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'An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only...We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness.'
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~C.S. Lewis./🦁🏰
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If 'Tolkien and the Great War' by John Garth focused on that historical period of Tolkien's life to define its fascinating area of study, 'The Inklings' by Humphrey Carpenter (Tolkien's most famous biographer), as the book title pretty self-explanatorily suggests, takes the friendly, experimental and very productive interaction between highly intelligent, competent and literary people as its main inspiration and basis.
As you know, the Inklings were not the first informal literary group Tolkien had taken part in (as a young man he co-founded the TCBS or Tea Club, Barrovian Society with other youths back at King Edward's School in Birmingham, of which many members and personal friends of his would not return from WWI); so perhaps the feeling of easy companionship, reciprocal stimulation of creativity and good-spirited challenge has always been one of huge help to the Professor in pursuing his literary ventures.
Many other well-known authors, professors and scholars participated in the meetings the group had from the early 1930s until late 1949 (most of them at the iconic Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, England, close to the eponymous university), such as C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and Hugo Dyson; a majority of them dwelled in the high fantasy genre, or in English history, mythology and philology: their discussions also included a number of complex topics, like death, faith, friendship, good and evil, poetry, composition, reading and writing, and the functionality of all the above themes within a fictional work.
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