Mythmaker Mythmaker Make Me A Myth

For my birthday this year I received the wonderful book "The Mythmakers", which is a graphic novel about the friendship between J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. It was a pretty quick and delightful read. Most of the content was stuff that I "knew" already from previous biographies and other readings, but I think this is the first book I've read that specifically focuses on the pair's relationship, and it draws out some strong resonance through this presentation.

 

The book is kind of a dual biography, but it's set in a framing story about myth. Two characters, a wizard and a lion, address the reader and talk about the history and importance of myth, along with related styles like epics and legends. They introduce you to Tolkien and Lewis, comment on their lives and react to their experiences. I was a little lukewarm on these characters at first - their dialogue can feel a bit cutesy, and I was eager to get back to the humans - but they strongly grew on me, and the last few pages with them were incredibly touching.

"The Mythmakers" is very interested in their faith, both separately and together, including Tolkien's influence on Lewis's religious searching and his later qualms with Lewis's religious writing. This book isn't only about faith, but it is a central theme, which I think is great since faith was so important to both of them. It goes into some depth on the conversations they had, how they saw myth as intersecting with religious belief, and other people in their circle who participated in this fellowship.

Any time I read about the Inklings I get a feeling of wistfulness. I think most of us have or will experience a friend group that vibes well together, but eventually falls apart: usually not through any big blow-up or acrimony, but the changes in life (people moving away, having a baby) or dynamics (new partner, new habits) that make it less fun and fulfilling, and ultimately just sort of stops. The Inklings seemed so incredibly vibrant, productive, and most of all fun during their strong early years. It's interesting to see the various perspectives on things like Charles Williams' addition to the group and how that changed the dynamics. In The Mythmakers, it's shown how Tolkien's feelings got hurt by another member's consistent complaints about elves.

Likewise, Tolkien and Lewis's own personal relationship, which was incredibly close and fruitful early on, eventually cooled. They remained cordial throughout their lives, but it is always sad to see how they lost something special they once had.

Which is all part of why I ended up appreciating the framing story in this book - while temporally the happier stuff happened early on and the sadder stuff came later, by breaking out of that chronology and into myth we can refocus the story, which lets things end on a really encouraging and sweet note.

One final thought - I was delighted to see that the author John Hendrix is a professor at my old school! I really want to check out some of his other work now; in particular, he has a graphic novel about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's struggle against Adolf Hitler that sounds right up my alley.