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Gyler convincingly argues that artists are nearly always trying to distance themselves from being perceived as imitators of those who came before them. The solitary genius is held up as an ideal. She points to numerous criticisms of Rembrandt and even Mozart not being original enough. But of course this is silly. It points to something deeply rooted in our psyche.

In [Harold Bloom’s] discussion of the privileging of originality, he emphasizes that in each generation, “every major aesthetic consciousness seems peculiarly more gifted at denying obligation” According to Bloom, the study of influence can be reduced to the “study of the only guilt that matters to a poet, the guilt of indebtedness”. If each poet’s ultimate guilt is indebtedness, then each poet’s ultimate fear is that “no proper work remains for him to perform“. To be free of influence is to be free of “the chill of being darkened by a precursor’s shadow”. Although Bloom focusses is discussion on the anxiety that the artist feels in relation to her or his predecessors, the same anxiety is evident throughout comparative literary studies, even when the interaction of contemporaries is being discussed.

In the introduction to this book, I explain that most of the books and articles written about the Inklings, and even some of the statements made by the Inklings themselves, include emphatic denial of mutual influence. Why is there such a vigorous attempt to deny, or at least minimize, the possibility of influence? …much of it must be understood as a tendency to confuse influence with imitation.

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.217

What is more depressing to the artist than “there is nothing new under the sun?”. There are all kinds of ways to deal with this. Schoenberg wrote 12-tone music to escape this stigma. In my opinion, that was jumping from the imaginary frying pan into the very real fire underneath. Vaughn Williams, Copeland, and Bartok openly plundered folk music and lifted it to great new heights. We are influenced by EVERYTHING in our past memory. The very language we use to describe our bold new original ideas is defined by the old stuff. (Barfield would have emphasized that). As artists, we need to get over this psychological hurdle, somehow!

Over the years, I’ve encountered folks who were uncomfortable with some of Lewis’s Narnian mythology because of it’s inclusion of overtly pagan mythological characters and deities as being on the GOOD guy’s side.

A grumpy faun doesn’t look that much different from some representations of the devil. Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of drunken orgies (among other things) is in there. So is Santa Clause.

The same could be said of the druid Merlin in That Hideous Strength, thought he does go out of his way to explain that a bit more.

Along those lines, is this interesting note about some of Tolkien’s original criticisms of Lewis’s fantasy:

In his article “J.R.R. Tolkien: Narnian Exile,” Joe R. Christopher suggests that Lewis responded to Tolkien’s criticism of the first two chapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by adding a section to the end of Prince Caspian. He argues that one of Tolkien’s major objections is that Lewis sanitizes or sentimentalizes mythical creatures, taming (and thereby misrepresenting) the nature of characters like the faun or satyr. Late in Prince Caspian, there is a wild romp of mythological characters, including Bacchus and Silenus. In the story, Susan observes, “I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan”. As these mythological creatures become part of this story, Lewis argues, their behavior is redeemed. Christopher explains, “That is, Lewis seems to reply to Tolkien, under Christ certain basic impulses can be controlled…under Christ, such things can be kept in bounds”. Christopher says of this passage, “It is difficult not to believe that this is a deliberate answer by Lewis to Tolkien”.

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.113

Indeed.

Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re in good company.

It is of some interest that one of the most common changes in Lewis’s actual drafts is that words are crossed out multiple times as Lewis struggled to spell them correctly. Despite his blazing intellect and deservedly famous memory, he had a lot of trouble with spelling.

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.132

This comment thread on why software programmers claim a dispropotionate slice of the earth’s weirdos is full of insight.

If my wife ever wonders what’s going on in my head sometimes, this is a clue!

Software types are more analytical, (either as a result or as an cause of them being in their field). As such they see things that Joe Random doesn’t even notice.

When the waitress says “If you need anything else, my name is Betty” Joe Random grunts and takes a bite of his meal.

Programmer dude wonders what her name is if he DOESN’T need any thing else.

Snagged via Gyler’s The Company They Keep (p.215):

Much was possible to a man in solitude…But some things were possible only to man in companionship, and of these the most important was balance. No mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter and equal it, and to save it from conceit and blindness and bigotry and folly.

-Charles Williams, The Place of the Lion, p.187

Choose your enemies carefully ‘cos they will define you
Make them interesting ‘cos in some ways they will mind you
They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends
Gonna last with you longer than your friends

-U2, The Cedars of Lebanon

You can’t buy this stuff:

There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful — the myth of the “lonely writer,” the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state of sensitivity which cuts him off, or raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliche, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as Sufferer and Rebel . . . I suppose there have been enough genuinely lonely suffering novelists to make this seem a reasonable myth, but there is every reason to suppose that such cases are the result of less admirable qualities in these writers, qualities which have nothing to do with the vocation of writing itself . . . Unless the writer has gone utterly out of his mind, his aim is still communication, and communication suggests talking inside community.

-Flannery O’Connor

(Via the front flap of The Company They Keep by Diana Gyler)

This was probably the best part of guitar  studio and music school in general – being pushed forward by peers performing all around you. Writing has got to be the same way I think.

Along these same lines, Gyler quotes Karen Lefevre:

There will always be great need for individual initiative, but not matter how inventive an individual wants to be, he will be influenced for better or for worse by the intellectual company he keeps. On top of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont, there are thirty-year-old trees that are only three feet tall. If a tree begins to grow taller, extending beyond the protection of the others, it dies. The moral for inventors: Plant yourself in a tall forest if you hope to have ideas of stature.

-p.64

Since Lewis viewed Praise as an indication of good mental health, it is not surprising that he defined good literary criticism as that which is fundamentally positive: “The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read”

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.49 (Quote from Lewis in Reflections

Sounds like much of the reformed blogosphere… cough cough John MacArthur cough cough Phil Johnson cough Challies, cough…

One thing I like about reading Robert Webber is that he doesn’t automaticaly assume someone with really different theology than him is worthless. He can still be eclectic and dig up good stuff from folks with all kinds of legitimate problems. Christians from different groups still being friends. How ’bout that?

Shortly before Lewis died, a guy named John Wain wrote about the Inklings. He saw the Inklings as “a fairly uniform group with common ideas, theories, moods, created worlds, approaches, patterns and sources.”

In his book, Wain claims that group members shared on single outlook. He writes, “The group had a corporate mind”, a mind both “powerful” and “clearly defined.” And its nature? “Politically conservative, not to say reactionary; in religion, Anglo- or Roman Catholic; in art frankly hotle to any manifestation of the ‘modern’ spirit”. Wain takes the matter a step futher and claims that the group’s strong focus was not only radical but quite intentional. He describes the Inklings as “a circle of instigators, almost of incendiaries, meeting to urge one another on in the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life.”

Wow. All kinds of Christian leaders would be thrilled to have someone describe them as such. See Brant Hansen’s recent comments on the Catalyst conference.

On the other hand…

Lewis read [Wain’s comments] and he was outraged. He published a rebuttal..seeking to set the record straight. Lewis states in no uncertain terms, “The whole picture of myself as one forming a cabinet, or cell, or coven, is erroneous. Mr. Wain has mistaken purely personal relationships for alliances.

Gyler continues:

The claim that the Inklings gathered together under the banner of some “incendiary” purpose cannot be substantiated.”

Right. I think Lewis is right. They didn’t see themselves as being “impact your world” cultural architects, “planet shakers”, or whatever else. They were just passionate about certain kinds of literature and worked really hard. It happens that their views on many things were highly Christian while still being remarkably creative.

I gotta say though, 60-70 years in hindsight, I think Wain’s comments can NOT be written off. Lewis’s theology is incredibly influential throughout the western world now. Tolkien wrote THE novel of the 20th century and it spits in the face of modernism like nothing else could. If they were overtly TRYING to change the world with Christian ideas, they couldn’t have possibly done a better job. In fact, maybe if they were “trying to change the world” they would have written crap instead. That’s more likely.

Perhaps, just maybe, the greatest work you can do for God is some sort of trade or seemingly “secular” discipline. The Inklings were not men of the cloth, but name a man of the cloth who left such a mark? Do not despair in your endeavor.

Along these lines (I think), read Michael Spencer’s recent biographical post that ties into this.

Gyler mentions this early on in her book on the Inklings:

…comparing texts and finding similarities creates a number of problems. For one thing, any measure of similarity is by nature highly subjective. As Goran Hermeren makes clear, “Our knowledge and expectations determine what similarities (or differences) we notice”…Studies based on this method of research tend to focus on the small and particlar: specific images, common characters, parallel events, invented names. Weightier issues such as purpose, theme, technique, and the like are much harder to compare by looing at textual features side by side. Sharles Moorman offers this word of warning “All to often, studies [of influence] are notable only for the amount of irrelevant minutiae they are able to uncover”

-Diana Gyler, The Company They Keep, p.35

Wow. Scholarly research focussing on small particular things publishing mostly irrelevant minutiae. Say it ain’t so.

This same thing happens in Biblical scholarship too I think. When you use a language concordance to look up verses where the same word occurs and then patch together verses from all over the place to make your point. Chances are, those verses aren’t at all talking about the same thing. Context, context.”Purpose, theme…”, is much harder. Yeah.