World War I
• Interview with Connor Salter about Bill Gresham (Joy's ex) and his most important novel-turned-movie, Nightmare Alley
• George MacDonald's "The Golden Key"
• At last: Owen Barfield!
• Arthurian Torso
• Perelandra
• And quite a bit more. Stay tuned, and feel free to let me know what else you'd like to see.

Oh, didn't realize it was still Christmas, did you? Well, it is, but it's getting close to Epiphany, time of magi and revelations.  

Happy Twelfth Night!

Thanks again to Sørina Higgins and her talented authors' circle, of which I am a part. Feel free to join us.

Write me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com if there are specific things you'd like to see in Season 4 of The Inklings Variety Hour!  

I plan to kick things off with a discussion about The Silver Chair. I'd like this discussion to be with a group of enthusiasts rather than scholars, per se. So please email me if you'd like to join in.

Part 3 will post in a week or so (which is, by the way, still Christmastide).

Thanks to Joe Hoffman, Ed Powell, and Sørina Higgins for their talents and help.

Apologies for the occasionally poor audio quality.  We did the best we could!

Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. If you like the show, I'd love to hear from you.

Two more (longer) parts are to come!  Gee, it's a good thing Christmas begins on December 25, or I'd be out of time. Twelve Tide, etc., etc.!

Special thanks to Anika Smith, Sørina Higgins, and Joe Hoffman for reading this episode.  Thanks in general to Sørina's Author's Circle, which you can find out more about (and even join) here. 

Hope you enjoy it--keep in mind this is a first draft, none of us are professional actors, and I'm not making a cent off this episode! As with any holiday movie or play, if you keep your expectations low, you'll have a pretty good time!

Feel free to send me feedback at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  And please rate the show if you like it!

Join William O'Flaherty and Chris as we play Schroeder to C.S. Lewis' Beethoven in a "Crossover Extravaganza" that is sure to have you schlepping down to your local library to crack open some of our favorite works by Lewis!

(Ah! Still fresh! And intoxicating!)

William and Chris will both be attending a Livestream event today (11/29/23) marking this first annual C.S. Lewis Reading Day. Feel free to come along, at 7:00 EST. You should be able to find it on the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel or Facebook Page.

In the meantime, read some C.S. Lewis. (I assume that's what one does on a C.S. Lewis Reading Day when one isn't creating and listening to podcasts.)  If you're not sure where to start, listen to a bit of the present episode to get some ideas.

We had the first (and longer) part of this conversation on William's fine podcast, "All About Jack." It's already up, so check it out if you want to know about some of the works by Lewis that have influenced Chris the most.  You can also find it on William's Youtube channel.

You can find the essays and books William discusses here:

The Screwtape Letters (Annotated)

The Weight of Glory

The Four Loves

The Business of Heaven

Additionally, here is William's Amazon page, where you can buy his books on C.S. Lewis, The Misquotable Lewis and C.S. Lewis Goes To Hell.

And you can find Twelve Tide, the Christmas Resource book by Chris and Glencora Pipkin on Amazon as well. More on that next week!

Finally, Chris is creating a Christmas Special starring the Inklings. If you have any interest in reading the part of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Warnie Lewis, or Edith Tolkien, please contact him at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

If you want to hear the first part of my conversation with William O'Flaherty, check out his podcast, All About Jack.  The second part will arrive on C.S. Lewis Reading Day, right here on The Inklings Variety Hour.

If you want to watch the Livestream conversation between myself and a whole bunch of other C.S. Lewis podcast hosts, go to the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel at 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, November 29.

If you'd like to check out the book I've written with my wife (Twelve Tide), here it is. We'll be talking with original cohost Anika about it next week.

If you would like to be a part of the Christmas special I'm working on for later in December (or would like to suggest ideas for Season Four), email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  I'd love to hear from you for any reason, really.

Come to hear about the new Charles Williams poetry and manuscripts; stay to hear a brief discussion about whether Williams should be "canceled." 

Follow Sørina's work at https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.com/, and feel free to support her work at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina. 

And let me know your thoughts! Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

The Inklings Variety Hour will be back in March (or so) for a fourth season! In the meantime, enjoy occasional bonus episodes like this. Next up, we'll be having a crossover episode with William O'Flaherty's "All About Jack" podcast for the new, official C.S. Lewis Reading Day (November 29). 

I'll also be promoting a Christmas book my wife and I have written. We'll see you then!

I was really excited to have this conversation, as I read this book just under two decades ago and it not only introduced me to Barfield's ideas, but also made The Silmarillion far more interesting and meaningful to me than it had been. 

So, enjoy, and thanks so much to Verlyn for coming on the show again.  It's been such an honor and a treat to be able to talk with her.  

I'm about out of podcasts!  With the semester starting up, this may well be the final podcast of the season--but I intend to return for Season 4, probably sometime in March.  You'll probably have a few scattered podcasts from me before then, so watch this space!

I've pretty much run out of regular co-contributors, and I worry that the nature of this podcast suffers if it's mostly interviews with published experts (fun as those are), book promotions, or me just talking on my own.  This should be primarily friends talking about good books (and many, many thanks to all the friends who have joined me here)!

If any listeners would like to join me to discuss a book (say, The Silver Chair or The Man Who Was Thursday, or something else), just say the word.  I'd love to have you chime in for an episode or two at the very least.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com or give the podcast a rating on iTunes.  

Thanks for listening!

I wasn't happy with the way the audio turned out in Part 2 of Voyage of the Dawn Treader earlier this season, so this is my attempt to rectify that!  It should be much easier to hear us talk--with a lot less deafening music and waves.  Also, if you have a long drive ahead of you, stick us on--we'll cover all of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

You can listen to Part 1 (with David Bates and Eric Geddes), Part 2 (with Eric Geddes), as well as all new bonus material featuring the three Pipkin kids, whose patience I test with attempts at Socratic seminar on VODT--as well as attempts to get them to sit still.  I'd say they give about as well as they get.

The material with my kids is pretty heavily edited.  You're welcome.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Thanks again to David Bates and Eric Geddes, and thanks to Logan Huggins for mixing the first episode.

Next time: Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger joins me to at last talk about Owen Barfield--and his influence on Tolkien.  We'll discuss her landmark study, Splintered Light.

We also talk a bit about writing and the creative process. 

If you'd like to read Sørina's stories--and even help shape them--just go to www.buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina

For more on her scholarly work, check out her blog, The Oddest Inkling.

If you enjoy The Inklings Variety Hour, please do leave us a review or send me note at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Next week: I'm not entirely sure. Hey, it's like you're in a real Inklings meeting, where anything might happen. Perhaps Charles Williams or his ghost will show up--or a big ham from America. Or maybe we'll finally talk about ancient semantic unity and/or "more $%#@ing elves." Man, now I'm intrigued--as well as anxious to live up to all this hype. Stay tuned!

Enjoy! If you like it and want to support a collection of similar stories I'm developing, just go here.

(No long episode description this time--I am on vacation.  Enjoy, though!)

If you have additional thoughts about the Shire, or ideas about other places we should explore, drop us a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We would love to hear from you.  I think it would be half worth it to do a second episode somewhere down the line on the Shire, as there is so much else to talk about.  Let me know your thoughts.

Give us a rating on iTunes if you can spare a minute. A kind review would mean a great deal to us.

Sophie's podcast, Beneath the Willow Tree, can be found here.

Next time, we'll be talking about Sørina Higgins' developing short story collection, Shall These Bones Breathe?  Check it out and support her work here.

We ask, and attempt to answer the question: "What would Western society look like if it was rebuilt only around the works of Tolkien?"

We're not sure ourselves, but there would probably be a lot more smoking. 

Spoilers: We don't ever quite answer this question, but we do speculate about it quite a bit, covering topics from "How 'true' did Tolkien think his own legendarium was?" to "Is Tolkien's secondary world self-contained enough that no context is necessary to appreciate it?"

If you have more concrete ideas about what a Tolkien-based culture would look like, we'd love to hear them. Email the podcast at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

Check out Jonathan's stuff here, here, and here.

Next time: Sophie Burkhardt joins me to talk about the Shire!

This week, Jonathan Geltner joins Chris to talk about J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished King Arthur poem, The Fall of Arthur, indulging in discussions of medieval literature 

Among other things, we discuss:

• Why you should never tell an author that they must finish a work (thanks a lot, R.W. Chambers!)
• The plot of The Fall of Arthur
• The Arthurian "chronicle" tradition in medieval literature (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Layamon, and the Alliterative Morte Arthure
• Who is the historical Arthur?
• The Britons versus the English
• What "Wales" means
• Tolkien's not-so-cordial dislike of French
• Tolkien's focus on the natural world
• Lancelot and Gawain
• Tides as time in Tolkien
• Guinever as fay-woman
• Old English prosody in The Fall of Arthur
• Images and phrases in this work that prefigure LOTR
• Mordred's agents: The first Black Riders?

Sorry for the late posting!

Next week, we'll be talking about Jonathan's essay--a thought experiment about what would happen if we had to restart civilization with only Tolkien's work.  Feel free to read it here before we discuss: The new transcendentalism (III): fragments or foundations? (substack.com)

Feel free also to follow Jonathan at Slant Books, and to purchase his debut novel, Absolute Music.

If you like this podcast, please give us a five-star rating on iTunes. We'd also love to hear from you, so please reach out--inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com!

Friend of the show Eric Geddes returns to talk about Lewis' friend and student, Roger Lancelyn Green, who was best known for the many children's books he wrote about myths and legends, many of which remain standard.

After briefly discussing Green's friendship with Lewis, we talk about Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, which Lewis called "better than Malory," before adding, "well, not really, but you know what I mean."

High praise indeed!

Topics and works discussed include:

• Roger Lancelyn Green's biography
• His friendship with Lewis
• Some of his best-known works.
• Lewis' Discarded Image, dedicated to Green
• Tolkien's annoyance with Narnia, revisited
• Diana Glyer's The Company They Keep
• The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, ed. by Walter Hooper
• Sir Thomas Malory versus Roger Lancelyn Green...
• ...versus Dave Pilkey (or, Pipkin's unhinged "get-off-my-lawn" rant about kids' books these days)
• The two swords of Arthur
• Monty Python, of course
• Odds Bodkin's Perceval
• Chretien de Troyes versus Roger Lancelyn Green
• The Holy Grail
• Galahad versus Perceval
• When the holy and the fairy converge
• Is it a foregone conclusion that Camelot (and all civilizations) would fail--and is it one that a Christian is obliged to make?

Digressive and rambling, as usual, but come along for the ride and you'll probably have fun.

Also--are there other Inklings or topics you would like to hear us discuss?  Let us know!

There will be more on King Arthur (as written by Tolkien) very soon. Thanks for listening!

Hal Poe joins the show to discuss his comprehensive and very readable three-volume C.S. Lewis biography, Becoming C.S. Lewis, which you can find here. He talks about how he became interested in C.S. Lewis, the process of writing the biography, and a few of the assumptions about C.S. Lewis he's disproven.

Among other things, we discuss:

• The importance of Lewis' childhood in forming his tastes
• The Janie Moore affair (or lack thereof?)
• Biography versus memoir
• Lewis' love of allegory and his Allegory of Love
• Lewis' likely influence on Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
• Barfield: The Inkling Who Wasn't
• Some objections to the Planet Narnia thesis
• C.S. Lewis as Mrs. Moore's house elf
• Lewis' writing speed
• Apologetics after Lewis

We hope you enjoy it!  Thanks again to Hal Poe for taking the time to discuss this with us--and thanks to Andrew Lazo for introducing us!

Don also shares some of his exclusive recording of Pitter reading her poetry.  Definitely worth hearing!

If you're enjoying The Inklings Variety Hour, we have no way of knowing it unless you email us (inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com) or leave us a rating (and review) on iTunes. If we're a part of your life, we'd love to have you be a part of ours as well--let us know what you're enjoying, and what you'd like to see more of.

I'd write more, but I have a newborn--welcome Arthur Edmund Pipkin, who has the most Inkling-y name of all my children.

This is a wide-ranging conversation (we get a lot of mileage out of a comparatively short essay), and we cover everything from the question of aliens, to government conspiracies, to apologetics, to Richard Dawkins, Elon Musk, James Cameron (and of course, Sir Fred B. Hoyle), to Lewis' idea of animals and humans "becoming" something higher and what that has to do with rational souls, to (oddly enough) the Monkey King from The Journey to the West, as well as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Story of Your Life (Arrival). 

Come for the self-indulgent semi-conspiratorial ramblings, and stay for Chris actually disagreeing with C.S. Lewis about something, as well as for the following hypothetical questions, as posed by Lewis and by us:

• If aliens existed would this invalidate the Christian faith?
• If aliens existed would this actually prove the existence of God?
• If aliens existed, should Western democracies opt out of the new space race that would result?
• Should we avoid colonizing other planets (for instance, Mars), even if they are uninhabited?
• Is adventure bad (the result of the Fall) or is it how God designed us? And isn't making contact with aliens another adventure?
• Speaking of good intentions potentially having disastrous consequences: Is C.S. Lewis indirectly responsible for James Cameron's Avatar?

If you like this podcast, please rate it on iTunes. Please also consider dropping us a line at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Also, I highly recommend Jordan's podcast, Lesser-Known Lewis. This will be the first of a few collaborations.

Next time, I'll be talking with Sørina Higgins about her book of short stories, Shall These Bones Breathe?

While not explicitly about Lewis or Tolkien, these subjects we cover this episode were near and dear to the heart of Lewis and Tolkien, as well as other members of the Inklings--many of whom were scholars.

Find out more about Exploring Beowulf here:

Exploring Beowulf

And find out about other books being published through Signum here:

https://press.signumuniversity.org/

I am also joined by friend of the show, Sørina Higgins, Editor-in-Chief of Signum University Press.

Next week: We'll be talking about C.S. Lewis' essay, "Religion and Rocketry," as well as Sørina's book, Shall These Bones Breathe?

Music for this episode is by The Medieval Jazz Quartet.

We'll have a conversation with Jordan Duncan on "Religion and Rocketry" pretty soon as well, but I wasn't able to complete it quite in time for Tuesday this week.

Here's the old description for "Mythopoeia":

This week, we have J.R.R. Tolkien's "Mythopoeia," read by Anika Smith!

You can find the text of the poem online if you want to read along, or you can buy this lovely book.

Music in the background is Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner.

Next week, we'll be back to discuss Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories," in which a part of "Mythopoeia" is quoted.

If you're enjoying these podcasts, please share with a friend or drop us a line to tell us so (InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com).  Constructive feedback and suggestions for future episodes are welcome.  We'd also very much appreciate reviews in iTunes, if you can spare the time.  

Go here to learn more about Signum University Press.

We'll be back next week to talk with scholar Michael Drout about his forthcoming book on the liberal arts and ongoing Beowulf Project!

I also plan to release a conversation between myself and Jordan Duncan, from the Lesser-Known Lewis podcast, about Lewis' essay, "Religion and Rocketry"--but it is possible that this will be delayed!

If you're enjoying this podcast, please drop me a line to let me know!  Also, do feel free to jump on our new substack to discuss episodes (I am, admittedly, still figuring out how to post new podcasts there, but the old ones are up).  You can find it here.

And, as always, feel free to email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

The Inklings Variety Hour is pleased to welcome Dr. David C. Downing for our final episode discussing Out of the Silent Planet. David wrote the first serious scholarly book on C.S. Lewis' "Ransom Trilogy," Planets in Peril and he is the co-director, with his wife, Crystal, of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. Check out their fine podcast, if you haven't already. 

Among other things we discuss:

• How David became interested in C.S. Lewis and the genesis of Planets in Peril
• Why Lewis is like an EGOT-er
• Tolkien and Lewis, their influence on each other, and their different approaches to fantasy
• Lewis and Mysticism
• Into the Region of Awe, Looking for the King, and C.S. Lewis on Writing (And Writers)
• J.B.S. Haldane and Lewis
• Controversy as Muse
• Clear Writing
• Lewis' personal aesthetic experiences as basis for fiction

I hope you enjoy!  Thanks again to Dr. Downing for joining me.

On Thursday, join us again as I interview another heavy hitter, renowned Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, as part of a continued series of interviews with authors publishing through Signum University Press. I will be talking with Verlyn about her new book of stories and poetry, A Waiter Made of Glass, which is now available wherever books are sold.

If you would like to find out more, to support Kay, or to help her shape this book, go to https://kaybenavraham.com/.  

Kay is the first of several writers for Signum University Press that I'll be interviewing this summer.  Signum is unusual in that each of their authors has a "author's circle" for whom they write and revise.  Go here to learn more.

Next week, I'll be talking with David C. Downing about Out of the Silent Planet, as well as Verlyn Flieger about her new book, also with Signum UP.  Stay tuned!

If you're enjoying this podcast, please drop me a line to let me know!  Also, do feel free to jump on our new substack to discuss episodes (I am, admittedly, still figuring out how to post new podcasts there, but the old ones are up).  You can find it here.

And, as always, feel free to email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Also, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts!

And do feel more than free to drop us a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

Sophie Burkhardt joins the show today to discuss the final third of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet. Among other things, we discuss:

• Why it doesn't snow in Malacandra
• The many ways in which humans are humbled in this book
• Renaissance, Scholastic and...Einsteinian ideas about angels' bodies
• Lewis and Resurrection Bodies
• Three types of humans and three types of Malacandrians
• Were the birds hnau?
• Organization of labor (or if you like, organisation of labour) on Malacandra
• H.G. Wells' The First Men In the Moon and The Door in the Wall
• J.B.S. Haldane's (actually pretty well-informed) critique of the Ransom Trilogy
• Are the Malacandrians living in a communist utopia?
• The inherent absurdity and dignity of all creatures
• Goofy questions include:
  • Are you a sorn, a pfiffltriggi, or a hross? Take our personality quiz and find out! (Not really)
  • Prompt: Rewrite a myth or Bible story, but set it against the backdrop of Lewis' cosmology.

Next Tuesday, I'll be talking to Dr. David C. Downing, who wrote the first seriously scholarly work on Lewis' Ransom Trilogy (which is quite readable).

Thanks to Sophie for joining me!  Please check out her podcast, Beneath the Willow Tree!

In a few days, join us for a bonus episode, where I will interview Kay Ben-Avraham, who has written (and is writing) a book about dryads called The Flower of the Cedar. This is the first of a few interviews I'll be having with authors publishing through Signum University Press.

Also, we'd love to hear from you!  Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

Chris, Sophie, and Logan discuss Chapters 9-14 of Our of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis!

More description to come!

David Bates, Logan Huggins, and Sophia Burkhardt join Chris to talk about Out of the Silent Planet!  This was recorded quite some time ago--shortly after the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I wanted to space out my Lewis episodes (so to speak). 

Longer episode description (with links) to come, because I am tired!

Next week: Out of the Silent Planet, Part 2 (of 3).  

Want even more Out of the Silent Planet?  David's podcast, Pints With Jack, is covering the book in detail this year!  Check it out!

This is a Wagner-iffic episode, partly due to the fact that Malacandra is (as Dr. David C. Downing once pointed out) a fairly "Northern" world.  So that's why I'm doing that. 

Also, when this was recorded, Logan Huggins was indeed my producer, but he has since had to jump ship--so if anything (sound effects, music) is sloppy, that is wholly my fault!

If you like it and want to hear the rest, just go back to Season 1 and binge away!  It's good stuff.

Next week, once my grades are in, we will be blasting off to Heaven with a new, 3- or 4-part series on C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet.

In the meantime, here are the notes for the original Till We Have Faces episode:

Welcome back to The Inklings Variety Hour!  It's a new year, and Ungit has only just hatched out of her egg-house (or something), but already, your intrepid hosts are tackling C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces (1956)--widely considered the best novel he ever wrote.  Chris, Anika, and Meagan discuss this retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth as only the Inklings Variety Hour can--with lots of digressions, reading of passages, and laughter.

If you're enjoying this podcast, we're glad to have you along for the ride, and we'd love to know you!  Drop us a line at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  Ratings on the iTunes store would be most welcome also.

Music for this episode includes:

The Hurrian Hymn

The "Our Father" in Aramaic

"Sick Muse" by Metric

Kora Burton and Jonathan Geltner join Chris to talk about one of its strangest and most recent Tolkien-related gifts, Khraniteli, a made-for-television production of The Fellowship of the Ring that aired in the final days of the USSR (1991) and was released by a kind soul onto YouTube 30 years later (2021).  

In this characteristically digressive episode, we start with some big thoughts about realism in cinema and fantasy, as well as whether Tolkien's stories can be adapted into non-British (non-English?) contexts. For dessert, we talk about particular moments in the movie itself.  You don't need to have watched this to enjoy all that is said, but it might help to at least watch a condensed highlight reel.

This article in Variety gets mentioned, and it's worth reading, at least compared to all of the other articles that have come out about this (ones that don't feature actual reporting).

I'd love to hear from you if you're enjoying the podcast!  Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Next time: We'll either feature an interview, or begin our Out of the Silent Planet episodes.  It may be two weeks before we get there, as I'm still grading final papers and exams, but I'll try to throw something from the vault your way next week.  Upcoming interviews feature Harry Lee Poe, David C. Downing, Don W. King, and others.  

So...enjoy this 2020 vintage from the vaults, where Chris, Anika, and Meagan weigh in on the (now-semi-)perennial question: Is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a "Fairy Story" (as defined by Tolkien)?  Their answer...will shock you.

Probably.

I don't really remember what it was, if I'm being honest.

Anyway, enjoy this rough cut of Season 1 wackiness, and stay tuned--we've got lots of new interviews and episodes coming your way...it's just a matter of me finding time to edit them!

The next non-aged episode will be on The Soviet Lord of the Rings, Khraniteli.  Be afraid.  And maybe mildly impressed?

Feel free to email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.

More description to come!  Sorry to publish this late!

Do you have a favorite (or least favorite) Tolkien adaptation?  Email us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and tell us about it.

Next time: A full episode on the "Soviet Lord of the Rings"!

We're accordingly interviewing him on The Inklings Variety Hour!

Our conversation is about his book, The Inkwell Chronicles: The Ink of Elspet, which you can buy here.

And here is the secret, "invisible" page that shows how the details in his plot are connected to real people in places in England.

Among other things, J.D. and I talk about:

• the premise for his story (magical Ink that is the source of all creativity)
• the historical basis of his story
• turning a few of the Inklings into characters (Jack, Dot, and Ronald)
• invisible pigeons whom J.M. Barrie definitely didn't write about
• Everett (J.D.'s main character) as anti-Potter
• J.D.'s own creative journey...and path to getting his book published
• the correct pronunciation of Rouen
• J.D.'s influences
• creativity as inherently good

Thanks again to J.D. for joining me!

If you liked this show, or others, or if you have ideas, please write us at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com to say hi.

Next week, Eric Geddes and Jonathan Geltner rejoin me as we begin talking about the wacky world of Tolkien adaptations!

This week, the Inklings Variety Hour (that is, Chris) talks to Dr. Sørina Higgins about the life and thought of "the Oddest Inkling," Charles Williams. 

Among other things, we discuss:

• Taliessin Through Logres
• Williams' upbringing and education
• World War I
• Coinherence and Exchange
• Williams and Love
• Williams and Tolkien
• Williams and Gynecomorphical Geography
• Williams and Magic
• Sørina's book of stories at Signum University Press

The reading at the top is slightly glitchy due to Zoom issues--I tried to edit it to make it sound as smooth as possible. Hope you enjoy the episode.  And check out all of Sørina's awesome projects--listed at "The Oddest Inkling." Also, check out her podcast, promoting unity and dialogue within the church: 1619 and 1776.

As always, if you like what you're hearing, please reach out to us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and let us know! We'd love to meet you. Please also leave us a review.

Next time, join us for some middle-grade fiction that features The Inklings (or "Jack," "Ronald," and "Dot," anyway) as characters!  It's time for The Inkwell Chronicles with author J.D. Peabody!

Among other things, we discuss:

• Mythologizing or reenchanting Cincinnati and Pittsburgh
• The Inklings, of course
• Music
• Art, order, and chaos
• D&D Campaigns in the Middle of a Realist Novel
• Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings
• If the Inklings were a D&D Party...

If you'd like a copy of Absolute Music, go here.

If you'd like to see Jonathan Geltner's author page at Slant, go here.

If you'd like to follow his Substack, go here.

Finally, please do email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com and leave us a review on iTunes.

Next week: Back to the actual Inklings!  Sorina Higgins rejoins us for a Charles Williams Q&A!

Many thanks to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!  Listeners, this is the last episode I have that Logan has edited, and I'd like to thank him for all of his hard, excellent, unpaid work on this podcast! 

Sorry for the inconvenience! (Or, if you're a hardcore fan, you're welcome for the exclusive, behind-the-scenes raw podcast.)

Initially, an unedited version of this episode was uploaded.  The newer version is a lot more fun to listen to. 

Inklings Variety Hour welcomes author Jonathan Geltner to the show to discuss The Neverending Story!  

Yes, The Neverending Story is a 1979 children's novel by Michael Ende, who was never an Inkling, and it was made famous by the 1984 movie which Ende disavowed.  We get it.

But we really, really love synth.

In all seriousness, Inklings fans should read this underrated book, as it has much to say about the virtues and perils of imagination and other worlds.  

Among other things discussed: 

• The Catholic Imagination Conference
• 1980s Fantasy Films
• The Second Half of The Neverending Story and the dangers of fantasy
• The evolution of the term "fantasy"
• Carl Conrad Coreander and Chesterton's/Dickens' "MOOR EEFFOC"
• Possible military implications of Falkor coming to Vancouver
• Fantasy as part of reality, rather than an escape from it
• "Fantastica: It just sounds better in German"
• Geography and Landscape in Fantasy

Tomorrow, we will post a bonus episode discussing Jonathan's own highly acclaimed debut novel, Absolute Music.  Both conversations are part of a larger discussion about fairy stories, fantasy, and imagination.  

This episode masterfully produced by Logan Huggins.  There are a few more sonic treasures like this sprinkled throughout the season--enjoy them!  Chris continues to try to grapple with the basics of editing for future episodes--but that, as they say, is another story, and will be told another time.

(Sorry about some of the audio quality!  I'm learning!--Chris)

David Bates, of Pints with Jack fame, is hoisted aboard our primitive, deckchairless podcast, as we set sail for sweeter waters!

Why, you can almost feel the sea air! Bracing!

Also joining up with us, we have Eric Geddes from the snowy wastes of Phoenix--whom you might remember from our Christmas episode!

Enjoy part 1 of our two-part coverage of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Among other topics, we discuss:

• Whether (and why) this is where Narnia really takes shape
• That amazing first line--and Harold and Alberta's special underwear
• How to repel germs and insects--Lewis brothers style!
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader as satire-turned-adventure tale
• The Miseducation of Eustace Clarence Scrubb
• The genre and structure of this satire-turned-adventure tale-turned-immram
• The superiority of the low-budget BBC adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Eustace's diary and grade-grubbing
• Slavery, moral fads, "progress" in an egg, bureaucracies, and "efficient" committees--versus pomp and ceremony
• Eustace as Edmund dialed up to 11
• The endragoning of Eustace and fiends in human shape
• Sir Gowther
• How we would create a Star Trek-style adaptation of Voyage of the Dawn Treader...in space (er, Heaven).  Eat your heart out, Gene Roddenberry and Michael Ward!

Next week: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, part 2!

Special thanks to Logan Huggins for amazing work editing/producing this episode!  Enjoy it while you can, folks--he won't be able to edit the next episode, which means Chris will try his hand!

If you like The Inklings Variety Hour, please leave us a good review on iTunes or elsewhere!  Also, please do write in--a big thank you to those who have!  We'd love to meet you!  (Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com).  

I'm also always looking for new cohosts or others who would like to contribute to this project, either through editing or social media.  It's been a bit like the ship of Theseus, but if you'd like to hop aboard for a few episodes, I'd love to have you!  

After The Voyage of the Dawn Treader part 2, we'll be talking with J.D. Peabody, the author of the new middle-grade book series, The Inkwell Chronicles--which expands our idea of "the Inklings" and stars "Ronald, Jack, and Dot" as supporting characters.  Feel free to start reading now!

Join us Tuesday for the first of a two-parter on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

And yes, we will be covering The Never Ending Story for an episode this season--even though it's not by any Inklings--because it is a wonderful and often-overlooked book.  We'll also be covering a few very recent novels that have something to do with the Inklings.  It's how we roll here at the Variety Hour.

Excited?  Concerned?  "Delirious with joy"?  Write us and say so: Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Apologies to David of Pints with Jack for our general cheekiness.  Some soundbites are just too good not to use in a trailer.

For this bonus episode, Chris is joined by Logan, Kora, and Eric to talk about Christmas and the Inklings.

We'll talk a bit about Christmas memories and rituals that involve the Inklings. We'll delve into holiday poetry, fiction, and satire by Williams, Tolkien, and Lewis. And finally, we'll try our hand at creating an Inklings-related Hallmark-style Christmas movie, ending with a trailer put together by none other than Logan Huggins.

Works discussed include:

• "Christmas," by Charles Williams
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
• Smith of Wootton Major, by J.R.R. Tolkien 
• Letters from Father Christmas, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• “Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus,” by C.S. Lewis

Topics discussed include: 

• Coming to Inklings Variety Hour Season 3
• What makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie?
• Who best embodies the spirit of Christmas in Lord of the Rings?
• Lewis' reverential rejuvenation of flat secular characters (such as Father Christmas); nature of solemnity
• Two (reconcilable? irreconcilable?) aspects of Christmas
• Barbie in the Nutcracker and "Faerie"
• Yuletide in Middle Earth

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for making me sound a lot less awkward than I would in real life! And for adding the great music! And for maintaining the Youtube Channel!  (Note: At the end of the show, I thank "both Kora and Eric," because Logan had to step off slightly early.)

If you want to find a new way to celebrate Christmas as a season rather than a day-long binge, please check out the site Chris does with his wife, Glencora: www.12tide.com

And as always, please do not hesitate to email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com with ideas for what you'd like to see in Season 3!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Labor Day! 

This episode goes out to all you miners toiling away for the Princess' King-Papa, who is so benevolent that no unions are needed.  Also, to all you goblins--may your heads be as tough as your feet are tender.  Excelsior!

It's taken us more time than we thought it would, but here, as promised, is the final episode covering George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.  Please do leave us a review on iTunes or some other podcast service if you haven't already--this is how other people find out about the podcast.

Logan and Chris sound off on the last third (or so) of George MacDonald's most famous children's book.  Among other things, we discuss what heroism should look like for Christians (following our great-great-grandmother's thread), and what to do when others don't see the same reality as you (hint: don't stamp their feet).  We also come up with inventions that could save us during the next goblin invasion.  It's coming, folks.

There were a few audio problems when Chris read, so a few of the readings from the book are instead from the late, great Andy Minter's fantastic Librivox recording, which--I'm sure I don't need to tell you--is in the public domain.  There were a few technical difficulties, and we didn't have time to re-record the episode, though we've finessed some things, so I think you'll enjoy it.

We have a lot of great stuff coming in Season 3, which we'll kick off with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We have lots of plans, but be sure to let us know what else you'd like to see at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again in a few months!

Between now and then, feel free to check out our Youtube channel, where we currently have episodes (with excellently goofy graphics assembled by Logan Huggins) and will have a few other goodies as we continue to develop it.

Thanks again to Logan for editing/producing this episode!  Chris added the Andy Minter bits, as well as the "Goblin Town" song by Rankin Bass at the end, so if that sounds rough to anyone, it's my fault, not his.

Until next season, see you in Goblin Town.  I'll be the guy spitting rhymes and wearing uncomfortable shoes.

We also have a new Youtube channel, so please do subscribe--we'll be publishing clips and extras there pretty soon.  Thanks to Logan for his work on it!

Chris, Anika, and Meagan, the original Inklings Variety Hour crew, reunite to talk about Season 4 of Stranger Things, Kate Bush and the power of music, parallels between Stranger Things and the Inklings' work, the show's (possibly exaggerated?) portrayal of the "Satanic Panic," John Hughes, popular kids, and eighties movies, nerds and experts, D&D, Harry Potter, Pentecostals, Jack Chick and Charles Williams, and whether Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's most quoted line might not help everyone be a little bit saner.

Thanks to Logan Huggins for producing this episode--and doing it with style and panache!

Thanks also to author David L. Carter, a friend of the show, who was listening to "Running Up That Hill" before it was popular.  

Next week: Stay tuned for the last episode of Season 2, as we finish talking about The Princess and the Goblin.  Seriously--it has been recorded and is coming.

If you enjoy this podcast and want other Inklings fans to find it, please do leave us a review on iTunes or favorite us on Overcast or other podcast services.

We'll wrap up our discussion of The Princess and the Goblin in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, enjoy this interview with medieval scholar Jason M. Baxter about his new book, The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind.

This book, more than any I've read before, helped me see Lewis' work (fiction as well as non-fiction) as one great overarching, coherent project to make the past accessible to the present, not only intellectually, but imaginatively and emotionally.  I highly recommend it.

If you like this book, I also recommend Dr. Baxter's book on Dante, which is a very useful guide.  I've read it a few times.

As always, many thanks to our producer, Logan Huggins, for spinning sonic straw into gold.  If you missed our previous episode on The Princess and the Goblin, do yourself a favor and listen.  We're quite proud of it.

Also as always, if you have questions or want to get in touch with us, email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

More detailed description to come!

Also--because Chris is going to a conference in England and Logan is moving house, we will have a brief hiatus for the next two weeks or so.  Do not fear--we will be back with the conclusion of The Princess and the Goblin.  

Thanks as always to Logan for editing the episode!

And please feel free to email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com or to leave a review if you'd like to give us feedback.  We'd love to hear from you.

We reference this book a great deal: British Goblins, by Wirt Sikes.

At the top, I read from Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, which predated The Princess and the Goblin.  

Come back next week for Part II of The Princess and the Goblin, featuring producer Logan Huggins and podcast cofounder Anika Smith!

Thanks as always to Logan for producing this episode!

If you want to weigh in on this episode (or any other), email us at Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We'd love to hear from you.

Our special guests/hosts this week are (besides Chris) Sophie Burkhardt and Fr. Bill Stanford!

Among other things, we'll discuss:

• George MacDonald's life and influence
• The vaguely political origin of MacDonald's goblins
• How to keep goblins away
• The nature of Irene's great-great Grandmother:
  • Is she like Aslan, or like a saint?
  • Her potential creepiness
  • The scandal of her particularity
  • Biblical parallels
  • Her age (and Bill's excellent theory)
  • Balancing fanciful details with allegory
• Literature and the fulfillment of hopes
• Poetry
• The vaguely political plans of MacDonald's goblins
•  Modern goblins in pop culture

Here are some Librivox readings of The Princess and the Goblin (I can't decide whose is better):

Lizzie Driver's Reading

Andy Minter's Reading

Thanks as usual to Logan Huggins for editing this episode!

Here is Sophie's podcast, Beneath the Willow Tree.

As always, if you want to contact us, write to Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.

Stay tuned next week for a deep-diving digression on the term "goblin," with lots of discussion of etymology and folklore!  It may be our nerdiest episode yet!  And in two weeks, we'll continue making our way through The Princess and the Goblin.

For now, in its place, I talk a little bit about the podcast itself and read (and solicit) some great listener mail.  

Then, I dip into the Old Winyards of the podcast (2018?) and find the original pilot episode, on friendship, starring Anika and Glencora (my wife).  Apologies for the audio quality--but no apologies for the quality of discussion.

Send questions and feedback (as well as offers to cohost!) to Inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com, and please do rate us on Apple Podcasts, if you're able.

Thanks, as always, for listening!

The Essential C.S. Lewis: William O’Flaherty – Essential C.S. Lewis (essentialcslewis.com)

Here is William's podcast, All About Jack, as well as his Youtube channel, Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis.

William and I talk about common misquotations of C.S. Lewis that have appeared on the Internet and speculate about the human tendency to misattribute sayings to important figures.

Enjoy, and thanks as usual to Logan Huggins for producing!

As always, if you have questions or would like to join us on the show, email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com

Stay tuned--next week, we'll discuss The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald!

We talk about specific aspects of the final two chapters of Descent Into Hell, but in the context of a larger conversation about Charles Williams himself.  Among other questions, we'll discuss:

• How was Williams perceived by not only the other Inklings, but by famous poets in his own day?
• What similarities does Williams' work have with that of other Inklings?
• What was The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, and why is it important to Williams' life and work?
• What was going on in Williams' own personal life that may have influenced the darker ending of Descent Into Hell?
• How can Chris make further goofy connections between this subject matter, Back to the Future, and The Simpsons?
• Why does Williams' appeal endure, despite his obscurity and (somewhat) checkered biography?

Check out more of Sørina Higgins' work, including her books, here: https://sorinahiggins.wordpress.com/

Here is her CFP (Call for Papers) for the book she is editing.

Here is the page for her new podcast!

Thanks, as always, to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel more than free to email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.  

Thanks for listening!

This week, we're looking at Eärendil, who is one of the most important figures in Tolkien's myth.  

We'll be back next week with our concluding episode of Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell.  

Episode Description to Come!

Among other things, we discuss

• The Unusual Structure of Descent and Why it Defies Summary    
• Prayer for the Dead    
• Distinctions between Charles Williams secondary world and those of Tolkien/Lewis'    
• Influence of Williams' ideas on Lewis (and maybe Tolkien)    
• That famous "Weight of Glory" quote    
• Enchanted, Invisible Worlds: Williams' Unseen World versus Faerie    
• Isolation and Community as Hell and Heaven    
• Heaven in the Fresco at Voroneț      
• Echoes of Chapter 7 in Lewis' The Great Divorce    
• Heaven as fact and Hell as self-deception    
• The personality (or lack thereof) of the dead man; his supposed lack of moral agency    
• What to do if you ever see a ghost    
• The dead man's groan, the earthquake, and the harrowing of hell    
• All good actions as extensions of God's goodness      
• Dopplegangers in the movies

Thanks to Logan Huggins for producing this episode!

Please leave us a good review on iTunes if you like this podcast!

We discuss:

Chapter 5: Return to Eden

• Wentworth's continued damnation and the interconnectedness of characters
• Rejecting joy and ignoring facts
• Williams' Romantic Theology and the Way of Affirmation of Images
• The nature of Lilith, in Hebrew myth, in George MacDonald, in pop culture, and in Charles Williams
• Rejection of beggars, lovers, and inconvenience as the path to hell

Chapter 6: The Doctrine of Substituted Love

• Does it work?
• Some theological objections
• Why is a contract necessary?
• Chasing down your shadow...

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, just email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.

We discuss:

Quest of Hell

• The apparent plotlessness of Descent
• Wentworth's rejection of community
• How the novel is like a play
• Modernist drama
• C.S. Lewis' disastrous dinner with T.S. Eliot and Williams

Vision of Death

• Struther's Martyrdom
• The Right and Wrong way to recite poetry
• The Four Virtues of Poetry
• The Mountain of Abnegnos, meeting yourself, Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, visualization techniques, and other occultic contexts for this chapter (thanks, Sorina!)
• Knowing yourself and knowing love
• Final Question: Adapting Descent Into Hell

Here, by the way, is the Perelandra opera.

Thanks as always to Logan Huggins for producing!

If you have any questions or would like to contact us, just email us at InklingsVarietyHour@gmail.com.

Feel free to read Descent Into Hell here (there's a new audiobook by the way.)

Meagan, Chris, Sophie Burkhardt, and David L. Carter discuss Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell, Chapters 1-2!

They discuss...

Chapter 1: The Magus Zoroaster

(In which Pauline Anstruther, who has a bit part in that new Peter Stanhope play Battle Hill is putting on, meets her own image walking toward her on the way home.)

• Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep
• Williams' plays including Judgement at Chelmsford, and T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral.  
• "A Terrible Good": Can goodness be terrible?
• Plays and plot cohesion
• Pastorals and Woodland Tree Spirits

Chapter 2: Via Mortis

(In which a nameless construction worker, some time ago, killed himself to get back at the world, only to find that he still exists, and maybe wanders unsteadily toward redemption.)

• Mostly plot summary here
• Potential purposeless of an immortal existence (Queen song from Highlander reprise)

That's it for now!  

Check out Sophie Burkhardt's podcast here: Beneath the Willow Tree on Apple Podcasts

Check out David L. Carter's work here: Amazon.com: David L. Carter: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Thanks, as always, to Logan Huggins for making us sound better than we normally would!  I wish I had him around to edit what I say in real time.

Next week: Sorina Higgins joins us to discuss Chapters 3-4!