The day the muses died

Between Heaven and Hell

On Nov. 22, 1963 three influential men and authors died: author Aldous Huxley, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and author C. S. Lewis.

The world was so shattered by Kennedy's assassination that the other deaths were barely noted at the time, so I thought I'd take a moment to think of all three.

Huxley was an English writer best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays. Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Huxley spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.

Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest elected to the office and the first president to have been born in the 20th century. Kennedy is the only Catholic president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement and early stages of the Vietnam War.

Lewis, known to his friends and family as "Jack," was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.

Today The Episcopal Church and I remember Lewis:

O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis, whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike. Surprise us also with thy joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I was fascinated to find this book by Peter Kreeft, Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley:

On November 22, 1963, three great men died within a few hours of each other: C.S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. All three believed, in different ways, that death is not the end of human life. Suppose they were right, and suppose they met after death. How might the conversation go? Peter Kreeft imagines their discourse as a modern Socratic dialog--a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God? Combining logical argument and literary imagination, Kreeft portrays Lewis as a Christian theist, Kennedy as a modern humanist and Huxley as an Eastern pantheist. Their interaction involves not only good thinking but good drama.

Sounds fascinating and the premise (of course) reminds me of Lewis' own The Screwtape Letters.

Clothes may disguise a fool

I think most of you by now are familiar with the modern symbolism of an elephant for the Republican party and a donkey for the Democratic party.

You might even know a cartoon by Thomas Nast in the Nov. 7, 1874 edition of Harper's Weekly, is considered the first major use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party. 

(Andrew Jackson's mudslinging opponents labeled him a jackass in 1828. Another Nast cartoon in Harper's Weekly on Jan. 19, 1870 would revive the donkey as an unofficial symbol for the Democratic Party.)

It was rumored in 1874 that Republican President Ulysses S. Grant would run for a third term in 1876. There were was also false reports that the animals had escaped from Central Park Zoo and were roaming New York City.

Nast combined the two in his cartoon titled Third Term Panic. It depicts a donkey in a lion's skin ("Caesarism") scattering animals that stand for various interests including an elephant ("Republican vote") running toward a chasm of chaos.

Under the title of Third Term Panic is the first line of Aesop's fable, The Ass in the Lion's Skin:

An Ass, having put on the lion's skin, amused himself by terrifying all the foolish animals. At last coming upon a Fox, he tried to frighten him also, but the Fox no sooner heard the sound of his voice than he exclaimed, "I might possibly have been frightened myself, if I had not heard your bray."

The moral? Clothes may disguise a fool, but his words will give him away.

But what struck me as I looked at this political cartoon was the donkey in a lion's skin. Where had I seen that before?

Pauline Baynes, The Last Battle

Of course!

C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle (1956) when poor Puzzle the donkey is forced by Shift the Ape to wear a lion skin and pretend to be the Great Lion Aslan.

Shift, using Puzzle as his pawn, convinces the Narnians that he speaks for Aslan and makes all sorts of increasingly unreasonable demands that benefit only Shift. Eventually, it leads to the downfall of Narnia when Tash is allowed to entered Narnia's borders.

Now I've read The Chronicles of Narnia dozens of times. I wore out a paperback set and had to replace it with a hardcover set which is also rapidly falling apart. But I never once saw the correlation between it, contemporary politics, and an old Aesop's Fable.

Apparently some things don't change.

Clothes may disguise a fool, but his words will give him away. 

Excuse me, but I need to go reread The Last Battle since I have yet another perspective to think about while reading it. 

 

Harry Potter and the Banned Books

Be warned.

I am armed and dangerous when it comes to my Harry Potter books.

I shall Petrificus Totalus anyone who tries to take my books from me.

Any books.

As I wrote in July, "...I do have the time to Be Amazed that some still think Harry Potter and his Worthy Friends are Evil. 

Let Me quote from my favorite Modern Theologian:

"But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

The Last Battle, 1956
C. S. Lewis
(banned)

Or, as J.K Rowling herself wrote in the front of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21
King James Version
(banned)

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:26
King James Version
(banned)

Hmm. All these books have been banned, too. I'm starting to wonder what I read that's not controversial.

The last battle

I am in a Dither getting ready for the Final Installment of the Harry Potter moving pictures. However, I do have the time to Be Amazed that some still think Harry Potter and his Worthy Friends are Evil. 

Let Me quote from my favorite Modern Theologian:

"But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

The Last Battle, 1956
C. S. Lewis

Or, as J.K Rowling herself wrote in the front of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21
King James Version

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:26
King James Version