The Eric Metaxas Show - Walter Hooper - Part 6 (Encore)

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

Eric wraps up his interview with Walter Hooper, the literary assistant to C.S. Lewis, in this special Socrates in the City broadcast recorded in London. (Encore Presentation)

This is the best of the Eric Mataxis show. It's the show everyone's talking about, but they really should be listening to it. Broadcasting from the Empire State Building, because the Chrysler Building wasn't available. This is the Eric Mataxis show. Your host, Eric Mataxis. Hey, I'm Eric Mataxis. Maybe you already knew that, but what you might not have known is that this week, I am actually not at all in the Empire State Building, not even in New York.

I'm across the pond. No, not in New Jersey, in England. Yes, I'm in Oxford, England right now, doing a special series of Socrates in the city events. That's Socrates in the city. And I wanted to share them with you, my radio audience. So now let's listen in to the Socrates in the city event I did yesterday, or it may have been the day before I'm getting confused with the jet lag, but very recently. I hope you enjoy it.

Pip, pip, cheerio, and so on and so forth. Thank you. Welcome to Socrates in the city, Oxford Edition. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I am, thank you. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this,

not just because we're here in Oxford, but particularly because for me this is a dream come true. For years, I have wanted to interview Walter Hooper, and I never wanted to interview him just, once. I want to interview him in a series, Nixon, David Frost's style, not quite, but to really get, you don't get that reference, you're all kids, to really get into some depth because he has such a wealth of information to share about his life and about C.S. Lewis and Lewis's works. There's no one who can compare. So please, Socrates in the city, welcome for Walter Hooper.

It's in all of his fiction. This idea of of embodying nobility, embodying vulgarity and baseness, that these things are not what we say they are. They're innate qualities that God has created a universe with these innate qualities. Of course, the idea of maleness and femalness is being challenged today

as though anyone can be anything, as though there isn't even such a thing as maleness. But the way Lewis portrays kings and queens, they're very different in his world. Maybe you can talk a bit about gender, or that kind of thing in his books because it seems to be so strong and it's maybe why some people

don't want to read him these days. Well, they may not, but there are enough who do. But I think it was natural that he called the King of the Beast. I mean, the King named the one who rules

Narnia after the King of the Beast. You can't have a platypus. But that's... I mean, the funny thing is we know that. Most people would know that, but then you have to say, well, then, well, why? And it's just because it's something innate that we know. Platapus, that's very good.

That's a great contrast. But he also, he was very, very fond of mice. He really loved the beautiful little quadruplets. So he said that if you may remember that scene in that hideous strength. where after he finished, Ransom had finished, his tea, and the crumbs fell on the floor, the cake crumbs. He blew a little whistle, and these mice came out and consumed them. He said, we want to get rid of the crumbs.

The mice need food? Why not do that? And so remember, it's the mice who eat the ropes off Aslan to help free him, you know, at the end. So he gives them a very noble purpose. And, of course, one of his great characters is Reaper Cheap. One of the greatest. Yeah, Reba Cheap is one of the greatest.

We were talking with Michael Ward the other day about Rieper Cheap at the end of the Dawn Treader, getting into this little coracle, and rowing away nobly, beautifully, up, up the standing wave and into aslands's country. Aslan's own country. One of the most beautiful literary images

in the history of literature, I think. And given to a mouse, a noble mouse named Riepichie. Now, Riepichiep is another one. All these names, I could just talk for days about the names, Riepichie. Where did he get the name Riepichie? I think it just sounds exactly right for this noble and martial mouse.

So, I mean, he must have just come up with something that sound exactly right. Well, because reap a cheap, we think of peep, you know, the way mice squeak, peep, reap a cheap. The only person I can think of who does the same kind of thing is, of course, Lewis's very dear friend, Tolkien. Masterful. And it also has something to do with the idea that both of them had a very dear friend, very deep sense of language and etymology, the idea that Tolkien even invented a language that he was, that's very interesting to me, that words, the roots of words were important to them.

The names of giants, I can't remember now, nimble, I don't remember the name, but the giant's names, they're just perfect. They're not forbidding, they're friendly giants. But I think the difference is they would have known, but, Tolkien's names and Lewis's names of Narnia. Narnia is really a special place where you like going. It is not as serious a place as Middle Earth. No, no.

And you would not find Lewis using anything that is, I mean, as powerful as Nausegu. as what? Nasgou, you know, the flying kings, you know. I mean, that just sends shivers down your mind, especially in the context of the story. But Lewis is a much,

a life, I mean, a world for children too. Yeah. And they, you know, they're more happy endings. Yeah. Though I think one of the things that they do share

in their different stories, is that they unwind the story upwards. There are many places in the Lord of the Rings where he could have ended just by something, you know, the Ring is destroyed, and that's it, and let's all, you know, they lived happening after. But, you know, he knows that's not the way the world wags.

So Frodo goes home with Sam Camdee And they find things much changed to them So they have to deal with it changed But then it's still a good ending But not the quick ending And Lewis is even better than anybody I think of that He destroys in front of these children

who loved Narnia so much. He destroys it at the end because he knows you cannot rely on anything in this world to last. Not even Narnia. And so they go through the stable door into the real Narnia

that lost forever. But it's heartbreaking. After reading it 50 times, my heart is, broken every time. Well, that's again, just to say it over and over again, his power as a writer, the power of his imagination, it's simply

without peer. In my understanding, my estimation, I didn't want to ask, forget to ask, you must have known J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about him? He died in

73. You came here in 63 and then in 64 for good. Did you any memories of him? This is a special Oxford edition of the Eric Metaxis show. There is more of this conversation with Professor Walter Hooper coming up next. It's quite a thrill.

This crazy little trains to chew-ch-ch-cha. You're listening to a special version of the Eric Mataxis show. I'm doing a Socrates in the city event in Oxford, England. Let's continue my conversation with Professor Walter Hooper. You must have known J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about him? He died in 73.

You came here in 63 and then in 64 for good. Did you, any memories of him and his estimation of Lewis? Did it change at all in his last years? No, I don't think so. I think Humphrey Carpenter is wrong. and A.N. was sort of wrong to talk about them becoming cold towards one another. I saw nothing of this at all. I mean, when I first met him, he invited me to see him.

And he was living at that time here in Oxford, still in Oxford. And he was using his garage as a study. And when you went in, he said, you've got 30 minutes. and he put one of the big alarm clocks in front of me. And, you know, you could see here. You could hear it in the next room. One was tick, tick, tick. And so you got 30 minutes.

And so he did most of the talking himself. And at one point, he was talking still. He left. He said, say where you are. And so I stay where I went and he came and threw another door. So there's something what he said. But anyway, I was so worried about the clock and tick, tick, tick, tick. So finally, he was in the middle of telling me something about Lewis when I said,

it's half an hour. He said, sit still. I am the lord of the clock. I'll tell you when you can go. Then when he led me to the door, he could not have. be more tender. He held my arm and he said, I'm so sorry. You've lost your great friend. And I said, but you've lost one who you knew much longer. He said, no, what makes your case much sadder than mine is you were just beginning to love it. So he said, I've had many years, but you are to be

pitted. Anyway, I found that after that, he could not been nice than talking about Lewis. He, one time when I was editing, I showed him some of the letters I was editing from Lewis to Arthur Greaves. 1929, they were, they, he said he took off the Greece, but he and Tolkien stayed up to very, very late

as he was reading some of the Middle Earth documents, you know. So I assume this was the Lord of the Rings. So I asked Professor Tolkien, was this the Lord of the Rings, did you read? Oh, no, no. He said, I had no story had been written. I wasn't really interested in writing stories. I was interested in creating a world.

And so it was the language and genealogists and the land that I was interested, not stories. But you know what our boy, Jack Lewis. was. He had to have a story, and that story, the Lord of the Rings, was written to keep him quiet. Wow. I think he meant it, too, you know, because there are letters of his which by the side, you know. But the very idea that the genesis of this juggernaut called the Lord of the Rings, L-O-T-R, would have begun in the way. that way. It's extraordinary. And what a strange thing that someone like Tolkien could be made in such

a way that he would desire to create a world? What a strange thing. Most of us aren't that way, but that led to all these other things and to a billion dollar industry. Fascinating. I gave him. Here's a stunning thing about him. In 1971, I have finished God of the Dark, and I gave him a copy of that. And he... And that's the collection of essays. A collection of essays. God in the Dark collection of essays. Lewis effectively defending the Christian faith. Yeah, that's right.

Anyway, Tolkien said, do you know, Jack Lewis is the only friend I've ever had who's written more since he died than before? And I said, I know exactly what you mean, and exactly the same will happen to you. He said, no, it won't, no it won't, because I don't have that much material, and Christopher won't know what to do. Wow, was he wrong? He was stupendously wrong about that.

Had the Silmarillion been published before his death? No, no, he really worried a lot about that. I heard him, I've got to get finished. He really worried about that, but I think he's really worried about that. But I think he simply was just too old to get out the manuscripts and tried to do it. But he loved Lewis very much. And I think he would have been appalled by what others said about this getting cold. In fact, his son, Father John Tolkien, told me that he took his father up after Lewis to see Lewis right before Lewis died.

A number of business he paid up after the girls to see him. And I said, to John talking, do you know what they talked about? He said, I remember they talked about Mallory's Mortarthur and whether trees ever die. Mallory's Mortartha. That seems just what you'd imagine they would talk about and whether trees ever die. Not in their books, they don't. Remind those of us who don't know who Arthur Greaves was because you've mentioned him a number of times.

This is Lewis's boyhood friend. They met when they were just teenagers. They lived across the road from one another. They built up not only friendship, but a correspondence, which is one of the longest of all Lewis's correspondence. It was a great pleasure at that time to have, somebody who is absolutely on your wavelength that you can correspond with. Did he become Arthur Graves a Christian? He was a Christian already. He was already. Well, this brings me to when

you mentioned, when we mentioned Tolkien, it's not been told often enough, but what happened, Lewis had become somehow a reluctant believer in God, but not a believer in God, but not a believer in Jesus, not a Christian by any means, but a believer in some kind of God. And it was Tolkien, specifically, who on Addison's walk behind Maudlin College right here, who really led Lewis. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yes, you see, Lewis had become a theist, but then something like a year or more later. He, one of the things that, he, one of the things that, he, one of the things, was holding him back for many years was something that happened

when he was really about 10 years old. When he was reading the classics for the first time, he noticed that the editors of the classics like Homer and the Ineim assume that they assumed that the beliefs of these ancient Greeks were wrong, you know,

but that Christianity was right. Well, Lewis himself loved the old myths more than he liked Christianity. And so he concluded Christianity, it just happens to be the mythology that we've been brought up in. But other mythologies are in one way more interesting, like the Norse mythology, he thought more interesting than Christianity. So it was still in the belief that it was a mythology that that that, that he believed that night that Tolkien and Hugo Dyson came to dying.

What they mainly showed him was, yes, it is a mythology like the others, but the others are incomplete. They never lead anywhere. But the thing that makes this less beautiful

than the other North mythology, Greek mythology and all that, is true. This is, is the case of myth becoming fact. And he suddenly saw that. It was a myth come true.

And because it is truth, it cannot shine, you know, the way Norse mythology does, or Greek mythology, you know, with gods and giants of all these wonderful things. And, but then it's true. And so it all, us hope for the world.

This is a special Oxford edition of the Eric Mataxis show. There's more of this conversation with Professor Walter Hooper coming up next. Welcome back. You're listening to a special British version of the Eric Metaxus show. I hope you're enjoying it. Here's more of my conversation with Professor Walter Hooper. And remember, you know, people ask me why didn't Tolkien push hard for him to become the Catholic? Well, so he'd known him a long time. He was happy for him to become a Christian at all. Well, but most people don't know that what an idea that these two giants of 20th century literature

would have been walking with their third friend Hugo Dyson on Addison's walk, having this conversation because it would clearly take someone of such longstanding friendship as Tolkien and really of, I mean, it goes with the friendship, but the idea that he respected him so deeply on these issues, that it would take someone like that to sort of tip him over. It still took a number of days. I guess this was germinating in his mind, and then suddenly in the sidecar of Warnie's motorcycle

on the way to the Whipsnade Zoo, the penny drops, and he says, I believe Jesus was the son of God. I don't know if it's nine days later or something. But the idea that it was J.R.R. Tolkien, who brought it over. It's one of those delightful stories of history. It's one of the few of all these kinds of stories that's not apocryphal. It's absolutely true.

Well, I think those two men of all the men I've ever known and of all the inklings, I think they still had, they were very adult men, but they had a children's heart. They still rejoice in beautiful, real, wonderful things. I mean, our Christianity still excited them in a way it ceases to excite most adult converts, you know. They still care a lot. They still saw things with the eyes of a child. They could see the beauty. It's what you were saying about myths.

I mean, I guess it's in Surprised by Joy. Lewis talks about the line from Longfellow. balder the beautiful is dead is dead and how it just touched his heart and he felt this yearning for northerness for something i mean the idea that he was in touch with those feelings that's not some hyper materialist rationalist that's somebody who's in touch with his feelings with his with his own with his inner child to use that cliche and it's why i think he was able to re-enchant people with his with his stories, because we need that.

And if the Christian faith is just syllogisms and rational theological points, then it's a reduced Christian faith. And I think it's, you know, one of the arguments for a more sacramental, incarnational, liturgical understanding of the Christian faith. I'm not saying specifically Catholic. but it's to me part of why Lewis is so multidimensional because he can write on the one hand simple apologetics but then he can give us the other side the stained glass and the beauty and the statuary

so well I wanted before we finished just to go back to Lewis's use of language and how how he could use words and come up with words. You were saying earlier that in the Narnia books, it was mainly for children, so he wanted to be this delightful, wonderful world, and so he didn't create anything too horrific or forbidding or malevolent. I mean, the white witch is malevolent enough, but in the space trilogy, he does. And there are things in that hideous strength, which are chilling. There are things in the other two books that are chilling, really chilling.

And I thought, that's not often talked about how Lewis was able to create evil, not to create evil, but to create a semblance of evil. And his choice of names in, is it Parilander or out of the silent planet where they see the sorens? That's out of the sound planet. But when he describes the soren and gives it the war, word sorn. I've never been so frightened. I thought, it's amazing that he has the power, but even to invent the name Soren, such a strange, horrifying name. Can we guess where he got that from? I don't know. Just his imagination. Yeah. Yeah, I guess sometimes you do that.

I mean, Fiffletrigy as well. What's that? Fiffle Trig is one of the three, the three species. They It's pronounced fiffletrich? Fiffletriji. Now I can die because I've always wondered. Fiffle tree G. Yes, that's right. Fiffle tree G. Are there any vowels in there?

They make, you know, useless things. Yeah. I said, what kind of useless things would you think they would make? He said, back scratches. Lewis said this. So you heard Lewis pronounced the word fiffle tree. there you have it the horse's mouth that's that is amazing and then the mal el dild i mean the well all of that his ability to imagine um these levels of being and there is something medieval catholic

about it this idea that it's not just us and jesus no there are these intermediaries there are angels, their thrones and dominions. He creates that in the world, specifically of Peralandra. This is a special Oxford edition of the Eric Mataxis show. There is more of this conversation with Professor Walter Hooper coming up next. This is the Eric Mataxis show. Today you're hearing a special Socrates in the city version of the show drawn from a number of events that I hosted in Oxford, England. Here's more of my conversation with Professor Walter Hooper. I can't think of anyone else, literally, anyone who's done anything like that? Can you think of anyone who moves in those directions? I don't think so. I think what Lewis did is he said himself, he said,

what I tried to do in my three Cosmic Trilogy, Interplanetary Stories, was to pull the rug out from under all of the former writers who, when they get to a foreign planet, You always find that we are the good people and everybody else on that planet are monsters. But in his case, he reversed it. We really turn out to be sort of the monsters because they are planets filled with unfallen being. He liked the idea of trying to create an unfallen being. He knew it was very, very difficult. But, I mean, nowhere did he work harder than the Tenidreau, the lady of Peralandrum, to try to make her interesting but unfallum.

It's an accomplishment absolutely unparalleled in literature. I cannot think. This is why it seems to me to say that Lewis doesn't get his due is a great understatement. I mean, he has done some things to create. I mean, there are a number of literary images and images that he creates that are peerless. The idea of the floating islands to do that plausibly, the idea of creating these characters, the Sorns, the fiftful trigga. Fiffel Trigga.

Guzinhite. Just masterful, absolutely masterful. And yet, it goes so far beyond that. He's doing things to create an unfallen world and to try to pull that, in a way that doesn't make them sound boring. I mean, even Dante couldn't make the Paradiso interesting or a tenth as interesting as the inferno. It's very difficult to portray goodness in a way that's interesting.

The idea that Lewis could begin to pull it off, you know, puts him in the first rank. I've never heard of anything like it and I think the world should read Paralandra as I say alongside the greatest works in the canon. Well he was aware that it's very hard to create good characters and if he discusses this

in his preface to Paradise Laws why is it so difficult to create good characters simply because the bad characters survive in us all we have to do to create a bad character He said is let loose from our own souls and bodies, all the itching and horrible thoughts that we are,

they're in us waiting, you know, just to get out. But to be, to create better characters, people who are really good, we have to be good ourselves, you know, because you can't express much goodness unless you have a very good idea of it or unless you are yourself good, you know. But anyway, Lewis himself delighted in good, and he was able to create characters who really were good,

and interesting as well. Well, maybe as I get sanctified, I'll appreciate the Paradiso more. But it is interesting that Paradise Lost, everyone says, and it becomes a hackneyed, kind of apocryphal, self-fulfulfilling, half-truth that that Satan is the romantic hero

and the compelling figure of Paradise Lost. You hear it over and over and over again, and I think people say it because they sort of want it to be true. There's a truth there. But it shows that Milton, I don't think, had the imaginative power, the horse power that Lewis had.

It is much more difficult to do that. And anyway, we just got a few more. moments, the screw tape letters. Where do you you said in our previous session that Lewis

didn't conceive of this as a book, or at least he didn't write it as a book, he wrote it as a series of letters to be published in the... It starts with a C. It was the Guardian. Oh, the Guardian. Not the newspaper.

This is a church magazine. Okay. where did this idea come from? Was it his idea? Well, no, he was actually in church. He writes to Warnie in 1941 about being in church and headed to quarry. When there occurred to him the idea of a devil writing letters about temptation. And he said, what a pity that I thought of it in church.

But anyway, he did. So once he thought of it, it just poured out. And, you know, over the years, I've seen many people have written new screw tape letters, so to speak. And you know, they've all been found really pretty dull. They try to be very, very up-the-date. But Lewis, in the end, when you read that, you go back to the real screen. two-tape letters, and you find that what makes them up to date

is that they're always universal truths, which he's talking about, like jealousy. And worries, you know, the sort of things like in humility. And he introduces certain things, which are very humorous to, like the lady who came the

tea, who was not a glutton in the usual sense, but a glutton of delicacy. And I remember Lewis's sort of sister about Lady Dunbar saying when we saw that on stage,

she said, oh, I remember the woman who came to tea and said, oh no, oh no, that's far too much. All I want is just a tiny wee bit of taste. No, that's far too much butter. It's just a little tiny bit.

And Maureen said, she, gave us more trouble than if she'd eaten six large cakes, you know. This is a special Oxford edition of the Eric Metaxus show. There is more of this conversation with Professor Walter Hooper coming up next. You're listening to a special Socrates in the City edition of the Eric Metaxus show from Oxford, England. Let's continue my conversation with Professor Walter Hooper. When I was thinking about writing a contemporary version of the screw tape letters, I realized that, of course, I can't call it screw tape or something. So I should come up with something which is maybe an homage, you know, a tip of the hat.

But that is in the same spirit. And I was maybe deconstructing the word screw tape and trying to figure out what? Screw tape. Why is that so outrageously apt? It's perfect. Screw tape. What is that? Well, that two syllables, both of which are really quite ugly to think about.

Yeah. But you think, again, why ugly? Why do we say they're ugly? They are. But what is it about those words, something innate about them? I came up with this. I don't know if anyone's come up with this. As I was deconstructing wormwood and screw tape and thinking about these words,

I realized that we think of a tape worm and a wood screw. Yes. Mm-hmm. there's nothing more horrific than a tapeworm, you know, and a wood screw that's obviously just a screw, but I thought wormwood screw tape, the idea that they could be broken apart into tape worm. He enjoyed, I think, when he was writing it,

but he said afterwards, he said almost by the time I got to be in, I was almost suffocated by, you know, this story itself about the devils, you know. He said, you know, I mean, it's not something you really enjoy thinking about, you know, putting everything in reverse. So what actually lifted his spirits was occasionally, you see, they talk about the enemy, that's God. And Scoot tape, for instance, points out to Wormwood, don't be foolish, he said, we are not the one. who create pleasures, the enemy is the only one who can create a pleasure.

What we do is a battle is turn it around, twist it, so it ceases to be a pleasure. But we can't create anything good. He does that. You've done so much over the course of now 50 years. How do you want to be remembered? A few years ago, I went to Bratislava. in Slovakia to the CS Lewis High School. I stayed there for several days. I gave some talks, but then they liked to ask questions.

And the last question put to me was by a young girl of about 17, something like that. She said, how does it feel to have lived your whole life under the shadow of someone else? I said, wonderful. I wish I could do it again and again and again. I think I've been the most fortunate man on earth. Without writing anything interesting myself, all I push forward is my apostolip is to push C.S. Lewis, who wrote all the things that I love.

And I've been allowed to just keep on celebrating his works and bringing out more and more of them as I find him. so yes I've lived under his shadow what a shadow though I love that shadow I am beyond grateful cannot express my gratitude for this

on so many levels thank you for sharing yourself so freely and tremendously we see it we appreciate it so folks maybe a final extremely warm round of applause thank you for coming the Socrates in the city-Hawksford edition

Folks, you've been listening to a special Socrates in the city event from Oxford, England, and it's my privilege to share these events, these conversations, with you, my radio audience. I hope you've been enjoying them. This is a special English version of the Eric Metaxus show.