Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories in Easley Library Bookworms

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Mar 08, 2008 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: short-stories, science-fiction, about-literature

Though this is a slim volume (148 p.), editor Hooper, who was Lewis' secretary in the great author's last days, has here collected in one cover all of his scattered shorter writings that relate to fantasy and science fiction, the two fictional genres he wrote in and clearly liked best. (This also includes discussions of children's literature, since so many people, especially in Lewis' day, viewed fantasy as something only fit for children.) There are eight essays; the transcript of a recorded co Though this is a slim volume (148 p.), editor Hooper, who was Lewis' secretary in the great author's last days, has here collected in one cover all of his scattered shorter writings that relate to fantasy and science fiction, the two fictional genres he wrote in and clearly liked best. (This also includes discussions of children's literature, since so many people, especially in Lewis' day, viewed fantasy as something only fit for children.) There are eight essays; the transcript of a recorded conversation about science fiction ("Unreal Estates") between Lewis, Brian Aldiss, and Kingsley Amis; three short stories; and the uncompleted fragment of a projected novel, After Ten Years, together with notes by two of Lewis' friends summarizing conversations he had with them about this work. (I didn't actually read the fragment or these notes, since my interest is rather in the finished writings; and I think this material would primarily interest Lewis scholars or completists.)

The three stories are "The Shoddy Lands," "Forms of Things Unknown," (both of which would be difficult to discuss in detail without spoilers), and "Ministering Angels." All of these show genuine originality; but the one that's my favorite by far, and that I'd say succeeds best in engaging the reader as a story, is the latter. According to Hooper's six-page Preface (which discusses, among other things, the provenance and publication history of the selections), that story was inspired by Lewis' reaction to a 1955 Saturday Review article by a Dr. Robert S. Richardson, who confidently predicted that the conditions of space travel and colonization, which he imagined would be engaged in by essentially all-male expeditions existing in what he pictured as unprecedented sexual deprivation (the question a character in "Ministering Angels" asks, "How does it differ from men on whalers, or even on windjammers in the old days? Or on the North West Frontier?" doesn't seem to have crossed his mind), would be the magic bullet that would finally force society to abandon all notions of sexual morality and enthusiastically embrace prostitution. (He wasn't alone in that idea; Robert A. Heinlein premised one of his worst short stories on it.) Lewis skewers that notion as only Lewis could. :-)

The essays show Lewis at his best in that form: intelligent, cogent in reasoning, clear and conversational in style, wise and insightful, well-read but not making a show of his erudition. His Christian faith underlies his whole way of looking at the world, which shapes his way of looking at literature, but the relationship is an organic one; that is, none of these essays are self-consciously theological or attempts to set forth "the Christian position on Literary Question X" (indeed, Lewis wouldn't claim that there necessarily IS a single "Christian position" on literary questions). His views just spring naturally from the person that he is. I can't say that I have a single favorite among the eight selections here (it would be too hard to choose), and all of them contain ideas that enriched, broadened, or clarified my thinking in some way or another. One important insight that's worth mentioning, though (and which recurs in more than one essay) is the concept that the qualities that make good children's literature are the same ones that make good literature in general, and can be appreciated as such by readers of any age. Another is that the literature of the magical and fantastic speaks to universal human interests and themes, and is not as such inherently "childish" in a reductionist or invidious sense.

Hooper takes his title from a line (which serves as an epigraph here) from Spenser's The Faerie Queen. One can't help but think that Lewis (who was deeply into 16th-century literature) would have approved! Another side note that's worthy of mention is the discussion, in the Preface, of Lewis' considerable body of juvenalia (written between the ages of six and fifteen, apparently) about Animal Land, and the instructive comparisons/contrasts Hooper draws between the vision here and the developed fantasy of the Narnia series written in Lewis' adult years. (Personally, I found this rather fascinating --I'd previously read A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis, but don't recall any comparable discussion of this material there.) ...more

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