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By Leigh Blackmore
"Science fiction is an ideal medium for the writer who wishes to give vent to
his own thoughts and views on religious beliefs or doctrines. One way to
consider religion is to trace parallels with other worlds, or follow trend into
the future." (1) Three major writers of fantasy expressed many of their
feelings about religion in their writings by creating alternative worlds -
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) and H.P. Lovecraft
(1890-1937). These worlds, respectively, are Middle-Earth (in THE HOBBIT,
the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and THE SILMARILLION); Narnia (in a series
of seven novels for children); and Dream World (in the short novel THE
DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH).
Lewis and Tolkien gradually came to share the view that man, as a creation
of God, is not creating anything new in writing fiction, but is embodying in
his own art a reflection of God's eternal truth. Man is not a creator, but a
'sub-creator', since his imaginative inventions originate with God. They
both had the feeling that "all stories are waiting somewhere, and are
slowly being recovered in fragments by different human minds", (2) and
that the practice of mythopoeia (myth-making) was a process of "reflecting
a splintered fragment of the true light." Some parts of their stories, they
felt, may be more 'invented' (and thus ring less 'true') than other parts,
which seemed to have sprung ready-made into their minds. These views
are expressed in Lewis' article "Christianity and Literature" (1939) and in
Tolkien's lecture "On Fairy-Stories".(3)
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, although his Christianity was hard-
won and it was not until late in life that he came to commit himself to a
belief in God. He was disappointed when Lewis returned to membership of
the Church of England, to which he was unsympathetic. Nevertheless, this
disagreement did not prevent the Christian beliefs of both writers from
exerting a powerful influence on their fiction.
Between 1938 and 1945, Lewis had produced the three metaphysical
fantasies known as the Space Trilogy: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET,
PERELANDRA, and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. (There is also an unfinished
fourth Ransom novel, THE DARK TOWER). In the series, Mars (Malacandra),
is an unfallen, innocent world; Earth (Thulcandra) is fallen and sinful. Venus
(Perelandra), depicted as a world of floating islands, is unfallen but is ripe
for the attempt on Satan's part to defeat Faith. Lewis in the Space trilogy
lucidly uses Christian imagery, much of it drawn from medieval and
Renaissance symbolism and cosmology. He was to become, of course, a
leading Christian apologist, and his novels reflect his deep faith in Christ as
clearly as his popular nonfiction works.
When he came to write the Narnia series, Lewis adopted a slightly different
approach. Narnia itself was largely inspired by the Christian writer of
fantasy George Macdonald, particularly by his PHANTASTES and LILITH.
Narnia again, is a "world of primal innocence." According to Lewis, his
marvellous invented world was an answer to the question "What might
Christ be like if there really were a world like Narnia he chose to be
incarnate and die and rise again in that world as he actually has done in
ours?" (4) God appears in Narnia in the guise of two characters: the Great-
Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, and Aslan, his son, a lion of great strength,
beauty and gentleness. The correspondences between these characters
and the Christian God and his son Jesus Christ are easily discerned.
The Narnia stories are not primarily didactic, though they sometimes verge
on being so. Lewis said of them: "Everything began with images: a faun
carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there
wasn't even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of
its own accord. It was part of the bubbling." (5) The tales are not purely
allegorical, but rather a "re-imagining" of the Christian story. At heart,
Lewis was more a writer than a teacher. The effect for which he strove
above all was the vividly imaginative.
Tolkien's Middle-Earth forms the setting for probably the most popular
fantasy of the century, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Tolkien, an Oxford
professor, had published THE HOBBIT in 1937. The tale was invented as a
fairy story for his children, as was the work he spent the next fourteen
years writing - LORD OF THE RINGS (hereinafter referred to as LOTR). The
trilogy of novels tells a tale of epic proportions, whose characters are
provided with richly detailed histories, languages and customs. A major
element of LOTR is the web of imaginary languages devised by Tolkien -
Quenya, Black Speech, Westron, and others. To a large extent, the tale was
built around the framework of the languages and alphabets to give
substance to what would otherwise have been a complex but rather dry
and uninteresting philology.
Tolkien always maintained that the tales were written just for his own
amusement. (Indeed, both Lewis and Lovecraft made similar disclaimers
about their own tales). He also made many denials of allegorical content in
the writing. When asked by a BBC interviewer in 1964 whether LOTR was to
be considered an allegory, he replied "No, I dislike allegory whenever I
smell it." When it was pointed out that in the book, Evil is personified in
Sauron, but that Good is not personified or ascribed godship, he stated "No,
it's not a dualistic mythology it's based on, certainly not." Sprague de Camp
read LOTR three times and even met the author without suspecting his
faith. (6) Nevertheless, although Tolkien's Christianity is revealed in a
subtle manner through LOTR, it is there and plays a significant part in the
development of the book's themes.
Disclaimers such as those mentioned above are not really convincing, for in
his lecture "On Fairy Stories," Tolkien clearly expressed his attitude towards
fantasy, which he saw as a rational endeavour valuable for helping to
perceive truth. "The Christian may now perceive that all his bents and
faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty
with which he has been treated that he may now. perhaps, fairly dare to
guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and
enrichment of creation." (7)
It has also been suggested that Tolkien felt Lewis had "stolen his thunder"
to some extent by rushing into print with the Narnia tales, which were
written between 1949 and 1953 - three of them within a year in 1950.
(LOTR was not published until 1954 and 1955, after fourteen years' work.)
"Undoubtedly he felt that Lewis had in some ways drawn on Tolkien's ideas
and stories in the books...he was perhaps irritated by the fact that the
friend and critic who had listened to the tales of Middle-Earth had as it were
got up from his armchair, gone to the desk, picked up a pen, and 'had a go'
himself. Moreover, the sheer number of Lewis' books for children and the
almost indecent haste with which they produced undoubtedly annoyed
him." (8)
DQ was written between Autumn 1926 and January 22, 1927, just after
Lovecraft's return to Providence from his 'New York exile.' It expresses
much of Lovecraft’s own anguish at being separated from long-familiar
places and the longing for their recapture. However, from the tale's
conception, Lovecraft was dissatisfied with it. he wrote disparagingly of it to
several of his correspondents: "I don't think much of it...and I certainly
dread the job of retyping it..." (10). "...As for my novel...it is a picaresque
chronicle of impossible adventures in dreamland, and is composed under
no illusion of professional acceptance...Actually, it isn't much good; but
forms useful practice for later and more authentic attempts in the novel
form." (12). Some years later, he wrote to Clark Ashton Smith, dismissing
the tale with these words: "I did a whole novel 110 closely-written pages -
in that style during the winter of 1926-27, and fancy that may have been
my swan-song as a Dunsanoid fantaisiste. I like to spin that kind of cob-web
- letting my imagination build cosmic Odysseys without restraint - but as
soon as they are done they begin to look a bit puerile to me. They need the
glamorous perspective of the creative process to conceal their flimsiness
and enhance their vitality. I have never had the fortitude to type that final
piece of Plunkettism.(13) Wandrei read it in manuscript and didn't think
much of it." (14)
In fact, Lovecraft never did type or even submit the tale. It remained in his
files for years, untouched. At approximately 38,000 words, it is one of the
most ambitious and lengthy pieces attempted by Lovecraft, and its
imaginative potency is all the more remarkable considering it is a first
draft, never revised. Eventually, the manuscript was typed by R.H. Barlow.
(15) According to Kenneth Faig, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
(1928) and THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH...would also likely
have actually perished had not Barlow coaxed the manuscripts out of a
dubious Lovecraft in 1934." (16) Despite Barlow's fortunate rescue of the
tale, Lovecraft had washed his hands of it to all intents and purposes. He
referred to it two years later as "my repudiated fantasy," (17) and it did not
see print until its appearance in the 1943 Arkham House collection,
BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP, six years after Lovecraft's death.
Yet, Carter's sunset city has been brought into existence within Dream
World at large by dreams and memories specifically attributed to Carter.
Says Nyarlathotep near the climax of the story: "These, Randolph Carter,
are your city; for they are yourself. New England bore you, and into your
soul she poured a liquid loveliness which cannot die. This loveliness,
moulded, crystallised, and polished by years of memory and dreaming, is
your terraced wonder of elusive sunsets..."(25) According to Gilles
Menegaldo, "This city emerges as the sum of the experience and memories
of his youth: in creating it the dreamer has become a demiurge, and the
dream bestows on him a power which not only provides access to another
universe, but actually fashions it...At this level the dream-city attests the
power of man: through his creation he rivals the Gods..." (26) Similarly,
Kuranes has dreamed into reality a small area of Dream World which
recreates the countryside of his English home in the waking world. Thus, he
and Carter are "sub-creators," though in a far different sense from those in
Lewis' and Tolkien's work. Their creation is a paean to their achievements
as men, and they owe their power to create to no superior being, but to
their own wills.
Another link between Dream World and the waking world is that two
important subsidiary characters, Kuranes and Pickman, were both known
by Carter in the waking world before he met them in their Dream World
existence, where they live on in a sort of reincarnation, both of them
having died in the waking world.
We may now examine a few of the many parallels between Dream World,
Narnia and Middle-Earth not so far mentioned. As entities, Narnia and
Dream World are perhaps more akin to each other than Middle-Earth is to
either. Both of them are alternative, but not necessarily 'ideal' worlds.
Middle-Earth seems to strive more for an ordered scheme of things than do
the others. One can imagine Tolkien wishing to live in his created world,
because it was designed as an escape from the debasing effects of
mechanisation and industrialisation. As de Camp points out, "like Morris,
Lovecraft and C.S. Lewis, Tolkien was an unabashed rurophile." (27) Middle-
Earth is a land of simple rustic beauty invaded by barbaric philistine forces.
Tolkien obviously has deep feelings about his native countryside and the
influence of modern technological society in stripping it of its untamed
splendour. Naturally this played a part in Lovecraft's motivation for creating
Dream World, for he too was all against the urbanisation and
mechanisation of modern life. But Dream World is more sheerly fantastic,
more incredible than the carefully-portrayed Middle-Earth; so, too, is Narnia
for all that its geography is as carefully delineated as Middle-Earth's.
Entry to Narnia may be gained from the world of men, through the back of
a wardrobe and also by way of the Wood Between the Worlds, which is
strikingly similar to Lovecraft's Enchanted Wood, wherein is the Gate of
Deeper Slumber allowing access to Dream World. Middle-Earth is not
connected with other worlds; it is entirely self-contained and self-
referential. The only men in LOTR are just as much part of Middle-Earth's
environment as the other races that live there.
The flow of time in Narnia is different from that in the world of men. Years
may elapse there while on Earth hours or days pass; thus with Dream
World, where Carter's adventures take months of Dream World time but
only a single night of Earth time. Again, Middle-Earth's time is self-
referential. Although the various races have different calendars, different
ways of measuring time, it is implicit that the flow of time is objectively the
same for all Middle-Earth's inhabitants.
Perhaps in the array of flora and fauna with which they populate their
invented worlds, Lovecraft and Tolkien have more in common with each
other than with Lewis' Narnia. It is full of mythological beasts; although
familiar creatures like dogs and rabbits also appear. There are fauns,
satyrs, dwarves, nymphs, dryads, unicorns, mermen and mermaids,
centaurs and a few original inventions such as marsh-wiggles. Dream World
certainly has flora and fauna familiar from the waking world: flowers from
asphodels to orchids, and creatures such as cats, sheep, grouse, quail,
pheasants, condors, bats, ravens, yaks, elephants and zebras. It also has
unheard-of and sometimes sinister creatures such as Gugs, ghasts,
Shantaks, night-gaunts, dholes, zoogs, wamps, magah-birds, urhags,
carnivorous fish, buopoths, and vooniths; not to mention some unpleasant
beings designated only as the "nameless larvae of the Other Gods."
NOTES
8: Ibid., p. 201.
11: HPL to Clark Ashton Smith, 21 January 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968, p. 99.
14: HPL to Clark Ashton Smith, 17 October 1930, SELECTED LETTERS III.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971, p. 192.
16: Kenneth Faig, "R.H. Barlow," Journal of the H.P. Lovecraft Society, Vol 1,
No. 2, October 1979.
18: HPL to Zealia Brown Reed (Bishop), 5 June 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II,
P. 143. Italics are Lovecraft's.
22. See especially T.E.D. Klein's SOME NOTES OF THE FANTASY TALES OF
H.P. LOVECRAFT AND LORD DUNSANY (Honors thesis, Brown University,
1969; unpublished) and D. Schweitzer's "Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany" in
his self-edited ESSAYS LOVECRAFTIAN (also, slightly revised, in his DREAM
QUEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. Reference may also be made to Lawrence R.
Lynn's THE CTHULHU MYTHOS IN THE WRITINGS OF H.P. LOVECRAFT (MA
thesis, University of Rhode Island, 1971; unpublished). Lovecraft's own
essay "Lord Dunsany and His Work" is revealing.
23: HPL to Bernard Austin Dwyer, June 1927, SELECTED LETTERS II, P. 131.