Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Would Just Smoke and Stare Lovingly Into Each Other's Eyes
You Had Me At "Mae Govannen"
According to a new book about the friendship of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the two authors would spend a majority of their time together doing nothing except smoke, smirk, and stare into each other’s eyes.
Sometimes they would do this for hours on end.
The two men met at Magdalen College at Oxford in 1926, and were inseparable ever since. The two men bonded over their love of ancient literature, obscure mythology and archaic languages, you know, typical nerd shit before the invention of Lord of the Rings or “Dungeons and Dragons.”
Their bromantic relationship and “friendly” rivalry has been the subject of books before, but the new book by Rob Walters focuses specifically on these long nights into the wee hours of the morning after other members of the Inklings, their literary think tank at Oxford, had retired to their beds.
Against the flicker of the flame at the Eagle and Child pub, the men would sit and stare lovingly at one another. Each author wouldn’t look away until both reached an “epiphany.” When each man had “finished” they would let out a little moan; the staring contest would end with cigarettes and each man giggling like a little school girl.
When each man had “finished” they would let out a little moan; the staring contest would end with cigarettes and each man giggling like a little school girl.
No other book about the two lifelong friends has focused so much on the sexual chemistry between the two authors.
“It was extremely uncomfortable for others,” said Walters, who aside from writing the book also gives Lewis/Tolkien themed tours around Oxford. “No words would be exchanged, but one could imagine the impolite conversation they had just by using their eyes.”
This odd tactic was surprisingly effective. It was during these little sessions that each other dreamed up their respective fantasy worlds. Tolkien with his Middle-earth, and Lewis with his slight ripoff, Narnia.
In classic Catholic fashion, Tolkien would eventually force his religious beliefs on the young and malleable Lewis, which seemed to work in his favor. By converting to Catholicism at least Lewis got to learn about high-fantasy first hand from one of the best sources in the biz, The Bible.
Lewis spent the rest of his years using annoying Christian tropes in his writing, like original sin and Christ-figures. Some of his Narnia novels are literally just retellings of classic Old Testament fairytales if you go for that sort of thing.
The relationship continued to grow even as both men found success and became icons in the fantasy/sci-fi realms. Tolkien and Lewis would still workshop ideas late into their careers. You could probably actually blame Lewis for allowing Tolkien’s late foray into fairies with Smith of Wootton Major, or crucify Tolkien for not telling Lewis that 1956’s Till We Have Faces (a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth) makes no fucking sense.
These dudes were too busy wearing rose-colored lenses for each other to give an honest critique about their work.
You can almost imagine Lewis at the typewriter, about to write some terrible sci-fi story like “The Shoddy Lands” and from behind comes a shirtless Tolkien who sits behind him, helping him through dense paragraphs of nonsense a la Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost.
Or there’s Tolkien, laying in bed with his papers strewn about concerning The Silmarillion. Lewis is down on the floor doing crunches telling Tolkien, “You’re money, baby. You’re so money,” as Tolkien attempts to describe the waning of Gondor.
Then at times after some light rough-housing, the sweaty friends would bathe together and try to one-up each other’s maps using the suds on each other’s bare bodies.
Eventually, Lewis and Tolkien would try to pull all that flirty shit in front of the other Inklings when they would get back together from time to time. It would make the likes of Charles Williams and Owen Barfield cringe, but they politely ignored it. One time Lewis playfully grabbed Nevill Coghill’s ass, there was a big blow up which left Lewis with a shiner and Tolkien revoking Coghill’s club status. After that, the Inklings disbanded.
For a few years Lewis and Tolkien fell out of touch. After Lewis died in 1963, Tolkien was never the same. There were some poems and stories that he wrote, but they didn’t have the same joy or luster as they did when he and Lewis would spend their long sessions at night, blithely gazing into each other’s souls.