2020 and the Inklings
I was saddened to hear this evening of the passing of Walter Hooper , the longtime literary executor of the C.S. Lewis Estate. He spent fifty-seven years of his life collecting and protecting Lewis's legacy and works. The first biography I ever read about C.S. Lewis -- probably 20 or more years ago now -- was co-authored by Hooper and Roger Lancelyn Green. As I was thinking about Hooper's death here at the end of a year that has had a lot of sadness in it for many people, and reflecting on the fact that Hooper himself succumbed to a brief struggle with COVID-19, I realized that 2020 was also the year that the other great literary executor of an Inkling, Christopher Tolkien, passed away . Hooper was 89 and Tolkien 95. The loss of these two men in the same year -- this year unlike any other in many of our lifetimes -- has brought several thoughts to mind. Both Hooper and Tolkien strove in their own ways to preserve the legacies and to maintain the visions of their respective tes