It’s difficult to know where to even start with a review for this book. Joseph Loconte has woven together such a thoroughly enjoyable story of the blossoming and growth of Tolkien and Lewis’s friendship, and how they combined forces during the darkest of times to shine light where they could in the only ways they could.
It was enlightening to learn little tidbits here and there that I didn’t know, as Lonconte combined facts and quotes from sources I have not yet gotten to. And it’s all so easily read and digestible. I was struck, as he laid the groundwork for the state of the world at the conclusion of the First World War and in to the 1920s, how, despite the move from Modernist to Post-Modernist thinking in the majority, we really have not moved on from the attitudes so prevalent during that day. The parallels, in so many ways, are so striking that it is a bit disheartening to think that history is on its way to repeating itself. After all, as the maxim goes, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” and man, it doesn’t seem like we’ve learned much at all.
At the end, however, one cannot be left hopeful, that so long as we keep the fires Tolkien, Lewis, and their contemporaries lit during this time period, that more can be brought out of the darkness and in to the light. All with the help, of course, of our Heavenly Father, the creator of Narnia and Middle-earth as much as Lewis and Tolkien were. I highly recommend this book!
5/5 phins
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