Humphrey Carpenter (1946–2005)

Carpenter states that this "book is largely concerned with C.S. Lewis; for, as I have argued in it, the Inklings owned their existence as a group almost entirely to him." It's a reasonable argument to make: The Inklings' Thursday meetings were held in Lewis' rooms at Magdelen College, and Lewis was responsible for the inclusion of several other regular Inklings: his brother Warnie, for one, and Charles Williams for another.
Tolkien and Williams are both mentioned in the book's subtitle, but show more Carpenter had already written about Tolkien's life in J.R.R. Tolkien: A biography, and as Williams was only in Oxford during WWII, his involvement and influence was more limited. Therefore The Inklings is framed by Lewis' life; it begins with Lewis as a young boy and ends with his death.

Nonetheless, it is also a biography of a group of friends. Carpenter looks at the other labels one might give the Inklings and shows that "friends" is the only one which fits perfectly. (They had things in common - Oxford, Christianity, attitudes to literature - but even then, these things defined each of them in different ways. And they were not all academics or even writers.) Both of these focuses, Lewis and friendship, go hand-in-hand; Lewis valued his friendships very highly and they had a huge influence on his life.

I like the approach Carpenter takes - it is intelligent, informative and carefully researched. He constantly quotes the Inklings themselves - mostly things they wrote in letters or diaries (and provides an appendix of sources. After the internet's relaxed attitude to providing formal citations, I found this refreshing). He also writes about the Inklings as if they were real people: they have prejudices and inconsistencies and mysteries which even a careful biographer cannot conclusively answer.
By the time Carpenter spends a chapter imagining the conversation at an Thursday night meeting of the Inklings, it is clear that Carpenter knows his subjects - their relationships, their opinions and the sorts of conversations they had - very well. "Thursday evenings" is delightfully plausible and ultimately does not pretend to be anything more than what it is: an artificial reconstruction which attempts to catch "the flavour of those Thursday evenings" rather than provide an completely factual account.

I found the The Inklings to be absolutely fascinating. And then I had to read J.R.R. Tolkien: a biography.

(I wrote a longer version of this review, which includes quotes, here.) show less

Some of the books about writers and artists in Paris in the 20s and 30s are written by those who were there and who give their first hand accounts. Others are researched and written by those who weren't there. The first person accounts have their obvious strengths, while the researched accounts have theirs, mainly a more likely (but not assured) lack of personal bias or ax to grind, and a broader perspective and access to the writings, memoirs, and letters of all those who were there. show more

Whereas Noel Riley Fitch's book about Sylvia Beach was probably thoroughly researched, the result was a badly written, encyclopedic volume that had some fine tidbits but was overall boring. Carpenter's book is a pleasure to read. This is not a encyclopedia. It is stories and anecdotes and quotes and pieces of information that tie it all together so that you get a coherent picture of the people and what they were doing and who they were doing it to. Or with.

A fair amount of space is devoted to Hemingway and the writing of The Sun Also Rises. I started to become impatient with how much time and detail Carpenter was spending on that one book. For the most part, he doesn't spend time talking about individual books. Why this one? Because the story behind it and how it came to be written and the effect of it after it was published are a critical element to that time and place in Paris.

Carpenter's book is more about the people than the literature they created. It is a social history composed of small individual portraits. At its core, it's about people and friendship. As Carpenter writes at the end, "The geniuses had mostly turned out not to be geniuses after all. Yet they had been geniuses at being together, drinking together, sleeping together, and quarreling together..."

Maybe that is why he stole McAlmon's title? If so, I almost forgive him. show less

Until I read this, I didn't know that biographies could be so engaging. Carpenter paints a vivid picture of Tolkien's life, skillfully balancing discussion of his day-to-day life with those elements that might tell us more about how his great works came to be. The writing style is immensely enjoyable, that even the mundanities of Tolkien's daily commutes seem like activity bursting with vitality.

I fell in love with The Lord of the Rings when I was in high school. Nevertheless, this biography has remained unread on my shelves for over fifteen years. Why? Some authors are an absolute disappointment to read about. I guess I didn’t want to know if the Professor was one of them.

He’s not.

If you had to write a fictional biography for Tolkien it would look much like this.

Orphaned at an early age, he fell In love with a girl, also orphaned and living in the same boarding house.

His show more fascination with languages, learning ancient languages and even developing his own secret languages based on strict linguistical rules, showed themselves at an early age.

The only disappointment to me was that his fascinating circle of friends didn’t include women. He was a complete product of his time, attending boys’ prep schools and colleges. Only in the very later years is a female graduate student mentioned. This is often reflected in his books, where usually (but not always) women have secondary roles, leaving the adventuring and hero-ing to men.

Highly recommended. show less