Book Review: The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community

I first became acquainted with C.S. Lewis in college. I was drawn to his lucidity and insight. After reading a few of his books, I couldn’t get enough. In my late college years and early twenties I set out to read everything he wrote. I didn’t read his academic works on medieval literature, but did get through pretty much everything else, fiction and non-fiction alike. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by Lewis and his writing. I’ve even been to Oxford and to the Eagle and Child, the pub where C.S. Lewis would meet on Tuesdays with his friends and co-writers who came to be known as the Inklings. I’ve often wondered what effect the other Inklings had on Lewis’s writing and thinking.

That question has now been answered. In her book, The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, Diane Glyer explores all their interactions, and all the implications. The book was recommended to me by a student of Dr. Glyer’s at Azusa Pacific University. I was enthusiastic, but began the book with some trepidation when I realized it was “academic” and had numerous footnotes. The odds of a college professor writing a book with footnotes intended for the academic community that is insightful and is still readable and enjoyable was low. But she has done it.

Not only is it full of information I’d never heard before, but it gives the reader exceptional insight into the two writers who are the focus of the book, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, two of the most popular authors in the twentieth century. As an author, I was particularly interested in her insights into the creative process and the way that the community “supported” the writers efforts. I say supported in quotes, because reading their work to the others was often like getting their fur pulled off (to use a Lewis analogy from another context). They encouraged each other, no doubt, but they also said what they thought, regardless of whether that made the author feel good about his work or not. They were dedicated to producing the best work they could, and were willing to hear rough criticism to achieve it.

Gyler also puts to rest the claim by many of the Inklings themselves, that the other Inklings had no effect on their writing or direction. She proves unequivocally that they did. She has done an impressive job of researching her topic, even to the extent of finding draft manuscripts and comparing them to comments and notes by Inklings. They may claim that other Inklings had no affect on their work, but Gyler shows they did.

If you have are interested in C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, in learning more about how they lived, how they created their magnificent works, how they thought and how they related to their closest friends, there is no better book in which to lose yourself. This is a wonderful book that is extremely well written and captivating. I can’t recommend it more highly.