A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918

by Joseph Loconte, Dave Hoffman (Reading)

The untold story of how the First World War shaped the lives, faith, and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis



The First World War laid waste to a continent and permanently altered the political and religious landscape of the West. For a generation of men and women, it brought the end of innocence—and the end of faith. Yet for J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination. Had there been no Great War, there would have been no Hobbit, no Lord of the Rings, no Narnia, and perhaps no conversion to Christianity by C. S. Lewis.



Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, Tolkien and Lewis produced epic stories infused with the themes of guilt and grace, sorrow and consolation. Giving an unabashedly Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment, the two writers created works that changed the course of literature and shaped the faith of millions. This is the first audiobook to explore their work in light of the spiritual crisis sparked by the conflict.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Christian, Audiobook, War, World War I

Audio CD

First published June 30, 2015

About the author

Joseph Loconte, PhD, is an Associate Professor of History at The King’s College in New York City, where he teaches Western Civilization and American Foreign Policy.

Loconte previously served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, where he taught on religion and public policy. He was a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2006 he held the first chair in religion as the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Loconte is the author of The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt (Thomas Nelson, 2012) and God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West (Lexington Books, 2014). His other books are The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004) and Seducing the Samaritan: How Government Contracts Are Reshaping Social Services (The Pioneer Institute, 1997). His commentary on religion and democracy, human rights, and international religious freedom appears in the nation’s leading media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, and National Public Radio. He is also a regular contributor to the London-based Standpoint Magazine and Italy’s La Stampa.

Loconte has testified before Congress on international human rights and served as a human rights expert on the 2005 Congressional Task Force on the United Nations, contributing to its final report, “American Interests and U.N. Reform.” He was an informal advisor/speechwriter for British MP Andrew Mitchell, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. From 2001-2003, he was an informal advisor to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He now serves as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and as an affiliated scholar at the John Jay Institute.

A native of Brooklyn, NY, Loconte divides his time between New York City and the Washington, D.C. area.

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was supposed to explain the relationship between WWI and the origin of Tolkien's and Lewis' most famous works, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. It only succeeded somewhat.

The author is a professor of history and his interest in WWI (also due to his grandfather having served and the family having a personal story to tell about the war) is apparent. However, maybe due to the fact that the authors can no longer be asked, most is simple speculation. Sure, there are some quotes out of biographies other authors have penned and we sometimes even get snippets from interviews with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis that are brushing on the subject, but mostly it's an abbreviated account of WWI with the occasional conclusion as to what led the authors to think this or that and incorporate it in their novels (with quotes from the respective novel). That's it.

Moreover, the author apparently is religious (and very much so even), with the result that he often blames how Lewis thought in younger years on the man's atheism.
To make clear what I mean: Lewis was a man I could not have liked. While he was curious and inquisitive, he constantly complained and whined about life's conditions, later about the war having started and the prospect of him having to leave his studies to fight if he gets drafted. Now, I understand if someone doesn't want to fight, especially in the World Wars, but to bitch and complain before anything has happened and about trivial stuff at that, and (above all) in such an apparently arrogant manner (direct quotes from letters Lewis wrote to his father), all while hundreds of thousands of men, women and children die - that is despicable.
It's like sitting nowadays at the table with a squad who just lost half their brothers in a firefight and complaining to them that there is no air condition!

There is also lots of repetition in this. Probably because the author ran out of things to say. I liked the description of what people thought and felt at the beginning of (although some assumptions can be disputed, again the author blames "godlessness"), during and after the war. A lot of important historic facts can be found here to put certain events and opinions into perspective too. With that the author succeeded.
But then he goes back to blaming atheism for men being insatiable when it comes to power (he even names Darwin for people wanting the betterment of human nature that led to an increase in technology which was then used in the war) and how god/faith alone can save you from the darkness. *rolls eyes*
He thus praises Lewis for seeing the light (and Tolkien for making his friend see the light) and returning to faith, becoming an even stouter Christian than he was before and attributes the books to divine will (creative / artistic talent being a gift from god). Oh, and of course only believers know moral (I actually hear this argument from a number of Catholics). Tolkien's and Lewis' stories therefore are only so successful even after all these years because they bring the divine spark back into our lives and because we've missed god's light even if we don't know / admit it.
And he also states that heroism (being willing and able to make sacrifices, even if it means your own death) is only possible if you are religious.
Honestly, at several points during this book I rolled my eyes so hard that my head hurt.

So much for the author, now onto Tolkien and Lewis themselves.
Yes, it is remarkable that Tolkien and Lewis were basically the ONLY TWO authors not to write pieces on the world being badbadbad back in the day. Poets, authors and many other artists back then were so disillusioned that there was nothing but depression all around (unsurprisingly). It is great that Tolkien and Lewis found a way to create immortal works that delight readers (me too) with stories of ordinary people instead of special snowflakes that actually do succumb to weakness but prevail through hard work (the author argues that the heroes only prevail because of divine intervention but at least in LOTR there is room for another interpretation).
The thing is that I'm an atheist and can enjoy such works completely without any form of faith, thank you very much. Just like I'm capable of living a morally good life without needing the Damocles Sword of eternal torture/damnation over my head to make me do good things. Also, many if not all of the people that started WWI were men of faith, not to mention the Church's role in the propaganda (which the author mentions but not as a negative thing). So one could easily flip this argument around.

I have to admit that I like LOTR much more than Narnia. I enjoyed Narnia but to me, LOTR is on a whole different level of literature. Plus, Tolkien doesn't shove religion down our throats as much as Lewis does in at least some of the Narnia stories.
But their friendship was as epic as their stories and what they created was vitally important, especially at that time. Also, I agree with most of the opinions they expressed that were quoted here: I, too, think that while war isn't good or desirable, it often is necessary (funny that Lewis made that point, considering his shameful/cowardly proclamations and views at least before he fought at the front lines). I, too, believe that friendship (being able to fully trust another person) is vitally important and an understated side of the World Wars (and that a friendship forged in war is nothing like what civilians call friendship).
It is even more tragic to consider that the authors had to see yet another war so shortly after the first (Tolkien's sons fought in WWII too and there were some interesting passages of letters between Christopher Tolkien and his father quoted here).
And yes, of course one can see the trenches and the war experience all through LOTR, even throughout Narnia when battles (both internal and external) are described. Both authors make great points about personal courage, perseverance, honour and integrity (again, funny to see this in Lewis' work now that I know of his character, I really didn't like what he wrote to his father). Both works have earned their place on the list of most important / influential literature.

Thus, this book was OK. It was not what I hoped it would be (especially since the majority of quotes were from other historians or witnesses about certain aspects of WWI or quotes from books not penned by Tolkien/Lewis), but I got through, learned a bit about the lives and experiences of the authors and what influenced them apart from the war (both studied literature after all). However, no recommendation from me, sorry. Read other (non-fiction) books about WWI (I will, shortly) and then maybe some of the interviews with these authors separately, or simply enjoy their stories and draw your own conclusions - the author of this book didn't do anything else either after all.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book, but a number of flaws keep this from being a truly great book.

The first is that there is simply not enough material about the war time experiences of Tolkien and Lewis to form the basis of solid book length treatment. Secondly, the book is just riddled with minor errors that will be easily recognizable to any fan of the books, that somehow escaped the editor. Usually these are in the form of misattributions and simple confusion and misidentification, but they are annoying especially when the author is using and perhaps over relying on the text of the books to prove his points. Thirdly, the approach that the author gives to the text is far too loose for my tastes. If you want to say that a piece of text relates to the author's war time experiences, I'd prefer much more solid evidence. Fourthly, at least for my part, most of the book was well covered ground and well known to me. The unusual focus on the little explored portion of Lewis and Tolkien's life proved mainly to instruct that it is little focused on because there is little definite to say about it. Finally, this book is going to be really of no use whatsoever to a non-Christian audience, as it is far too clear that the author is not merely a historian building a literary and historical case, but is also an evangelist that admires the works as sermons and wishes to expand upon them. Even as a sympathetic ear that agrees that the books work as sermons, and has taught doctrine from them, this inability to choose between the unbiased voice of the historian and the passionate voice of the evangelist is a bit jarring.

Still for all that, I can recommend the book to a limited audience of Christian readers that have some knowledge of the works but don't already have a lot of insight in to the minds of the authors who created them. To them, it will likely be a revelation. Even for someone like myself, who have read the works dozens of times, read all manner of unpublished notes by Tolkien, many books of literary criticism and interpretation of the works, and dug into the text in fandom circles to levels that will seem absurd to many, there were still occasionally unlooked for vistas which were like looking out on a well known valley from vantages you'd never seen before.

In particular, I was struck by Loconte's interpretation of the mindset of Tolkien after the great war that lead him to create his work. The idea of Tolkien passing through the great war, seeing the broken state of his nation, weeping and then deliberately and consciously taking up the burden of healing his entire nation by bringing them a myth that reflected to them divine revelation just leaves me in renewed awe. Who does that sort of thing? Can you just conceive what the mind must be like that in the middle of its tears says, "My nation is broken. Their myths about themselves have deluded and failed them, and they have no stories of their own to fall back on. I know, I'll give them a new story, a great story, a light to lead them out of this dark place." My jaw hits the floor. The vision of the Good Professor once again humbles all my understanding.

It is easy to see why he is often imitated, quite often scorned, occasionally mocked, and yet no one has really come even close to equaling his work.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at the experiences of two young men in WWI and how it affected their writing, their faith and their spiritual quest. J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S.Lewis first met at Oxford in 1926, but they shared an experience of the Great War which deepened their friendship. Although I have read Tolkien’s biography, I knew very little about C.S. Lewis and I found this a really illuminating read. Both men grew up in a time that believed deeply in science and the myth of progress. It was also a time where religious faith was very much linked with patriotism and a sense of duty.

By 1916, Churchill warned against, “futile offensives” that would kill thousands of young men. However, plans were drawn up to take pressure off the French and hopefully achieve a breakthrough. The Battle of the Somme permanently altered Tolkien’s life. By the end of the day there were 19,420 British soldiers killed; among them was Rob Wilson – member of the “Tea Club and Barrovian Society,” which Tolkien started with some close friends. By the end of the war, Tolkien had lost many close friends, as had Lewis, and, in fact, while Tolkien was in hospital recovering from “trench fever,” his regiment sustained enormous casualties and, had he been on the front line, he probably would have been killed.

Lewis went to war a little later than Tolkien and arrived at the front on his 19th birthday. While Tolkien was a committed Catholic, Lewis was not a believer when he first joined up. By 1918 he was injured by shrapnel and was sent home – carrying a piece of shrapnel in his chest for the rest of his life and with most of his friends having been killed.

The Great War saw a new type of warfare of science and technology devoted to annihilation. The author explains how the terrible experiences both men faced changed them and how, out of the carnage they faced, came Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. There is much about how Lewis became a Christian, how Lewis supported and encouraged Tolkien’s writing and how their literary visions were sketched out with the backdrop of war.

I was interested to read, for example, how Tolkien imagined his hobbits to be small to show, “the amazing and unexpected heroism of ordinary men,” as he based them on the soldiers he came across in the trenches. With a post-war world looking to the extremes of communism and fascism for answers, the mythical quality of the writing of both Lewis and Tolkien is timeless and so, as they tried to both make sense of their experience and incorporate it into their writing, they created great works which are still inspirational today. A well written and interesting book which helps explain how important their early experiences were to two great authors.

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many years ago I fell down the WWI rabbit hole and I still wander there frequently. Recently I took another plunge with A World Undone by G.J. Meyer and this excellent little book. This book referred to many of the books and authors I had already read so it was like visiting old friends.

This is an easy conversational read.

[happy · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this book, Professor Loconte, looks at the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, how their experience in the Great War influenced their masterpieces and as a bonus how the ideals of the society in which they were raised motivated them and the contemporaries to willingly join the military and go to the meat grinder that was the Western Front. He also explores how that experience affected the post war society.

Professor Loconte first looks at Tolkien and his experiences. While he didn’t volunteer for the Army, he willing went when he was called up. He arrived in France just in time for the slaughter that was the Somme and his unit joined the offensive on the 3rd day. After telling us of his war time experience, the author looks at how the must have affected his writing. Much of this comes from his own letters and diaries, but there is some speculation. For example he quotes Tolkien as saying, “the character of the hobbit was a reflection of the ordinary soldier, steadfast in his duties while suffering in the dreary 'hole in the ground.'" The author speculates the much of the feeling of the battle sequences in Lord to the Rings (LOTR) must have come for his experiences on the Somme, but does not offer any direct quotes for that.

In discussing Lewis’ experience, Prof Loconte looks as his journey from Atheism to Christianity. Unlike Tolkien who was and remained a practicing Catholic, Lewis entered the war a confirmed atheist. According to the author, by the time he returned from France, he was at least an agnostic and probably a deist. His journey to becoming a Christian is told and as is Tolkien’s role in it.

The author looks at the Christian themes in both of their masterpieces. While Narnia’s Christian’s theme are widely acknowledged, those in LOTR, to my knowledge, are not. In exploring the Christain themes in LOTR the author identifies several. These include good vs evil, the idea that there is someone watching over us, and that we must have help in overcoming evil among others. He also looks at the idea that is something bigger than the individual that is worth fighting for. Prof Loconte says the whole idea of the fellowship of the ring is a prime example. In addition the author looks as Tolkien and Lewis' concept of heroism and how it is depicted in their works.

While discussing how the war affected the two men and their writing, the author contrasts and compares them with some of their contemporaries, including Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. All of whom took a different path in their spiritual journey than Tolkien and Lewis. In exploring their paths, Prof Loconte looks at the affect the War had on Christianity and the elite’s, especially the literary circle’s relationship to it.

The author gave a presentation on it that was televised on BookTV that in many ways better than the book

http://www.c-span.org/video/?326885-1...

All in all I enjoyed this book, but I thought it was too short – less than 200 pages and at times had an academic feel. For these reasons I would give it a 3.75 rounded up for good reads.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had been looking forward to reading this book, especially with the rather intriguing title, and the fact the author discusses two authors that created two of my favourite fictional worlds, Middle Earth and Narnia. (Of course though, my heart belongs in The Shire.)

This book has conjured up mixed feelings for me. While I enjoyed reading the information about the Great War, I feel Loconte struggled in a way to put the points across that he wanted, especially in regards to the books themselves. In some sections, it was like he had merely skim read them.

I don't think there was enough information about Tolkien and Lewis themselves, especially about their friendship, and how the war impacted that. I was expecting more about the authors, and I didn't receive that.

There were some wonderfully interesting chapters in here though, and despite the fact this book could have been much better, I'm always happy to to find out more about the person that created Middle Earth.

[Cori · Rating 3 out of 5]

With the exception of the Bible, no book(s) has impacted my life like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the seven books of the Narnia series. C.S. Lewis had a strong stance on stories- fantasy in particular. If the literature is good, it will also tell a story to adults and true characteristics of real life will be paralleled in the characters/struggles of the novel. Obviously Lewis and Tolkien did this, arguably, better than any other authors before or after.

I loved this book for the backstory it provided. Parallels between their life experiences in the trenches and their novels made sense in ways I never caught before. I loved finding out that Tolkien wrote Samwise Gamgee to honor the privates and "batmen" that served under him when he was an officer- "they were the true heroes." Lewis wrote Peter's fight with the wolf to mimic his first foray into battle. Tolkien most identified with hobbits and Faramir in that he had no love for war. He also hated machinery destroying the beautiful greenery of his country.

That said, much of the book read like a history book with very little mention of the two authors.

Worth reading, but it barely scratched the surface of the lives and relationship between the two men. I think I'm also going to look for some biographies.

I'd rate this book a PG-13 for strong war-time images and accounts of gore and violence.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit I know shockingly little about WWI. Like many a teenage girl, I went through a season where I read all the WWII fiction I could get my hands on but I never was all that interested in completing my knowledge of history. I found this book fascinating--I knew very little of the WWI history that Loconte recounts in the first few chapters and only had the merest outline of C.S. Lewis' and J.R.R. Tolkien's biographies from that era. I love books like this where the author has done a great deal of research & can retell the great themes of that research with clarity and interest.

I especially found myself captivated by the chapter That Hideous Strength, as he recalled how the great themes of the Great War informed Lewis' and Tolkien's understanding of how evil works. Not many sign up to do great evil, they simply long for power & expedience, and think they can use evil without being mastered by it. Loconte shows how the moral lessons they learned in war informed the stories they both created. I think he nails exactly what makes these stories so compelling to readers: None of the characters is above "the deceptive allure of power" (160). Each character is a moral agent "vulnerable to temptation and corruption" (164) but nonetheless given responsibility to make choices that will affect the fates of those around them. These are not larger-than-life heroes conquering by the sheer force of their will, but hobbits (modeled after ordinary Englishmen) and children who have to make choices that really do matter. What each man experienced during war adds ballast to the moral weight of their stories.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a certain group, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis are such a part of the literary, imaginative, and spiritual landscape that their insights are taken for granted. The timeless qualities of their work have divorced it from any consideration of the time in which the two men lived and wrote. Familiarity has bred contempt. What Joseph Loconte attempts in A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War is to place Tolkien and Lewis firmly back into their historical context, to throw their work into relief by looking at the world in which they wrote. Central to all of this is the war.

The two men, who became fast friends as professors at Oxford, would seem to have had little in common. Lewis was an Irishman of Ulster Protestant extraction and, by the time he went to war, a confirmed atheist. Tolkien was a devout cradle Catholic reared in England. For both men, the experience that most shaped them was the war.

Loconte begins the book by examining the world into which they were born and through which they approached the war. He gives time to explaining the Idea of Progress, the belief in the steady upward march of Europe’s scientific, enlightened culture, and its embodiment in social policies like eugenics. He looks into Freudian psychology and the marriage of the era’s Christianity to nationalism, a union that produced war fever and the demonization of the enemy. Scientific progress, the devaluation of human life, disregard for the soul and spirit, and the prostitution of religion to the nation combined to make World War I uniquely ferocious.

Into this war marched millions of young men, and Loconte by no means ignores the rest in his focus on Tolkien and Lewis. He draws examples of how these young men reacted from classic sources like Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Ernst Jünger, and Erich Maria Remarque. Their testimonials demonstrate the way the war cruelly, almost mechanically, ground down the spirits of the men sent into its trenches.

Tolkien and Lewis both suffered. Tolkien served on the Somme, one of the notorious meat grinders of the war, and was eventually invalided out of the fight. Lewis arrived later and, despite distinguished service including the capture of a number of German prisoners, was also wounded and spent months in hospital, out of the action. This experience was, for both of them as for many others, a source of bonding after the war. References to it in their letters and papers are numerous; it formed part of a shared vocabulary that informed and gave body to their imaginations.

Loconte does an excellent job of demonstrating this by drawing on their writings, not just well-known works like The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia, but their academic work, letters, and diaries. I have to admit that I was skeptical about some of this at first, as a few of the examples seemed to be little more than superficial comparisons of events in, for example, The Lord of the Rings to conditions on the Somme. But Loconte digs deep and provides explicit comparisons from the writers themselves. Tolkien is particularly forthcoming about the influence of the war on his fiction: “My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself” (xvii). And again, “The Dead Marshes . . . owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme” (74).

But beyond simply providing inspiration for specific scenes or landscapes in their work, the war gave Tolkien and Lewis thematic material, friendship, loss, and the desperate courage that makes up real heroism foremost among them. Both men lost friends in the war. Virtually the entirety of a prewar club to which Tolkien had belonged was killed off one by one in the fighting. Lewis saw an older sergeant, a man who had become “almost like a father” to the young officer, senselessly killed in what may have been a friendly fire incident. Like Tolkien, he lost many of his school friends and fellow officers as well. “Nearly all my friends in the Battalion are gone” (99-100).

It was well after the war in the quiet environs of Oxford that Tolkien and Lewis met and formed their famous friendship. Under the influence of Tolkien and others, Lewis--by now an agnostic--moved to a vague theism and finally Christianity. It was this friendship that made both men so productive and gave the world their still-beloved and timeless work.

Loconte’s book has two great strengths. First, it vividly depicts the reality of World War I combat in general and the actions in which Tolkien and Lewis were involved specifically. I’ve read a number of biographies of both men, and they tend to skimp on detail about their combat experience. (I assume this is because most of these bios were written by literary scholars; in addition to being a fan of Tolkien and Lewis, I’m a military historian, so this book scratched an itch I’ve been feeling for a while.) Like the rest of their generation, Tolkien and Lewis were shaped in profound ways by the horror of the war, and Loconte does an excellent job of showing that.

Second, the focus in the early portions of the book on the world before the war, and the comparison of Tolkien and Lewis’s experiences to those of others of their generation, makes their work fresh again. Loconte shows just how countercultural these familiar men really were, moving against the intellectual, social, and spiritual currents of their day—scientism, chronological snobbery, and the denial of goodness, heroism, and truth. Their works aren’t “relevant” or “timeless” because they appeal to a generic Christian audience, their work is timeless because they were men who looked outside their ruined generation for the eternal and did their best to reflect that back into the world through the imagination.

This, to me, is the central insight of Loconte’s book, and that alone makes it well worth reading. A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War is an excellent introduction to an often overlooked aspect of the lives of two literary and intellectual giants and their place in history.

Highly recommended.

[Lovely Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Michael Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of 'double history' covering both of these legendary authors and the events of WW1, intermingled and superbly written so as to make a very interesting story.

[Stacy Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, "ditto" everything in Kris's review.

This was a pleasant but not groundbreaking analysis of how the war shaped the faith and imagination of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I particularly enjoyed the tie-ins with the overall cultural shift and references to thinkers like T.S. Eliot.

Some nice quotes from some of my favorite literature. It was interesting. The book spends a lot of time on establishing its thesis and doesn't really veer off from it.

[Mark Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful. Their shared experiences in the Great War are an enduringly helpful angle I’ll use for understanding Lewis and Tolkien.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For a generation of men and women, it brought the end of innocence … and the end of faith."

An extraordinary and deep exploration of how the Great War, which we call World War One, impacted the lives and works of two of the twentieth century’s greatest writings of epic fantasy. “All the horrors of all the ages were brought together and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them,” Winston Churchill. Not unflawed, the work nevertheless demands the attention of readers and writers alike. Moderns don’t know where they came from historically or literarily; this book partly fills the gap, especially for those who delve into speculative fiction of all sorts.

“The power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.” C. S. Lewis

Quibbles: The many misrepresentations of Lewis and Tolkien works by others is adequately covered elsewhere. Loconte should know his primary audience would be Tolkien and Lewis fans, who would detect even small mistakes. While these quibbles don’t negate his main thesis, they undermine the integrity of his work. Hopefully the corrections will be made in the second edition.

The brutal, crowded faces around us, that is in their toil have grown
Into the faces of devils--yea, even as my own. (C. S. Lewis, “Death in Battle”)

A century later, we hardly understand--we can’t--with what shock and horror the Great War impacted European culture. It brought to an end--almost murdered--an era of progressive idealism which began with the Enlightenment two centuries earlier. It crushed great empires and undercut the intellectual optimism since.

“The utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it. But so short is human memory … in only 30 years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart.” J. R. R. Tolkien

It killed a generation of hopeful young men and left those survivors shell shocked and numb--brain dead. And yet a few young intellectuals survived, though wounded, and rebuilt a literary life which stands in stark contrast to the nihilism and pessimism of their fellows. J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis maintained or regained their faith in God, themselves and the ultimate victory of Good over Evil. Not escapists, they never denied the horror and hopelessness of the struggle, but they also affirmed the hope of help from outside--hope beyond hope.

“Imagination might be as good a guide to reality as rational argument.”

Others mileage may vary. I am already a student of the works and philosophy of both Tolkien and Lewis. For those who aren’t, I suggest a light diet of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Avoid The Lord of the Rings or Lewis’ space trilogy at first. (The movies of Middle Earth or Narnia don’t count.)

“Their mythic imagination only partly accounts for their influence. It is their moral imagination that exerts a unique power. That every person is caught up in an epic contest between Light and Darkness.”

As with few other books, my first reaction upon completing this work is to turn back to the first page and start reading it again.

“Any legends cast as a supposed history of this world must reckon with the tragic reality of human frailty. Middle Earth embodies a world struggling with the consequences of its fall from Grace.” J. R. R. Tolkien

(Second reading, April 2019, confirms.)

[Carol Bakker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still struggle to comprehend the scale of World War I, a war that lasted 1,566 days with an average of 6K dead a day. When I traveled through England and Scotland ten years ago, every village had a monument or plaque to her lost citizens from The Great War.

That the lives of two particular soldiers, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, were spared is a remarkable and immense gift to the world. This book delves into the way the war influenced their lives and writing. It is a good book, but not, I think, a great one. Something about the writing style or form didn't gel for me. But it was certainly not a slog.

The most influential Christian authors of the twentieth century believed that every human soul was caught up in a very great story: a fearsome war against a Shadow of Evil that has invaded the world to enslave the sons and daughters of Adam. Yet those who resist the shadow are assured that they will not be left alone; they will be given the gift of friendship amid their struggle and grief. Even more, they will find the grace and strength to persevere, to play their part in the story, however long it endures and wherever it may lead them.

[Justin Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parts of this book about the brutality of WWI, and the hellish trauma that Tolkien and Lewis went through, was quite difficult to read. Yet, the book is also a great affirmation of hope, which is a theological virtue that was central to Tolkien and Lewis's works and worldviews, and I greatly admired Joseph Loconte's historical research, his zeal for the works of Tolkien and Lewis, and at the end there was a deeply moving tribute to his Italian grandfather that served in WWI. I highly recommend this book.

[Barb Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read bundles of fiction and nonfiction books on World War II, but not World War I. How did fascism, Nazism, communism, and eugenics take root after WWI? Why did people support narcissistic leaders that became despots that ruled in terror and greed creating violent totalitarian governments as their unchecked powers grew year after year? According to Joseph Loconte the reason lies in the results of one of the most violent and devastating wars; WWI. Loconte shows how WWI was so savage that not only were 16 million people killed, but those that survived were disillusioned and cynical, rejecting the current government, politics, religion, and spiritual morality. In the midst of this postwar malaise, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis rejected the literary trends and wrote books in response to the spiritual crisis plaguing their country. They resurrected the medieval myth creating epic worlds torn apart by war and suffering and filled with flawed heroes embracing the traits of sacrifice, valor, and friendship as they struggle with good and evil.

The first part of Loconte's book focuses on the history of WWI and the climate before, during, and after the war. The Myth of Progress was the prevailing belief before the war; that the industrial revolution, Darwin's theory of evolution, breakthroughs in medicine and inventions meant that the human condition could be explained by science and technology at the expense of spiritual morality. The belief was that progress was so great under a liberal democracy that all countries should have it and many believed God had chosen them and would bless them as they went to war. Britain, England, and Germany thought this way. The church declared a holy war and made it one not of justice, but righteousness. The problem was the focus on human achievement meant the subversion of moral obligations and human dignity. Atrocities were committed with no thought of right or wrong or the moral implications on the individual. Eugenics promoted a "pure" race that hid those considered flawed away from the public eye. Society embraced collectivism over individualism and people rationalized cruel and violent actions. For Lewis and Tolkien this was an affront on human dignity and character.

Tolkien and Lewis wrote epic tales about war based in the fantasy genre, but realistic in their portrayal of war and its savagery and suffering. Both men were drafted into the army. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in modern warfare, where almost 60,000 men died. Lewis turned 19 and ended up on the Western Front in a trench. When his sergeant was killed by mortar, Lewis took shrapnel - one so close to his heart it could not be removed. All of their close friends were killed. When the two met at Oxford their war experiences, literary tastes, and friendship grew to the point that Tolkien was critical in Lewis' conversion to Christianity and Tolkien said he would have not finished Lord of the Rings without Lewis' critiques and support. Neither writers glorify war in their books and both create flawed characters that need support from others or a higher being on their quests.

Postwar Europe had a plethora of antiwar literature; yet, these two men created works rooted in medieval literature and while critics call it escapism and a nostalgia for the past, Loconte proves that it is a realistic portrayal of being in the trenches and a look at the human condition. The recurring theme of the desire for power and domination over others disguised under the umbrella of religion and morals is found in both works. Loconte expounds on literary themes more toward the latter part of the book getting into specific examples. The heroes in their works is the result of great characters who put others needs ahead themselves. WWI robbed people of their humanity. The trenches, the Battle of the Somme, the razing of nature and towns left people feeling helpless and caught in a big machine that they had no control over. Almost every family lost someone in the war. A fatalism and moral demise left people apathetic and feeling that they had no choices or free will in their lives.

Tolkien and Lewis wanted to awaken the noble spirit in people like the medieval myths of old such as Beowulf, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, or the Icelandic sagas. They created works that showed the violence and suffering of war, but also the compassion, courage, and sacrifice of others for a good cause. Their stories show that life is a moral contest. It is the responsibility of the individual to resist evil and not one person can resist the corruption of power. That is the tragic flaw in humans; that even the purest of heart such as Frodo cannot resist the desire to dominate. It takes an outside force to check that desire and in Frodo's case, even someone as twisted as Gollum is not beyond redemption. Lewis is showing at the end of his book that there can be no heaven on Earth as the Pevensie's step through a door into Narnia-like Heaven. Loconte ties this to the pitfalls of liberal democracy and the desire of the church and state to create a heaven on Earth before WWI. While this is too complex to write about in a review it is a fascinating comparison between the Narnia and Lord of the Rings books and WWI.

These two men ignored the trends of the times because they were inspired and saw in the midst of violence, heroic individuals on the battlefields of France. They saw soldiers going back to help another injured comrade at the risk of being killed themselves. The Hobbit is the ordinary British soldier. The British army showed remarkable resistance in the war. They didn't run away or lose their moral fortitude. Reepicheep shows the greatest valor on the battlefield. He is the smallest and supposedly the weakest but he rises above himself and shows great courage. Same with Frodo, Sam, Aragon, and more. Loconte explores these characters proving his point and showing the importance of reluctant allies uniting in fellowship and friendship by the end, just like soldiers. Tolkien and Lewis met one to two times a week for 16 years with a group called, "Inklings." They had their own fellowship of the ring.

Loconte points out how today the modern superhero saves the day on his or her own strength. Tolkien and Lewis create heroes that cannot save the day and prevail against evil on their own. They are destined to fail and they know it is a doomed quest. It is this tragic mix of good and evil that makes the story so powerful because their only rescue can be by grace and redemption from an outside force. The heroes know they will die in both books: Frodo when destroying the ring and the Pevensie's when they enter the stable. Loconte shows how this parallels war and the soldiers plight. The soldier knows he will die. At the Battle of the Somme it was a slaughter; yet, the men kept coming out of the trenches toward the enemy. The books ends with hope that there is goodness in humans. That the shadow of sin and suffering can be lifted from people's lives. That the Great War will be won, but not on Earth because the human condition is a mix of sin and free will.

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read quite a lot about Lewis/Tolkien/Inklings, and I found much to enjoy about A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War. For me, the biggest surprise—and a pleasant one—is that Joseph Loconte’s book is really only tangentially about Lewis and Tolkien. Loconte presumes you’re already familiar with the full story of their friendship, the Inklings, and their publications and fame; and in my case, that’s very true. I didn’t need another retelling of the Inklings story that has become by this point much more magnificent and legendary than it probably felt to anyone there at the time. Instead of returning to that legend, Loconte tells the story of the cultural shift that happened leading up to and continuing just after the Great War. Lewis himself regarded the industrial revolution as the biggest cultural change since the Middle Ages—more significant than the shift from the medieval to the Enlightenment. So I think he would agree with Loconte’s thesis that the Great War finalized that shift, bringing us into the society that we all know now.

Loconte presents the Great War as the climax of the “Great Myth” of human progress—the idea that humanity is becoming better and better, to the point that war would surely be unthinkable. And then the Great War happened, shattering those hopes and leading to an immense disillusionment. Having traded faith in God for faith in “progress,” people after the war found themselves untethered, unable to cultivate a faith in anything. The idea of a lasting world peace, so fervently hoped for before the war, then seemed ridiculous.

Tolkien and Lewis grew up in the height of pre-war excitement about the Great Myth, they both served in the trenches and saw many friends perish there, and then they lived their careers and family lives after the war. Loconte builds a compelling case for seeing their writings not as escapism, but as a return to a mindset that predates the Great Myth and answers the post-war despair. I like this thesis as a deeper perspective than the shallower idea that “Tolkien hated mechanization and the cutting down of trees.” Tolkien was not exactly an “environmentalist” in the sense that the word is often used today. Rather, he and Lewis yearned for (and lived out) a richer, more grandiose idea of what the world is. They weren’t taking sides or advocating for specific issues; they were arguing, through their writings and their lives, for a different way of living, reclaiming something valuable from the past in response to the society in which they lived.

Loconte references specific moments in the fiction of Lewis and Tolkien that support this thesis, but really the biggest contribution of this book is not the literary analysis but the cultural insight into how the Great War changed society, and why Lewis and Tolkien continue to be a countercultural influence that we still need.

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War may not bring anything particularly new to the ever-expanding literature on these authors, but it presents intriguing material in a compact, straightforward, and fascinating way. I will recommend this to students who are just starting to get to know Tolkien and Lewis, in hopes that it will lead them to other works (for example, my favorite biographical book about Tolkien, John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War), that add even more to this portrait.

I’ll also mention that I read this book at just the time that Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer came out. I was struck by how the film shows the world after the Great War, in which religion continues to be out of consideration, and people again cautiously hope that scientific progress will finally yield lasting world peace. We know, of course, watching this story play out from decades later, that Oppenheimer’s hope that the possibility of such a weapon would ensure peace didn’t happen, to say the least. An early poem by Lewis (quoted in Loconte, p. 123) spoke originally to the aftermath of the Great War, but it seems just as appropriate for the conclusion of Oppenheimer’s story as well:

On upward curve and easily, for them both maid and man
And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive.
But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars
And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back
Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track,
And madness is come over us and great and little wars.

Lewis wrote this some years before returning to the Christian faith, but it aptly describes the world that he and Tolkien responded to, and the world that we, after two Great Wars and the unleashing of the possibility of nuclear annihilation, must also respond to. Oppenheimer makes Tolkien and Lewis as relevant to us as ever, and Loconte’s book makes a great prelude to understanding that film.

[E.F. Buckles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Main Review: This book. Where do I even start? “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and A Great War” by Joseph Loconte is not light reading. This is the kind of book you read when you want to think and when you want to learn. I found myself thinking about it for hours afterwards every time I put the book (or in my case, the audiobook) down. I’m still thinking about it now.

The three-part title is no lie. Laconte takes his time setting the stage to make sure that readers learn just as much about the two World Wars and the spiritual, moral, and cultural mindsets that caused and resulted from them as they learn about Tolkien and Lewis. This is important because it helps readers to see that not only were these authors’ books revolutionizing to their genres, they were also bold responses to culture in which the men lived. Laconte does this by showing how the World Wars shaped and changed both men personally and couples their experiences and significant moments from their lives with excerpts from their books to show how those experiences and their beliefs in relation to those experiences were then reflected in their writing.

I would recommend this book to lovers of history and older fans of Tolkien and/or Lewis. I personally do not feel that you have to like both authors to gain something from reading this book and Laconte did well making sure that both men were featured equally. But no matter your reason for reading this book, you will not walk away unmoved. I found myself tearing up during almost every chapter, sometimes over the awful things the soldiers went through during the wars, sometimes simply because I was touched anew by a favorite quote from Tolkien’s or Lewis’ books which had taken on a whole new level of meaning when put in context with their personal experiences, and sometimes I was simply moved at the knowledge of what they were trying to say in their writings and how their beliefs resonated so deeply with my own.

I give this book and enthusiastic 5 out of 5 stars.

Content Advisory: It is important to note that while both Tolkien and Lewis were known for having written children’s literature during their lifetimes, and while those books are mentioned and quoted from throughout this book, I would not necessarily recommend this book for younger fans of either author. This is partially because many of the concepts in this book would go right over the heads of particularly young readers, but mostly because Laconte does not gloss over the horrors of war and some of the first-hand accounts he shares (some of which are quoted directly from soldiers’ letters home) could be upsetting to some. Now, don’t get me wrong, Laconte does not glorify the war violence or spend an excessive amount of time detailing it. The majority of the accounts are blessedly short, no more than a sentence or two long, but they still include mentions/descriptions of soldiers seeing dead and dying comrades, enemies, and innocents, the awful conditions in trenches, the effects of various weapons, etc. Laconte includes these, in part, to show that when Tolkien and Lewis wrote about war, they really had experienced these things themselves and could not help being effected by them, and, in part, to show that war was not the wonderful thing that would ultimately serve to forward the advancement of human perfection that some people of that era seemed to think it would be. Quite the opposite, and it’s so very important that people today understand and remember that so that such atrocities may never happen again. But it is definitely not reading intended for children.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written exploration of powerful themes in Tolkien and Lewis's writing. Definitely a great book on them, but not near the best I've read.

Laconte is a great writer, but I feel this could have used more organization, and even more analyzation. I felt that most of the time he was just explaining things or reporting things -- especially the entire chapter on nothing but the devastation of the war. I understand that he needs to lay this groundwork, but it seemed to plod on much longer than was truly necessary. I wish he could have made that emphasis on destruction come to fruition with more meaning and purpose to his writing, within the same chapter.

But later chapters held some really moving thoughts and quotes. I'd recommend it, but only to the average person who doesn't know a lot about Lewis and Tolkien already. Even though the writing was enjoyable and I grasped a few new ideas, this was a re-visit to a lot of basics for me. This book probably was meant for the average reader, who just wants a first peak into the writing of these men.

I appreciated the fact that he often mentioned Lewis's Space Trilogy, which is often glossed over by other books on him.

*However, what did bother me was how the reader pronounces "Magdalen" college at Oxford with a "Mag" instead of the "Maud" sound. As someone who lived there for a short time, it drove me nuts hearing him mispronounce it!

[Scott Rezer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and A Great War by Joseph Loconte reads like a fictional story, a story about how two men—two literary giants—who stood in the gap of monumental societal changes and who, through their writings, dared to remind the world of a far simpler, a far more hopeful time. At its core, the book asks a simple question. That question is best stated by the author himself, but pardon the long quote. It is important to frame this in the context in which Loconte asks it:

When Freud’s first psychiatric clinic opened in Berlin in 1920, it paved the way for his views about human nature, guilt, and God. Freud proved especially attractive to a generation struggling to find meaning in the war’s aftermath. Religious belief was seen as an attempt to protect against suffering, “a delusional remolding of reality.” With God discredited, meaning must be found “in life itself, in the act of living, in the vitality of the moment.” Thus, the new psychology legitimized a new hedonism. Within a decade, W.R. Matthews, the Dean of Exeter, complained of “the decay of institutional religion” because of the “incoherence of the Christian message and its apparent contradiction with modern knowledge.”

All of this helped to produce the modern, secular zealot: the revolutionary who seeks to create heaven on earth. Science, psychology, politics, economics, education—any of these disciplines might be enlisted in the cause. At universities such as Oxford, where Tolkien and Lewis established themselves in the 1920s, a cocktail of experimentation and existential doubt was the order of the day.

Pacifism was all the rage. Patriotism was out, replaced by contempt for all the old virtues. For the intellectual class as well as the ordinary man on the street, the Great War had defamed the values of the Old World, along with the religious doctrines that helped to undermine them. Moral advancement, even the idea of morality itself, seemed an illusion…

As Lewis recalled the scene many years later, the “mental climate of the Twenties” influenced an entire generation of students and future scholars. “None can give to another what he does not possess himself,” he wrote. “A man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion, cannot teach hope or fortitude.” The verdict was in: the war to make the world safe for democracy, the holy war to advance Christian ideals, was an unholy delusion.

Given these postwar sensibilities, how did Oxford become the incubator for epic literature extolling valor and sacrifice in war? Why would the works of Tolkien and Lewis, rooted in a narrative of Christian redemption, ever see the light of day?

How, indeed?

The title to this book infers that the Great War (WWI) influenced the minds of Tolkien and Lewis, but it was more than that, it was the changes in politics and technology, philosophy and religion and education, and so many other advances—the Myth of Progress—of our modern day at the turn of the 20th century as well that helped shaped their ideas. The dreadful realities that shaped two of the greatest works of a generation can probably be best summed up in a single quote, that of Faramir, Captain of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers).

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, not the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Faramir states what Tolkien and Lewis experienced in the war, and how they viewed it. An insane and necessary task to preserve all that was good and beautiful in the world. But still, they had to endure and survive the horrendously cruel realities of the first modern, mechanized war in all its ugliness, in all its exalted progress. As Loconte writes: “What Lewis and Tolkien and the fighting men of their generation endured was something novel in the history of warfare: modern science and technology ruthlessly devoted to the annihilation of both man and nature”. The gut wrenching misery of the battles of the First World War stayed with them long after their return home, and yet, through it all, Tolkien and Lewis found a way to channel those horrors into two of the richest literary works the world has ever seen. As Lewis wrote of his friend Tolkien’s great work: “But a lot of other things come in. So much of your whole life, so much of our joint life, so much that seemed to be slipping away quite spurlos (without trace) into the past, is now, in a sort made permanent.”

In reading A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and A Great War, there were times when my heart grew a little heavy, a little sadder, but in those same moments I also experienced the lightness and joy that I have always felt whenever I read Tolkien and Lewis's great classics. Their stories are a light in a dark place, and we have all benefitted from the friendship of these two great, yet humble men, and their desire not to succumb to the gnawing disillusionment and cynicism of their day.

In the end, Joseph Loconte has given us not just a vision of the friendship between Tollers and Jack who, through their works gave us a rediscovery of faith and heroism in a troubled time, but also an indictment against the dehumanizing modernism the world has inherited as a result of the Great War, and later, the Second World War that has all too often tried to dim a vision of hope and light in a world slowly slipping into darkness.

The most influential Christian authors of the twentieth century believed that every human soul was caught up in a very great story: a fearsome war against a Shadow of Evil that has invaded the world to enslave the sons and daughters of Adam. Yet those who resist the Shadow are assured that they will not be left alone; they will be given the gift of friendship amid their struggle and grief. Even more, they will find the grace and strength to persevere, to play their part in the story, however long it endures and wherever it may lead them.

A brilliant and sobering read! Highly Recommended! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, focused on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' time in the First World War, their writing and their Christianity. I hadn't really realised when I started this book that religion would be such a big focus, but in hindsight it makes sense.

The material the author has to work with is limited, and it shows. There is a lack of in-depth information about the friendship in between the two writers and their personal experiences during WWI. While it is supplemented with many other experiences from people involved in the war, I picked this book up to learn specifically about Tolkien and Lewis. So that is a bit disappointing. It is nice to learn a bit more about WWI though, but there are better sources to do that.

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m really glad I read this. Especially because it really displays how much WWI was apart of the books Lewis and Tolkien wrote. WWI is disillusioning to read about, I can’t imagine living through it. WWI is something I don’t read about intentionally but probably should educate myself more, even if it is painful.

[Daniel Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author seems convinced that had Tolkien not served in the trenches during WWI, there would have been no hobbits. He speculated that Tolkien’s hobbits were fellow British soldiers also fighting in the trenches. So, no trenches no hobbits and no LOTR. Ditto speculation for Lewis.

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was living and working as a Senate staffer in DC in the early 2000s, I met Joe Loconte somewhere (maybe a Bible study?). He invited me to attend a group discussion at his home on one of the books of the Chronicles of Narnia. I had read the series many times throughout my childhood and felt that I should definitely have something to contribute, so I went. What I experienced that evening was probably similar to what other students have felt when they attend a lecture introducing them to the idea of the Great Conversation and they thought they were ready because they finished the reading. It was a conversation, but when Joe shared, he pulled back layers and layers and revealed deeper and deeper meaning in the novel. I had felt special for understanding the allegorical nature of the work as a child, but I was blown away that evening to realize what I had thought I had understood was more beautiful than I had comprehended.

He's obviously continued to think deeply about Lewis and Tolkien, and this book is a great example of that long quest.

[D.J. Edwardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is left to be said about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien that has not already been said? Well, a great deal, as this book so powerfully demonstrates.

This book examines the literary work, and to a lesser degree the lives, of these two great authors, but it does so in a unique way. It looks at their lives through the lens of their experience in the Great War, or, as it has come to be known World War I. It is commonly known that both Lewis and Tolkien fought in this war, but this book unpacks how this watershed experience impacted them and informed their writings.

Think about what it must have been like to be a young man and to have lost so many dear friends, men who would have been lifelong friends had their lives not been tragically cut short. And think of how much death and suffering these two authors witnessed at a young age. To think that this would not make a profound impact on their worldview is profoundly naive. And yet, until I read this book, I had never really considered it.

What the book shows, and very ably I might add, is that despite the lasting impact of the war on these men, they nevertheless rejected the cynicism and secular materialism which so many of their contemporaries embraced after the war. The Western spirit was shattered, and yet, these men produced out of the ashes of the war some of the most hopeful, beloved, and enduring stories of all time. It's really remarkable when you stop to think about it.

The book demonstrates, through their letters and copious quotations from their work and others, the reasons they were able to share such a hopeful vision with the world. The scholarship here is top-notch and many of the quotes, especially from Lewis and Tolkien's letters, are quite moving. I feel I know these men and understand their stories better than I ever did before reading this book.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This work is an obvious labor of love, not only of Lewis and Tolkien and their works, but of the brave soldiers who gave their all in the deadly theater of WWI. This book, like the works of Lewis and Tolkien themselves, transcends time and place and helps us see our place in the great cosmic conflict of good and evil. We are, in fact, "inside a very great story." One whose happy ending will only come with the return of the King.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

He really catches the tenor of the times he is describing. Then, hopefully, he pulls back the curtain to frequently credit the writers from whom he draws. Already interested in the transition into the 20th century and then the other people of the first world war, I might use his recommendations as plum line and encouragement for 2022 reading.

Is a worthy heir of Lewis, in fact. He is willing to encounter and relate the world‘s ideas as they are, but then he comes through with a ringing, engaging, real Gospel culmination in the end. I had not read anything by him, and now I want him at my hypothetical dinner table for the most fulfilling conversation.

[E.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read at times with the reality of war so vividly depicted but yet it really helped to set the scene for Tolkien and Lewis’ friendship and writing together.

Highly recommend to fans of these authors but also to writers to remember how important our work is AND how important it is to have encouraging writing friends.

My rating: 4.5*

[Lindsay Lemus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! If you love the Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia or just the friendship between them and how the war affected them...definitely check this out!