[HN Gopher] Of mice and men and Magdalen: C. S. Lewis's Oxford
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       Of mice and men and Magdalen: C. S. Lewis's Oxford
        
       Author : drdee
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2024-08-09 14:24 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thecritic.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thecritic.co.uk)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | > _The sheer level of spartan discomfort, for instance, that
       | university denizens were expected to endure_
       | 
       | Sometimes* I wonder how much of the spartan discomfort in 1984
       | was authorial discretion characterising outer party life, and how
       | much was just the background normal spartan discomfort of mid-XX
       | britain.
       | 
       | * like when I read that Orwell had been burning furniture to stay
       | warm
        
         | lordleft wrote:
         | It seems like the splendor and comfort of student life varied
         | wildly depending on class and wealth (see: the depiction of
         | Oxford in Brideshead Revisited).
        
       | mytailorisrich wrote:
       | "Magdalen" is pronounced Maudlin. That's how Oxford's locals
       | detect 'tourists' ;)
        
         | jimbokun wrote:
         | Then I got it wrong the entire time I was there, lol.
        
         | petesergeant wrote:
         | Although as any fule kno, that's true only of the college, and
         | not the street in the centre of town; _this_ is how town
         | detects gown.
        
         | jameshart wrote:
         | Yes, I stumbled over the headline because I think the writer
         | wants it to rhyme, but it doesn't.
        
       | jimbokun wrote:
       | > He was required to write an official account of his term, and
       | did so as a five-act drama in blank verse entitled "The Tragi-
       | Comicall Briefe Reigne of Lewis the Bald".
       | 
       | Nice to see he was capable of self-deprecating humor.
        
       | shove wrote:
       | Interesting. I thought "Till We Have Faces" was the main work
       | that dealt with losing his wife.
        
         | mmcdermott wrote:
         | "Till We Have Faces" may have some influences from his grief,
         | but the primary subject was theological in nature, dealing with
         | a character whose life is filled with questions and complaints
         | against divinity and how those seem to go unanswered. The
         | conclusion underscores this:
         | 
         | > I ended my first book with the words _no answer_. I know now,
         | Lord, why you utter no answer. You are the answer. Before your
         | face the questions die away. What other answer would suffice?
         | 
         | ("Till We Have Faces", pt 2. ch. 4)
         | 
         | It is a novel that is more an apologetic that deals with
         | philosophic quandaries than anything relating to personal loss.
        
         | sjackso wrote:
         | Davidman had a lot of influence on the writing of "Till We Have
         | Faces," but it was published before her death. "A Grief
         | Observed" is the book Lewis wrote about the grief that
         | followed.
        
       | shrubble wrote:
       | Not very impressed with the writer: CS Lewis was impressed enough
       | with JRRT that the character of Ransome in the Space Trilogy is
       | based on him.
       | 
       | And Shadowlands was probably based on the book "A Grief Observed"
       | , which was not mentioned.
       | 
       | Further the Space Trilogy mentioned multiple times Lewis' dread
       | of bureaucracy including the NICE being an agent of evil and
       | Studdock's wrongful desire to be part of the in crowd of the
       | fictional school's management.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-13 23:00 UTC)