The Eric Metaxas Show - James Como (continued)

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

James Como continues his exploration of the works of C.S. Lewis, who wrote within several genres with excellence in each, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metaxos. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.combe. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Welcome back talking to James Como. Here he is. James Como. Your new book, which is about C.S. Lewis's book, Paralandra. Your book is called Mystical Paralandra. My lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book. You write about so much in Mystical Paralandra. I mean, when you're talking about Lewis, you're sort of talking about everything. And it's kind of like what you said about,

about what Lewis said about Edmund Spencer, who wrote The Fairy Queen and what we say about Lewis. I mean, he touches everything. You know, Henry James said something about Shakespeare, which I think is true of C.S. Lewis. He said, the thing about Shakespeare is nothing was lost on him. And everybody who knew Lewis, he had this memory filed, you know, nothing was, everything was present, everything he ever read was present to him, you know.

And a lot of it is in this book, which is almost a suma of Western cosmology, theology, theology, Lewis's beliefs. It's extraordinary. You don't have to read it at that depth. You can enjoy it as an action-adventure epic. Right. But once you decide to read into it, there's no end. That's what's so amazing is that Lewis in Paralander, he kind of puts everything.

And one of the things that he puts into Paralandra, I wouldn't have known how to talk about it until Michael Ward wrote his book, Planet Narnia, about... Can you talk about that for a minute, just to frame this? Well, there's a lot in Narnia, and one of the things that's infused into Narnia is that, Lewis's knowledge of cosmology. The planets controlled by tutelary spirits. And Michael's thesis, which some have questioned, I included, but he makes a very good case, is that each of the Narnian books separately is under the tutelage of a different planet. Okay, so we mentioned Socrates in the city. If you go to Socratesinthecity.com, not only can you see, you can get a tutorial in Lewis by watching my three conversations with Walter Hooper.

consecutively at the St. All Dates Church. We did that about, I don't know, seven years ago. And then I had a conversation with Michael Ward about his book, Planet Narnia. But he brings in this other issue, and it's what Lewis called the Kappa Factor. Isn't that what he called it? The Kappa Element. Talk about that for a moment, if you would. Well, I think, I like Michael's book very much, except for the weaknesses in his thesis, which is a separate thing that others have found. But I think he misunderstand. the Kappa element. The Kappa element in fiction is what Lewis thought of as an underlying tone that gives color to a story. For example, you can't have James Fenimore Cooper without Indians with

Tomahawks. That gives you the... And buckskin. Yeah. But this is, it's very hard to explain this. Very hard to explain it. But who was it, was it Tolkien having a conversation with Lewis about this Kappa element? I mean, where did that term come from? Well, it comes, it's very early, in a very early essay by C.S. Lewis, I think maybe even as an undergraduate. And then he developed it into an essay called On Stories. Okay. And that was anthologized. But why does he, why does he call it the K element?

K is the Greek letter K, of course. But why does he call it this? Because it's unnoticed. It's unknown. It's hard to describe. It's not supposed to be evident. But why Kappa? Why not Epsilon? No idea. idea. There's got to be a reason. Well, Michael Ward calls it Donagality, which I find unpleasant. So I'm going to call it the Kappa element. But I got to tell you that this book, Perilandra, it is, I mean, I think you mentioned that Lewis was one of the greatest medievalists ever to have lived. And he brings the medieval cosmology, which our friend Thomas Howard wrote about. He brings this to bear on this book, and so it has this kind of medieval flavor to it. I'll leave it at that.

It could have been written in the Middle Ages, and one of the reasons is there's no science in it. One of the reasons I don't like this called science fiction is that ransom does not go to Perilandah on a rocket ship, as he had in the previous book. He's transported mystically by these angelic creatures. So there's literally no science in perilandra. I do want to get to something, though. The end of the book, as you recall, is ransom plunging. He's fighting the unman, and he struggles with the unman. They fall into the sea, and he wakes up in darkness,

and he realizes he's in a cave. And he has to struggle up the cave, a long, arduous climb. he's chased by who knows what behind him. Okay, look, this is, folks, I just got to tell you, this is, you have to read Perilander, really, but what you skipped over here is that this evil figure named Weston becomes fully possessed by the spirit of Satan. He becomes the un-man, the anti-human being. And the level of evil is bottomless.

It's creepy. It's fighting an animated corpse. Yep. Well, one of the things that struck me finally in my rereadings of Peralandra is how emblematic ransom's climb is. Because spiritual theology requires this strife, this purpose to the strife of life. You've climbed through this cave because when you get to the top,

there's the pinnacle of glory that you will experience. And that's what Ransom finally does. So he climbs up a mountain from the inside. There's nothing like it. I'll never forget the first time I read it. I thought, this is just genius. There's nothing, I've never read anything like this. And then towards the end, of course, he's fed on the planet.

It's as though the fat planet itself is feeding him. And then he meets the queen and the king. and he sees the two tutelary spirits. One is Malacandra, the tutelary spirit of Mars, and the other is Perilandra herself, the Eldila of that land. So these are these angelic, I don't know if they're thrones, principalities. I don't know what they are, but they're very, very high-level angelic beings. And Lewis calls them Oyarsa.

Yep. She is the Oyarsa of Perilandra. Okay. And you take, I love the fact. that you take issue in your book in other words, Lewis is such an unparalleled genius that it's nice when you can find a mistake,

when you can find something that he does that you just say, nah, I don't like that. Oh, what did I say? Well, no, you're right, because it struck me every time I've read the book. He refers to the Mal Eldil. Say about what that is. Well, it's a common root meaning evil.

No, Mao, of course. But who's the Maleldoil? Oh, Maleldel is the creator of the second person of the Trinity. Is God. Is God. So the fact that Lewis, who is himself a philologist, a studier of language, a student of language, that he uses the term to describe God at Malel, and he think, well, wait a minute, Mal, M-A-L, we know that that's supposed to be bad. So why did, is there any explanation for where he came up with this, just to be annoying? Lewis liked the sounds of certain words and combinations of letters.

You know how this book originated? No. It originated in a dream. He had dreams of floating islands. Okay. I guess now that you mentioned it, I've read that someplace, but I forgot. Yeah, well, where did that come from? That's what I would ask, you know.

Well, because he's a mystic. Of course. No different than seeing the image of a fawn carrying packages in a wood. Which gives us seven books. Which gives us seven books. And let us recall the pinnacle of Ransom's vision at the end. He sees the king and he looks upon the face of the king. Oh, okay.

Again, you write about all of this in your book, Mystical Paralandra, my lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book, James Como. But what you just said, when I read that in your book, I thought, wow, this is heavy. So we just got 30 seconds in this segment. Tell us what happens. He realizes that he's looking upon the face of Jesus and all bowed down to it. And he had read his Saint Bonaventure.

Bonaventure has a long chapter on the face of Jesus. Okay, we're going to be right back talking to James Como. C-O-M-O. Don't go away. Tell me, Eric, why is relief factors so successful? at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question. The owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal.

And I agree with them. So the doctors who formulated Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients, yes, 100% drug-free ingredients, each helps your body deal with inflammation. Each of the four ingredients deals with inflammation from a different metabolic pathway. And that right there, approaching from four different angles, may be why so many people find such wonderful relief. So if you've got back pain, shoulder, neck, hip, knee, or foot pain from exercise or just getting older, you should order the three-week quick start discounted to only 1995 to see if it will work for you.

It works for me. It has for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more. Go to Relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Hey, folks, if you could make money off of abortion or pornography, would you do it? I hope the answer is no. but I want to tell you Robert Netsley, the founder of Inspire Insight.com, he was the president of his local pro-life pregnancy center when he discovered that he owned investments in three companies

manufacturing abortion drugs. Well, God helped him to see that he was making money from abortion, pornography, LGBT activism, and the list goes on. And that's why he created InspireInsight.com. Inspireinsight.com gives you instant access to biblical values, data on over 23,000 stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs, so you can invest to the glory of God. You need to go to InspireInsight.com today and screen your 401k's IRAs and other investment accounts. I did, and I was shocked. Now I'm able to clean out the junk and invest in companies actually doing good things. Go to inspireinsight.com today and register for free.

That's inspireinsight.com. Go there. Folks, welcome back talking to James Como, C-O-M-M-A-M-M-E. M.O. who has written a book about Lewis's, C.S. Lewis's favorite book of his own writing, Peralandra. So you were just talking about this moment when the hero, he goes underneath the sea and comes out inside the mountain on this planet and fights his way up. I mean, it's just incredible, and eventually comes out the top. of this mountain and looks on the face of Jesus. Well, the king, the king.

He sees the king. Of Perilandra. Of that world. And so how is that the face of Jesus? In other words, it's somehow similar to the face of Jesus. Well, I think Ransom recognizes it because I think somehow the Eldila, Venus and Mars, Perilandran, Malacandra, communicate to him that this is, now. that the planet is unfallen and will not fall is what our Lord has intended all along.

And Lewis, of course, had read St. Bonaventure, who was a mystic himself, and wrote about mysticism, the three parts of mysticism and so on. And he has a long passage on the face of Jesus as the most glorious thing you could behold and ransom experience is that when he's there. And then it spins off into what you know is the great, dance, which is a favorite image of Lewis. And the king takes him through eons and eons and he says, when we get to the end of these eons, it not even then is the beginning. We're still at, we're not yet at the beginning yet. So Lewis's mastery of perspective is at its pinnacle here.

I regard this, Eric, as Lewis's greatest apologetic achievement, just the pinnacle of his work, of his intent, of his vocation, this book. And he was only four. 45 years old when he wrote this. And he, well, the thing that strikes me is the chutzpah to write about what he writes about in Peralandria. Like, you're really, you know, to talk about seeing the face of Jesus, who goes there, so to speak? Most people just are not, you know, unless you have seen it yourself and have the ability to write about it, which you get the impression somehow he did. Well, it's more than an impression.

You know, every... No, I mean that he saw the face of Jesus. Yeah, that he saw the face of Jesus. I want to point this out, though. People talk about the achievement of C.S. Lewis. How many books he wrote, how they're still in print, the number of movies made about Lewis and his life, documentaries made about C.S. Lewis.

Translations of C.S. Lewis. All of this is true. Sales, you know, in the multi, multi-millions. The real power of... of C.S. Lewis is in the heart, imagination, soul, and mind of every single individual reader as he reads Lewis. That is the power of Lewis. You know one of the reasons I wrote this book, I mentioned in the preface. There is, I've named a new subgenre of literary criticism. I'm calling it recovery criticism. People who were enchanted by Lewis, usually the chronicles. But now that they're

grown-ups, they've gotten over it. You see, they've seen through Lewis. So they write their books, good books, well-written books, about how they were wrong, but now they've seen this and that, and so they're beyond this, which usually means they've given up their Christian worldview. Well, I wanted to rebut the recovery genre by saying, here's a guy who was a young, very young man, got to Lewis, and not only have I not recovered from him, but it's deepened and deepened more and more. And that is the power. of C.S. Lewis. Well, listen, let's be clear. If you think of the Narnia Chronicles as children's books, you're kind of an idiot because they're not. Lewis made it clear that they're not. He wrote

about writing and about fairy tales and about story. And one of the first things that I picked up from Lewis is that these genres, whether fairy tales or quote-unquote children's books, they're for everyone. It's just a different kind of genre, which may work for keeping. kids, but, I mean, look, I read the Narnia Chronicles for the first time when I was 30. Really? Yeah. And I, as a writer, you know, with literary aspirations, I said, this is some of the most fine writing I've ever encountered.

It's just astonishingly brilliant. And that's to me the strength of Lewis is that he's able to write about things that we think of as innocent, but they are not, it's not saccharacterial. an innocence. It's innocence with depth, which is the goodness of God. It's an innocence. It's Aslan's not the tame lion. He is good and frightening because he is Aslan. It's a level of goodness. And so that's kind of what makes Lewis so rare. Is there very few writers who are able to pull all this kind of stuff off? And he does. I mean, in so many different genres. I don't think there's any other writer who pulls it off as well. That's a, look, that's a fact. I mean, that is a flat-out.

fact. Well, so I haven't recovered from C.S. Lewis, and this book is about how one doesn't recover from Lewis. And I tell the story at the end. I don't know if you recall that when I was in Oxford with my family and got word that my father died. And I was working on... And this was in 1974? Yep. 1974. I was having dinner with Walter and his mother and his aunt Twiggy and my wife, of course. And the phone rang and I got this desperate news from my brother. I was very close with father because my mother had died when I was a kid. And I was working on a grief observed. And a grief observed is Lewis's journal. So you were reading a grief observed? Taking it apart. At the time. So in 1974, you're a grad student? Yes. Okay. So you're a very young man. I'm writing my dissertation.

On Lewis's book, A Grief Observe. On Lewis's rhetoric, which included this book. And I thought then and think now, that there's elements in the book that are contrivances, because even C.S. Lewis could not contrive for an extemporaneous journal to have its catastrophe right in the middle, right in the dead center. And then you read his five sonnets from 1951, and you can see, but I now go to New York for my father's funeral. I come back and I try to sit down at the same desk with the same book open, that we've observed, and it's a different book. Because I realize, there is not a false word about the feeling of grief in this book. It may be artful, but it's true.

The authenticity, because you now see, I'd gone through it myself. And Lewis, when he wrote the problem of pain, he said, I'm writing the problem of pain. This is 1939, 38. But, you know, put me in a dentist chair, and I'll be as big a coward as anybody else. now he's going through it himself. You know, the metaphorical dentist's chair where the pain is throbbing in you,

and he writes this book. And I realized how true it was. And it was a great comfort to me. And I realized then that that's the power of Lewis, you know. It's just what he does to each individual. Well, see, that's, I wanted to come back to that because you mentioned it, and it's, it's, because of what Lewis has written, innumerable lives have been changed and improved.

Innumerable. And so you talk about somebody's legacy. Lewis, there's a moral character. You can't get away from it. There's genius, but there are plenty geniuses. I mean, I don't think many lives have been improved by reading Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. I'm sorry. I just don't.

Or a lot of these people that you recognize there's genius, but Lewis didn't just have genius. He had genius and moral courage, and he infused them with each other. and you get something different. It has a moral quality. So when you said that, who was it, Henry James? Yeah, about Shakespeare.

That nothing was lost on him. Well, actually, no, then I'm thinking of Lewis. What Lewis said about Edmund Spencer is that when you read him is to grow in mental health. To read him is to grow in mental health. That's true of Lewis. Is to read Lewis is to grow in mental and spiritual health. How many literary geniuses can we say that about? Not very few.

Very few. Very few. I mean, there might be a couple of dozen, but given how many have written, that's very few, isn't it? Well, I mean, I guess I think about Lewis helps you learn how to live. Well, Lewis first taught me how to think. My first impression of Lewis was intellectual, and the impact was intellectual. And I thought this guy, you know, I was a debater. I was an argumentative kid.

You know, I could take on anybody. And this is one guy I would never want to have to debate because he just knew too much and was too incisive in his thinking. Then came the imagination because I love fairy tales myself, I've written some fairy tales, and then came the spirit. And they're all linked. That's the thing about Lewis. The intellect is not separate from your spirit.

It's another avenue into your spiritual growth. Well, that's why it's anti-enlightenment. That's why it is kind of medievalist. And when we come back, I want to talk for a moment about, again, you have to be astonished by the genius of C.S. Lewis. He wrote poems that are heavenly, that are glorious. He wrote every, seems almost every genre. When we come back, we'll continue the conversation with James Como.

C-O-M-O, you can go to Jamescomo.combe. In case you're a mr. mumbles and you're a zero. The Mr. Big, they dig a hero. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up,

the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. and when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time.

Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account. into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at Legacypminvestments.com. Folks, welcome back talking to James Como, C-O-M-O, about C.S. Lewis. I was just thinking of Lewis's poem, what the bird said early in the year. I could cry.

It's so beautiful. What the bird said early in the year, I think I remember it begins. I heard in Addison's Walk a bird sing clear. This year, the summer will come true. This year, this year. It's just so glorious. And you think, if I had just written that poem, I could retire. And it's virtually unknown in his oove.

It's just this poem. But it's so beautiful. links the world of fairy tale with the kingdom of God. It's just, that's what Lewis does. He brings these things together. In here, he brings it together. You're the meeting point. You're the intersection of that because he's your surrogate.

You know, to read Lewis, it's a very intimate relationship that readers have with C.S. Lewis. Because you get the feeling that he knows you so well that he's speaking right to you. sometimes he's looking at you, sometimes he's at your shoulder pointing something out to you. But many of the people who come to Lewis want to write about and talk about him because they know this guy and they want other people to know him. Why? Because he knows them. That's the odd thing about it. He knows you when he writes to you, when he speaks to you.

What was it that Walter Hooper said? And by the way, I want to remind people, if you go to Socratesandysitcom, you can see my three conversations with Walter Hooper. You don't really want to miss it because Walter Hooper is, my goodness, just spectacular. But was it Hooper? I think you quote him, there's so much in this book that you quote, that said that Lewis was the most thoroughly converted man he'd ever known. What did he mean by that? Well, I once asked to Walter what, because he told me that too, And I once asked me, he says, there was nothing about Lewis that wasn't converted, not his intellect, not his imagination, not his appetites, you know,

carnally, corollally, intellectually, all of it was converted. And the only thing that mattered to Lewis, and Owen Barfield, his great friend says this about Lewis, the only reason Lewis paid attention to himself was as a kind of examiner looking to correct the flaws that would get him into heaven, right? Wow. And he was worried about his own fame. You know, I think I point this out in the book. Yeah, you do.

He has this wonderful poem called The Apologist's Evening Prayer, which ends with Lord of the Narrow Gate and Needle's Eye, take for me all my trumpery, meaning his work, lest I die. And at one point he writes the Italian priest, whom he corresponded with in Latin, that he's afraid he won't write anything else. The well has dried up, and that's a good thing because he was starting to believe all of the rave reviews he was getting,

and it was a temptation to pride. So if the price of avoiding pride was never to write again, so be it. Of course, outpours Narnia shortly thereafter, so. Yeah. So much for that. And you could, in some ways, you could argue that's his greatest work. I mean, those seven books are unlike anything that exists. They are just beyond belief.

Almost every genre Lewis touched. he wrote the landmark. Okay, now say that again, because when I read that in your book, I said, aha, that is correct, and I'm glad you brought it up. He did what I often aspire to do. In other words, I think that sometimes you're cursed or blessed with being eclectic, right? Some people write novel after novel after novel after novel, and they get better at it.

And other people like Lewis, and I find myself doing this, I never met a genre I didn't like type of. a thing. And you kind of can't help it. But in Lewis's case, he manages to be the best. I mean, when you talk about the Narnia Chronicles, when you talk about his apologetics, when you talk, everything he touched had, it was as if he'd done nothing else. Well said, yeah, because it's the height of that genre. The screw tape letters, for example, psychological satire. I mean, nothing can approach it. I mean, if he just written that book,

and then a couple of other crummy books, he would be famous for the screw tape letter. Yes, yes. But there aren't any crummy books. You see, that's the thing about it. And this applies to as short essays, too. Brilliant, brilliant, short essays, incisive short essays.

I tried to make a list of all the things C.S. Lewis taught me life lessons, and I have some of them in the book as well. Not theological stuff. Just intellectual stuff, temperamental, emotional. It goes on and on, because he paid attention.

you know well you know nothing was lost on him was it but that's but that's what's so amazing and i think that you realize if you are as gifted as he was gifted and you don't find anyone more gifted i mean you you'd have to go to shakespeare uh he was um the idea that he was aware of this gift and saw it as a potential uh temptation to pride i'm so happy to think that so glad to think that so glad to think that he saw that. Yes. And that he cared about that. And that, I mean, I guess it's, you know, when Hooper says he was the most thoroughly converted

man I'd ever met, the way I see it is, you know, the most thoroughly redeemed in the sense that there wasn't a part of him that he allowed to grow in the flesh. He pruned everything he could. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, before we go on, if we do go on, let me dwell a bit about Walter Hooper. right? I'd known Walter Hooper. My wife and I met him in Oxford back in 68, I think, or 69. We were friends for 50 years, right? And for those who don't know this, who just read Lewis's books, if it warrant for Walter Hooper and the assiduousness of his dedication, we would not have the C.S. Lewis we have today. That is a fact. And if you watch the Socrates and the city interviews I did with Walter Hooper, you will get details. on what James just said.

We'll be right back. And talk of opportunity, TV breaks and movie playing true. Hey there, folks. Eric Metax is here. As you know, our friend, and he's a real friend, Mike Lindell,

has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. But he didn't stop by simply creating the best pillow. Now, Mike has done it again by introducing his My Slippers. My slippers. They're unbelievable. I know all about them. But I got to tell you, for a limited time, you will save $90 on each pair of my slippers. They're expensive. You can save $90. This blowout sale of the year won't last order now. He's taken over two years to develop them. The my slippers are designed to wear indoors and out all day long, made with My Pillow Foam and Impact gel to help prevent fatigue. Made with quality leather, suede. Call 1-800-978-3057. Use the promo code Eric or go to mypillow.com.

the radio listeners square and use promo code Eric. The offer will not last long, so order now with promo code Eric at MyPillow.com or call 800-978-3057. 8-978 3057. Folks, welcome back. Final segment with James Como, C-O-M-O, who's written a new book on C.S. Lewis, the fifth. It's called Mystical Paralanderer, my lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book. We haven't touched until we have faces, which Lewis wrote. Was it his last major book? Closed to it. Yeah, his last major fiction.

And that's another book that I think I only read it once because there's certain books, I don't know, like the experience of it. I feel this way about the man who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, where you just, it's almost too much. It's just mind-blowing, and you just want to go lie down. because it's so... I don't know why I associate the two of them. I think that the ending of Paralandra, the ending of the man who was Thursday, and the ending of Till We Have Faces,

is this kind of beatific vision or something that you're undone and you just want to go take a nap? I don't know if you remember how Till We Have Faces ends, apropos of a previous comment. Queen Oroal, who's the narrator of her own story, first person narrated, It's a very modern novel, till we have faces.

It's very interior, right? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And as we know, you can talk yourself right into hell. Now, she is on the brink of salvation because she's finally seen how wrong she was. But she won't shut up. She keeps writing. And she's writing words, words, words,

brought out to do battle against other words, if... And she dies. And I'm thinking, to shut her up, Lewis had to kill her. If he hadn't killed her then, she'd still be going on and on and on, you know. A magnificent book with unplum depths to this point. And by the way, he thought that was his best book. Yeah, well, I think in some ways he's right.

Yeah, I do too. It doesn't mean that I like it the most, but if I have to grade them in terms of literary quality, I mean, he really, and it's so funny, too, he died so young. I mean, 63, so what was he? Barely 65, not even. Barely 65. And when you think of him as an old man, you think, well, the older I get, the less I think of that as old. Yeah.

I think to myself, he could have continued writing for another 20 years, but he died. I don't even remember what it was that he died of. Well, heart failure ultimately, but organ, I mean, he was a mess. He was a wreck. Why was he a wreck? I mean, I think he lived fairly healthfully, no? No. Maybe ate too much.

He did not. He ate too much. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He drank gallons and gallons of tea, which turned out to be not good for some internal organ. And as much as he walked, see the walking, he was a great walker. I mean, miles and miles and miles. That kept him alive longer than he otherwise would have been alive.

But also medical care. I mean, there wasn't the diagnostic ability that we have now. You know, his prostate was swollen, you know, that kind of thing. He wore a catheter at the end of his life. So a bunch of things, you know, lined up to bring to the end. Ultimately, his heart had to work too hard to keep him. alive, but he was very careless about what he ate. I mean, the man did like to eat and the man did like to drink. Yeah, you get the impression that he ate a lot of cheese sandwiches and a lot of

it's funny. A lot of red meat. Yeah, is that bad? I don't know. Well, you know, everything in moderation as... Well, I mean, it depends on your body type. Depends on many things, but I, yeah, you don't get the impression that he was who, I guess it was our friend, the late Tom Howard, who who describes Lewis. What did he say? It was almost like a butcher's face, this kind of ruddy look to him. And that was, what was that, 61 when he visited him?

I think so. Right? At the latest, yes. Yeah. Maybe even 60? Yeah, yeah. 60 or 61. But in any event, the idea that he was, you know,

that he had written everything he had to write, and he was just, you know, in his early, to mid-60s. Yeah. And I can't imagine what else he needed to write. He wrote enough for 10 lifetimes. Well, he did. And the great achievement of Lewis.

See, this book is kind of emblematic. I regard my book as emblematic. I by no means claim to be in every man writing for every reader C.S. Lewis. Because I include my story in this. But I do claim, Eric, that a whole bunch of readers of Lewis could write a similar book to what I've written about a different. book, perhaps. Yeah. The achievement of C.S. Lewis in my soul, in my mind, was the achievement of hope.

You read Lewis, and I've never had a crisis of faith. Thank God I've never had a crisis of faith. But hope has dimmed from time to time. And I get back to Lewis, and I realize because of him what's waiting for us and hope is rekindled

because he saw it he was the mystic who saw what awaits us I think I'm glad you brought this up because I wasn't going to mention it but Lewis in his writing mostly in the Narnia Chronicles

there are things that he does stories that he tells images that he creates which are completely unprecedented There is nothing like them, and they have changed how I see God. And I think if it weren't for Lewis to write about, whether it's Aslan, or I can never remember who it is who lies down as an old man in the stream and is rejuvenated and stands up, it's one of the kings. I don't know if it's Prince Caspian.

But it is so glorious. There's no other word. It's so glorious that it transforms your ability to perceive the other side. the spiritual world, it makes it real. And I can't, I literally can't think of anyone else who does that in a way that Lewis does it. If you read his stuff, he gives you help in understanding what, you know. And in seeing it. That's what I mean.

And believing it. Because he wrote with such conviction that you realize he had to have been there and back. It is funny to think that he was. and that he had not just this, you know, next level super genius, but that he had that soul. It is, it is amazing. It is, it is absolutely amazing. We just got 30 seconds left. Let me mention, you have written a book. It's called Mystical Perilandra. It's sitting here. My lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book, James Como, C-O-M-O. You have a website, Jamescomo.com.com. People can find you there. You live in New York. Were you born in New York? I was. I knew it. So was I. See? There's a few of us. And grew up in Astoria. And grew up in Astoria and I was born in Astoria. But I was very young. We're out of time. But what a joy to sort of catch up with you, James Como.

Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for coming here. Thanks for having me, Eric. Very much. Thank you. Indeed. side and the downhill run to five by eight days. Off the wind. Hey, folks, we interrupt the program talking about Peralandra with James Como to bring you some other news. Albin, first of all, I got to mention five quick things. Number one, tomorrow, the 14th of June is Flag Day.

Ladies and gentlemen, in my book, if you can keep it, I write about Flagg Day. It was one of the most moving things I've ever experienced in my life when I was nine years old. Mrs. Saul took all the fifth graders out by the flagpole. Mr. Piccarello played taps on his silver cornet. And I was being taught to love America. It's just a beautiful thing. Flag Day. If you have a copy of my book, if you can keep it, read that passage and be inspired. because Flag Day is something sacred and beautiful about it. And I would love you too. If you have the book, just read that to yourself.

Remind yourself of the sanctity of the idea of self-government and this great country. That's tomorrow. Okay. This weekend, which is to say yesterday, the day before, I was in California. First, I was in San Diego. There was a private event. Francis Chan spoke. He has a new book out on Unity.

and I want to talk to him about that on this program. So Francis Chan, who always reminds me, he doesn't mean to, but he always reminds me of Gilbert Godfrey, of immortal memory. What do they call that? But he always reminds me the when he preaches, he gets all. And it's effective, but it always inadvertently reminds me of Gilbert Godfrey. Nonetheless, Francis Chan, we're going to get him on this program.

I also want to mention that we worshipped on the beach with Sean Foyt. It was so sweet. And, you know, I'm an East Coast guy, but there is something about California. Every now and again, you see the beauty of it and why people love California. And so we need to keep praying and believing God to restore with the locusts of eaten, locus being the Democratic establishment. Then I spoke in Pasadena at Chey Ann's church, Chey Ann, another one of the heroes, Rock Harvest Church.

So I just had a wonderful time. Now, by the way, this week we've got Lauren Bobert coming up. We've got Carrie Lake, who's running for governor in Arizona. We've got a lot of exciting guests booked this week. And then finally, Albin, I should mention this, folks. Nutrimetics.com. Every time you go there, use the code, Eric, you get 20% off. But this month only, for the rest of June only, if you use the code, Eric,

June, Eric June, on a number of products. These are products like I keep saying everybody needs to use. What are they? Immune support products. So vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium. Those are the four that I always mentioned. Vitamin C, vitamin D, which they also, when Neutermatics gives you vitamin D, they also give you vitamin D with vitamin K in it, which helps it be more effective. So vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and magnesium, all, if you use the code Eric June, in the month of June, they're 30% off. But they've also added quercetin and immune support kit and immune support kit plus. These are all immune things. This is stuff that everyone should take. If you want to be healthy, you want to have a robust immune system.

So let me encourage you to go to nutrometics.com, use the code Eric for 20% off everything. but if you go there today and tomorrow and for the rest of this month only and use the code Eric June. Okay, the normal code is Eric June. But this month, if you use the code Eric June, on the following products, you get 30% off. The following products I'll mention it again, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, quercetin, immune support kit, plus I think that covers it. I hope you're enjoying my conversation about Perilandra.

We need to have more guests on talking. about C.S. Lewis. I just think he's just one of the greatest authors who's ever existed. All right. We'll leave it there. We'll be right back.