John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 111

U1. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

So, I've been looking closely at 1st ed. AD&D lately to try to see if I can find out why this edition of the game has so much appeal to me—i.e., is it truly as good as I remember it, or am I unreasonably nostalic for the Old Days.

One thing I came across in the process is an unfinished piece I'd been writing for the WotC website  which from internal evidence dates from sometime in 2001.

I'd done introductions for Julia Martin over on the web team, who were making available for the first time ever official e-publications of some long-out-of-print, near-forgotten modules: the original version of B3. Palace of the Silver Princess; the EX-series of Gygax's Alice in Wonderland parodies; L2. The Assassin's Knot (a personal favorite), and I10. Ravenloft II: The House of Gryphon Hill.  I'd been working on a fifth piece in the series which remained unfinished for one reason or another; I no longer remember if the series was cancelled or if it was because WotC and I parted company that summer (or both).  In any case, I greatly enjoyed writing them, and from comments I've seen about them on the web I gather that a fair number of people enjoyed reading them, so thought I'd share this fragment of the unfinished piece.



U1. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
   Some modules are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness trust upon them.
   Such is the case with the U-series—U1. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (1981), U2. Danger at Dunwater (1982), and U3. The Final Enemy (1983), all written by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull. Certainly U1. Saltmarsh made little splash when it first appeared twenty years ago,* far less than others released that same year.[Note 1]  It was published, sold moderately well—certainly enough to justify completing the series by publishing the 2nd and 3rd modules in their turn—and then faded from view. It was never reprinted in a compilation, unlike the Assassin series (A1–4), Hickman's Desert of Desolation (I3–5), Gygax & Schick's S1–4, Gygax's original Giant series from the dawn of time (G1–3, itself later incorporated into the giant-drow-underdark series GDQ1–7 by Gygax & Sutherland), or the massive B1–9. In Search of Adventure.[Note 2]  Instead, it slipped into the oblivion that overtook many another good module of that era as the old inevitably made way for the new.
   In the case of the U-series, however, many years after they had slipped out of print interest in these three adventures was revived when they came to be inshrined in the 'Greyhawk Canon'. Interest in Greyhawk—Gygax's original fantasy world, predated only by Arneson's Blackmoor as the original D&D dungeon—spiked after the GH product line was cancelled in 1993 after years of mediocre sales.[Note 3]  This cancellation galvanized fans of the setting, who scanned every adventure closely for any details it might add to their ever-growing database of the game-world, or any corners it might fill in the none-too-crowded map. Collectors began to offer higher and higher prices for out-of-print modules from the early & mid '80s—not just rare items like the original printing of Lost Tamaochan but those which harkened back to what could now be idealized as a 'golden age'.[Note 4]  Chief among them were the generic AD&D 1st edition modules that, by default, were set somewhere in Greyhawk. Since the U-series had been loosely set in Greyhawk (via a single sentence on page 3 of U1 saying where to place it within the setting), it shared in the GH revival and rose considerably in fans' estimation long after the fact.
   Aside from the cachet they have enjoyed in recent years as part of the classic 1st edition GH canon, do these modules have any other qualities to recommend them—any qualities inherent in the adventures themselves?
   The answer is, yes indeed, quite a lot. For one thing U1 was the first module to actually give the layout of a haunted house. Prior to 1981 there had been dungeons and castles aplenty, and exotic settings from an ice-cavern to a spider-ship sailing through the Abyss, but no one had actually drawn a floorplan for a mansion.[Note5]
   Second, the second stage of the adventure shifts from the old mansion to a sailing ship, and here again U1 broke new ground, giving deckplans for the first time—an immensely useful and lootable part of the adventurer that got reused time and again in homebrew adventures for years thereafter.
   Third, U1 was one of the first adventures that made a serious effort to play with its audience's expectations. Certainly some earlier modules had contained surprises, discoveries that revealed new dimensions as events unfolded (most notably the revelation that a previously unknown race of elves known as drow were the moving force behind the giants' depredations in the G1–3 series). But, by and large, before U1 any time player characters heard about a mysterious haunted house (or tower, or castle, or dungeon), it was a pretty sure bet that when they arrived there they'd find it chock-full of undead—skeletons, zombies, wights, ghosts, whatever. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh changed all that by being downright sneaky: not only was the 'haunted house' not actually haunted,

—and there the text breaks off, followed by two notations
14th cent. English touches.The UK series (TSR UK)
the draft text ends slightly differently:
The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh changed all that.[Note 6]  DMs everywhere now had
the associated notes with this, also unfinished, reads
Note 6. B3, published the same year . . .

The notes are as follows
Note 1. Notable among them being B2. Keep on the Borderlands (the single best-selling rpg module ever), L1. The Secret of Bone Hill, X2. Castle Amber (inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith), the launch of the I-series, the reissue of the original Giant modules as G1–3. Against the Giants, the completion of the A-series (A2, A3, A4), and the relaunch of D&D (3rd edition, by Moldvay and Cook, split for the first time into two boxes—'Basic' and 'Expert').
Note 2. Actually this last should properly have been entitled B2–9, since B1. In Search of the Unknown was omitted from the final compilation due to a contract dispute, although the maps accompanying the adventure were inadvertently included.
Note 3. Not revived until five years later, with 1998's Return of the Eight, although an on-line community remained active and vocal in the interim. With the advent of Third Edition D&D in 2000, Greyhawk has once again become the default background in which all generic D&D products are set.
Note 4. Three of these that were in greatest demand by the mid-'90s were the original I6. Ravenloft, T1–4. Temple of Elemental Evil, and the H-series (H1. Bloodstone Pass, H2. The Mines of Bloodstone, H3. The Bloodstone War, and H4. The Throne of Bloodstone).
Note 5. The closest challenger I can find to this claim is Jim Ward's short adventure 'The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow', published the preceding Halloween in the October 1980 issue of Dragonmagazine, a very odd D&D adventure in which the PCs are modern-day boy scouts exploring a mad scientist's lair. Judges Guild published House on Hangman's Hill by Jon Mattson sometime in 1981, but I have been unable to find out whether it preceded or followed The Sinister Secret of Saltmarshinto print. Since other appeared at roughly the same time, it seems clear that neither had any significant influence on the other.

This unfinished piece was written in 2001; hence the reference to U1's having been published 'twenty years ago' would now more accurately read 'thirty-five years ago'. Similarly, the reference in one of the notes to Greyhawk's now once again being the default world setting should no longer be in the present tense.
As for where the half-finished piece wd have gone from here, it's clear that I intended to at least mention the English fishing village setting with its attempt at a bit of realism, with excise men rather than generic town guards. Unfortunately this is undercut by the local village being severely undeveloped. Given the amount of time the PCs are expected to be spending here, making it their home base while exploring the area, you'd think they'd have at least named some of the local notables, such as the one who hires the PCs to investigate the nearby haunted mansion, or another town notable who turns out to be in cahoots with the enemy. I also clearly meant to say something about TSR-UK, a semi-autonomous branch of TSR that probably seemed a good idea at the time but is remembered today primarily for the hapless FIEND FOLIO (1980). And I can't imagine I'd have failed to mention some of the interesting ideas that emerge in the second adventure in the series, where alliances can quickly shift when those assumed to be enemies turn out to be potential allies against a greater foe. The ancient leader of the lizard men is a memorable character, but the iconic moment comes when the characters, in the midst of a raid on what they think is the enemies' lair come across two toddlers who are essentially baby monsters: an alignment-defining moment that I think was designed to reign in hack-and-slashers.  

In any case, such was my never-finished piece. I hope you enjoyed this brief visit to the past.

--John R.
current reading: 1st ed. PLAYER'S HANDBOOK

An unfinished piece from WotC days

So, I've been looking closely at 1st ed. AD&D lately to try to see if I can find out why this edition of the game has so much appeal to me—i.e., is it truly as good as I remember it, or am I unreasonably nostalic for the Old Days.

One thing I came across in the process is an unfinished piece I'd been writing for the WotC website  which from internal evidence dates from sometime in 2001.

I'd done introductions for Julia Martin over on the web team, who were making available for the first time ever official e-publications of some long-out-of-print, near-forgotten modules: the original version of B3. Palace of the Silver Princess; the EX-series of Gygax's Alice in Wonderland parodies; L2. The Assassin's Knot (a personal favorite), and I10. Ravenloft II: The House of Gryphon Hill.  I'd been working on a fifth piece in the series which remained unfinished for one reason or another; I no longer remember if the series was cancelled or if it was because WotC and I parted company that summer (or both).  In any case, I greatly enjoyed writing them, and from comments I've seen about them on the web I gather that a fair number of people enjoyed reading them, so thought I'd share this fragment of the unfinished piece.



U1. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
   Some modules are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness trust upon them.
   Such is the case with the U-series—U1. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (1981), U2. Danger at Dunwater (1982), and U3. The Final Enemy (1983), all written by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull. Certainly U1. Saltmarsh made little splash when it first appeared twenty years ago,* far less than others released that same year.[Note 1]  It was published, sold moderately well—certainly enough to justify completing the series by publishing the 2nd and 3rd modules in their turn—and then faded from view. It was never reprinted in a compilation, unlike the Assassin series (A1–4), Hickman's Desert of Desolation (I3–5), Gygax & Schick's S1–4, Gygax's original Giant series from the dawn of time (G1–3, itself later incorporated into the giant-drow-underdark series GDQ1–7 by Gygax & Sutherland), or the massive B1–9. In Search of Adventure.[Note 2]  Instead, it slipped into the oblivion that overtook many another good module of that era as the old inevitably made way for the new.
   In the case of the U-series, however, many years after they had slipped out of print interest in these three adventures was revived when they came to be inshrined in the 'Greyhawk Canon'. Interest in Greyhawk—Gygax's original fantasy world, predated only by Arneson's Blackmoor as the original D&D dungeon—spiked after the GH product line was cancelled in 1993 after years of mediocre sales.[Note 3]  This cancellation galvanized fans of the setting, who scanned every adventure closely for any details it might add to their ever-growing database of the game-world, or any corners it might fill in the none-too-crowded map. Collectors began to offer higher and higher prices for out-of-print modules from the early & mid '80s—not just rare items like the original printing of Lost Tamaochan but those which harkened back to what could now be idealized as a 'golden age'.[Note 4]  Chief among them were the generic AD&D 1st edition modules that, by default, were set somewhere in Greyhawk. Since the U-series had been loosely set in Greyhawk (via a single sentence on page 3 of U1 saying where to place it within the setting), it shared in the GH revival and rose considerably in fans' estimation long after the fact.
   Aside from the cachet they have enjoyed in recent years as part of the classic 1st edition GH canon, do these modules have any other qualities to recommend them—any qualities inherent in the adventures themselves?
   The answer is, yes indeed, quite a lot. For one thing U1 was the first module to actually give the layout of a haunted house. Prior to 1981 there had been dungeons and castles aplenty, and exotic settings from an ice-cavern to a spider-ship sailing through the Abyss, but no one had actually drawn a floorplan for a mansion.[Note5]
   Second, the second stage of the adventure shifts from the old mansion to a sailing ship, and here again U1 broke new ground, giving deckplans for the first time—an immensely useful and lootable part of the adventurer that got reused time and again in homebrew adventures for years thereafter.
   Third, U1 was one of the first adventures that made a serious effort to play with its audience's expectations. Certainly some earlier modules had contained surprises, discoveries that revealed new dimensions as events unfolded (most notably the revelation that a previously unknown race of elves known as drow were the moving force behind the giants' depredations in the G1–3 series). But, by and large, before U1 any time player characters heard about a mysterious haunted house (or tower, or castle, or dungeon), it was a pretty sure bet that when they arrived there they'd find it chock-full of undead—skeletons, zombies, wights, ghosts, whatever. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh changed all that by being downright sneaky: not only was the 'haunted house' not actually haunted,

—and there the text breaks off, followed by two notations
14th cent. English touches.The UK series (TSR UK)
the draft text ends slightly differently:
The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh changed all that.[Note 6]  DMs everywhere now had
the associated notes with this, also unfinished, reads
Note 6. B3, published the same year . . .

The notes are as follows
Note 1. Notable among them being B2. Keep on the Borderlands (the single best-selling rpg module ever), L1. The Secret of Bone Hill, X2. Castle Amber (inspired by the works of Clark Ashton Smith), the launch of the I-series, the reissue of the original Giant modules as G1–3. Against the Giants, the completion of the A-series (A2, A3, A4), and the relaunch of D&D (3rd edition, by Moldvay and Cook, split for the first time into two boxes—'Basic' and 'Expert').
Note 2. Actually this last should properly have been entitled B2–9, since B1. In Search of the Unknown was omitted from the final compilation due to a contract dispute, although the maps accompanying the adventure were inadvertently included.
Note 3. Not revived until five years later, with 1998's Return of the Eight, although an on-line community remained active and vocal in the interim. With the advent of Third Edition D&D in 2000, Greyhawk has once again become the default background in which all generic D&D products are set.
Note 4. Three of these that were in greatest demand by the mid-'90s were the original I6. Ravenloft, T1–4. Temple of Elemental Evil, and the H-series (H1. Bloodstone Pass, H2. The Mines of Bloodstone, H3. The Bloodstone War, and H4. The Throne of Bloodstone).
Note 5. The closest challenger I can find to this claim is Jim Ward's short adventure 'The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow', published the preceding Halloween in the October 1980 issue of Dragonmagazine, a very odd D&D adventure in which the PCs are modern-day boy scouts exploring a mad scientist's lair. Judges Guild published House on Hangman's Hill by Jon Mattson sometime in 1981, but I have been unable to find out whether it preceded or followed The Sinister Secret of Saltmarshinto print. Since other appeared at roughly the same time, it seems clear that neither had any significant influence on the other.

This unfinished piece was written in 2001; hence the reference to U1's having been published 'twenty years ago' would now more accurately read 'thirty-five years ago'. Similarly, the reference in one of the notes to Greyhawk's now once again being the default world setting should no longer be in the present tense.
As for where the half-finished piece wd have gone from here, it's clear that I intended to at least mention the English fishing village setting with its attempt at a bit of realism, with excise men rather than generic town guards. Unfortunately this is undercut by the local village being severely undeveloped. Given the amount of time the PCs are expected to be spending here, making it their home base while exploring the area, you'd think they'd have at least named some of the local notables, such as the one who hires the PCs to investigate the nearby haunted mansion, or another town notable who turns out to be in cahoots with the enemy. I also clearly meant to say something about TSR-UK, a semi-autonomous branch of TSR that probably seemed a good idea at the time but is remembered today primarily for the hapless FIEND FOLIO (1980). And I can't imagine I'd have failed to mention some of the interesting ideas that emerge in the second adventure in the series, where alliances can quickly shift when those assumed to be enemies turn out to be potential allies against a greater foe. The ancient leader of the lizard men is a memorable character, but the iconic moment comes when the characters, in the midst of a raid on what they think is the enemies' lair come across two toddlers who are essentially baby monsters: an alignment-defining moment that I think was designed to reign in hack-and-slashers.  

In any case, such was my never-finished piece. I hope you enjoyed this brief visit to the past.

--John R.
current reading: 1st ed. PLAYER'S HANDBOOK

apologies to Dorothy Sayers? (spoilers)

So, it turns out that one of the notoriously dodgy methods used by Dorothy L. Sayers to kill a character in one of her Peter Wimsey novels may in fact have some science behind it.  A recent piece in the series "Science Question From A Toddler" on the Fivethirtyeight.com website makes the point that sound waves, audible or not, are  nonetheless real, physical objects. Get too close to a really loud sound and it can inflict real damage --- including at potentially lethal levels.

After defining 'infrasounds' as sounds too low in frequency to be heard by the human ear, they go on to say

. . . extremely loud infrasounds can still have an impact on our bodies. Humans exposed to infrasounds* above 110 decibels experience changes in their blood pressure and respiratory rates. They get dizzy and have trouble maintaining their balance. In 1965, an Air Force experiment found that humans exposed to infrasound in the range of 151-153 decibels for 90 seconds began to feel their chests moving without their control. At a high enough decibel, the atmospheric pressure changes of infrasound can inflate and deflate lungs, effectively serving as a means of artificial respiration.

This will sound somewhat familiar to readers of Sayer's 1934 novel THE NINE TAILORS, in the course of which a man is killed by being locked in a bell tower of an old church, killed by the sound waves of the bells; later Wimsey himself almost undergoes the same fate but is rescued (once again) by his faithful manservant Bunter. As a method of killing a character, it's always ranked towards the dodgy end of the spectrum so far as the classical 'Golden Age' English detective era went: more plausible than the 1930 nonWimsey novel THE DOCUMENTS IN THE CASE (where, unfortunately for Sayers, the key bit of science turned out to be bogus), less plausible than, say, Agatha Christie's 1939 AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.


I might add that, any light it might shed on classic murder mysteries aside, the piece has some interesting factoids. The loudest sound in historical times was probably the explosion of Krakatoa. The loudest sound recorded under scientific conditions was made by a first-stage Saturn V rocket during launch. The loudest animal on earth is probably the sperm whale. For those who might be interested, here's the link to the full piece:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-loudest-sound-in-the-world-would-kill-you-on-the-spot/


--John R.

'stretches incredulity'

So, last week I finished what I'm expecting to be my next publication: an updating of my 2012 speech at Marquette describing how the Tolkien manuscripts came to Milwaukee. I had a lot of fun researching and writing the original presentation, and I've enjoyed going back to it almost four years later and changing it  from an oral to a written form. I even managed to uncover and incorporate some new information about Tolkien's planned visit which I'm looking forward to sharing and seeing what others make of it.

More here after the piece is published, which shd be sometime this fall.

As for the title of this post, that was a phrase I'd used without thinking to describe one of Wm Ready's stories about his interactions with Tolkien. Janice pointed it out when she gave the final piece a read-through for me, and I was torn. On the one hand, I found the phrase strangely evocative. On the other, it's a kind of double negative, and these days those are considered to cancel each other out (unlike in Chaucerian times, when doubling negatives just meant emphasis). So I'm afraid it'll have to come out. Pity, but sometimes a good line has to go by the way in the interests of accuracy.


--John R.
current reading: the 1st ed PH.
current anime; GHOST VILLAGE, VANADIS.
current music: The Smithereens (six albums' worth).

UNKNOWN KADATH dvd

So, thanks to a friend loaning me the dvd (thanks Stan), I've now had a chance to watch the animated film adaptation of THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKOWN KADATH, which I think among the very best of Lovecraft's stories (second only by his related short story "The Strange High House in the Mist"). This film is based on a graphic novel I've not read, having been put off by the artist's bizarre choice to draw his main character as a pillow-headed doughboy. This is probably symbolic of something, like the protagonist being a everyman figure, but whatever its rationale that aspect of the work totally flopped for me. Unfortunately, it's a feature of the graphic novel they carry over into the film, to its detriment. That aside, I rather like the art style. And I spotted a few things they'd worked into the background in various scene that I wholly approved of.

First, when Randalph Carter takes passage on a boat, we catch a brief glimpse of the boat's sails, which exactly match the striking design by S. H. Sime in his original illustration for The Bird of the River in the 1910 tale "Idle Days on the Yann".

Second, we later catch a glimpse of The Strange High House, although no explanation is given of what it is or why it shd be significant. Just a little reward, I guess, for those familiar with the original who are paying attention.

Third, when Randalph Carter wakes up in his Boston bedroom, we see a Pickman painting on his wall and the titles of several books on a shelf: GREEK M[YTH], SLEEP AND WAK[E? ING?], and finally my favorite: ASTRAL PROJ[ECTION] TO ARCTURU[S] by 'LINDSAY' -- this being an imaginary book that correlates to David Lindsay's weird masterpiece A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS [1920]




In other Cthulhu news, I've now read the new Jacqueline Baker novel THE BROKEN HOURS, which continues the trend of using Lovecraft as a character in a novel. Her effort is much more literary than the other HPL-as-character novels I've read, which try to cast HPL as an action hero. Her depiction of a weird and reclusive figure is far superior, as is her prose, to most such efforts. Unfortunately, her book is marred by two problems.

First, that it pretty much lacks anything resembling a plot. Once Baker has gotten our point-of-view character to Lovecraft's house, the rest of the book cd be summed up as 'spooky things happen'. Then some more. Then some more. Second, the Big Reveal at the end is massively underwhelming. I won't give it away here, but for me the arrival's not worth the journey. Too bad, given that Baker writes quite well.


And just so the British don't feel left out, today I noticed a reference to Great Cthulhu in a piece discussing the current EU-Exit crisis, when someone writing about all the turmoil over who will be England's next prime minister felt moved to say

"It would not be especially outrageous, for instance, to learn that  Cthulhu  has chucked his tentacles into the Tory contest."

For those who want context, here's the piece -- but be warned that the columnist is intemperate both in content and expression, and uses language that wdn't be allowed in a U. S. newspaper.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/01/michael-gove-treachery-conservative-leader-theresa-may

--John R.

The Somme

So, a hundred years ago today the Somme began -- the most deadly battle in human history. That first day, Rob Gilson, one of the T.C.B.S., died, along with about twenty thousand fellow Britishers: more than double that were wounded.

In a century marked by disasters, it was one of the greatest catastrophes within one of the greatest catastrophes (the War itself).

Tolkien survived largely because his group was being held in reserve for those first few bloody days. By the end of the year another of his best friends, G. B. Smith, would die as well, while Tolkien himself had been invalided back home, spending the next two years in and out of hospitals.

Forty years later Tolkien wd commemorate Gilson and Smith in his foreword to THE LORD OF THE RINGS: "By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead" (the survivor being Christopher Wiseman, who was serving at sea rather than in France).

A sad day to commemorate all who died there, English and German and French.

--John R.

A Bad Day for Britain

So, I've tried several times in the past week to put together a suitable post re. the English voting to pull out of Europe, but each kept sliding off into intemperate tangents. So I'd just like to make a quick note to commiserate with all the folks out there in Britain who suddenly find themselves in a country that's just committed itself to taking a wrong turn.

--John R.

A Dark Day for Britain

So, I've tried several times in the past week to put together a suitable post re. the English voting to pull out of Europe, but each kept sliding off into intemperate tangents. So I'd just like to make a quick note to commiserate with all the folks out there in Britain who suddenly find themselves in a country that's just committed itself to taking a wrong turn.

--John R.

Cat Report (W.June 29th)

Good to finally be back, and to meet new cats Wesley and Bellamy and Mary Meowsie (well, new since the last time I’d been there, anyway).
Just a quick note regarding the cats at mid-day yesterday.

I got to walk five out of six cats, some for as much as fifteen minutes or so. The sole exception was PIXIE. I got the leash on her and took her outside of the room, but she was so distressed I brought her back in after only a ninute or so. It didn’t help that between my giving ZIPPY his walk and trying to give PIXIE hers, some dog had marked territory all over the place right outside the cat-cages. I cleaned it up as best I could, but the cats that took walks after than all knew it was there. 
Of the cats who had walks, ZIPPY did well, and RAGGEDY ANNE did great. MISS MARY MEOWSIE proved to be an old pro at this walking thing, while MR. BELLAMY and YOUNG WELSEY both seemed to enjoy themselves — though Wesley has a tendancy to suddenly stop dead, for reasons not apparent to me, then after a wary while to start up again as good as new. Quite a few people were amused by seeing the cats walked and came up to ask questions.
After the walks came the crinkly paper. Wesley loved it, but Mr. Bellamy acted like it was the best thing ever. Miss Mary was interested but didn’t want to get too close to the boy cats. Wesley similarly wanted to keep his distance form Bellamy, eventually settling himself atop the cat-stand, so pouncing on and burrowing under paper wound up being all Bellamy’s game. Which pleased him no end. Watching him with the other cats I think he’s willing to share but likes it even better when he doesn’t have to. 
After that there was catnip all round. Again Mr. Bellamy was the most enthusiastic, followed by Wesley and Raggedy Anne. 
Mr. Bellamy did have one unusual behavior. He went several times to the communal dirt box, scratched in it furiously, then ran around both rooms several times. He finally used it near the end of my shift; all the rest had been him just playing I suppose. 
Sorry to hear that Baloo’s adoption didn’t take. Wish I could get Zippy and esp. Pixie to come out more; both are v. shy around me, esp. Pixie.
Heath issues: only thing I noticed was that the hair’s getting matted behind R.Anne’s ears. I tried combing the tangles out but she wasn’t in a mood to put up with any such foolishness on my part. She did a lot of grabbing my hand and then grooming it. That was sweet, but when I tried to pull the hand back that tended to trigger her predator instinct. She was careful not to bite or actually scratch me, but I came away with a few pinpricks. 
And that’s about it for yesterday’s socializing shift. It’s good to be back.
—John R.

Cockshut on Lewis

So, I've been reading through the latest issue of THE JOURNAL OF INKLINGS STUDIES w. great interest, starting from the back; the round-table discussion of Lindop's new biography of Wms by eight Wms scholars, who are clearly trying to get their heads around some of the revelations of said book.

The next part to seize my attention was "Lewis in Post-War Oxford" by A. O. J. Cockshut, who was a student there in the early postwar years. Cockshut has a number of interesting things to say about Oxford and Lewis's role in it during his time there. Perhaps the three most important deal first with Lord David Cecil's election to a professorship in 1948. Although Cockshut was being tutored by Cecil and viewed him as a personal friend, he felt Lewis was the more substantial of the two* and shd have gotten the post.

The second comes in Cockshut's passing judgment on 'The Great Kirk', Lewis's tutor who had trained him in logic and argumentation: 'Many [who have read SURPRISED BY JOY] will have been struck by the admiring way Lewis describes [Kirk's] perverse and stupid style of reasoning . . . Here was a man -- if we are to believe Lewis's account -- to whom it had never occurred that reason is a tool of the intellectual life, which can perform some tasks and not others' (Cockshut p. 74)


The third and perhaps more important event was the fight over whether to expand the syllabus to include works written since 1830 (i.e., all the Victorians and perhaps the early Moderns). Cockshut says Lewis sent a circular signed by himself and two other dons (who go unnamed) to everyone attending the faculty meeting held to decide the matter (chaired, we are told, by Cecil): this document urged rejection of the expansion. But the reason Lewis gave was, according to Cockshut, disingenuous to the point of being specious.

As Cockshut tells it, Lewis at the meeting argued that the Victorian age was one of the greatest in English literature, even rivaling "the great seventeenth century" (the era of Shakespeare and Milton and Donne).  ' "And that is why we should not allow undergraduates to study it. Think of the things they would have to know before they could begin to understand it." He then gave a list of background material that might occupy a professor for years'. (Cockshut p. 74). Cockshut believes that Lewis was being deliberately sophistical. 'Moreover, some would have felt that as it had already been announced that he was leaving Oxford for Cambridge, it would have been tactful to leave his colleagues to themselves in deciding their syllabus and the content of what they would have to teach' (Cockshut p. 75)'.  Cockshut's final conclusion is devastating: that at that meeting '[Lewis] was guilty of the serious offense of regaling people who were his intellectual and professional equals with sophistry' (Cockshut p. 75-76)

On the whole, an interesting piece, and one I'm glad to have had the chance to read. Even leaving aside Cockshut's opinions, he provides some new details previously unknown to me about this significant event.  I'd like to see a copy of that circular, for example, and to know who the other two who signed it with Lewis were.

--John R.
current re-reading: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE


*I think this underestimates Cecil's achievements, but pass over that for now since I've posted about  that elsewhere.