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 testators, Lewis and Tolkien, and in many ways they "gave" their lives (as Daniel Silliman's article puts about Hooper) to this work. 

It makes for an interesting contrast. 

Over the last few years, there have been some exciting developments in the worlds of Narnia and Middle-Earth. And I'm not being ironic -- I have been excited! The C.S. Lewis Company has apparently been working with Netflix to produce adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia, the rights to which Netflix recently bought for almost $250 million. This follows an even larger payout by Amazon for the rights to significant portions of the Middle-Earth mythos. Issues with Netflix and Amazon aside -- only momentarily -- I am thrilled to hear that these are happening. I remember saying to a friend as we trudged off to see the third of the Hobbit movies, "I have not been liking these movies, but I do enjoy being back in Middle-Earth." (I'm not sure that feeling is one that could be indefinite, but the sentiment holds for now.) I love Narnia. I love Middle-Earth. It's amazing to get to see how artists imagine these worlds, even when I disagree with their vision.

That all being said, there is a striking difference between the work of people like Christopher Tolkien and Walter Hooper, dedicated to preserving and protecting the work of someone else, and -- bracketing off the individual motivations of all of the artists and writers and creatives involved -- the work of massive organizations like Amazon and Netflix. The ends of the one simply cannot have been what the ends of the other are. 

I realize this is a caricature of all of the parties involved. The controversies are there if people want to dig into them. And painting any organization with a large paintbrush fails to capture the details (e.g., of those artists, writers, and creatives that I so unceremoniously set aside in the previous paragraph). Yet the contrast remains and must. Inherently in the work of both Tolkien and Hooper was a kind of humility that required them to put the aims of their respective author first. As has been seen again and again, the ethos of the mega-corporation begins with the consumer in mind and moves backward from there. If preserving the vision of the author is a plus, then the product may be developed with that kind of stewardship in mind, but there's no guarantee. And there are very few examples where that has held.

John Daniel Davidson made an interesting remark along these lines in his reflections on the "unsung" life of Christopher Tolkien: "It’s a remarkable thing for a son to realize the unique genius of his father and, instead of trading on that genius to advance his own career and fortune, choose to dedicate his life to the stewardship and advancement of his father’s work." 

I am still hopeful that all of these adaptations will not just be pleasant returns to the general vicinity of Narnia and Middle-Earth. It would be wonderful to see the brilliant teams that are developing them approach the work with some of the humility that Christopher Tolkien and Walter Hooper sought to bring to their own work. In fact, what would it look like for Hollywood and mass-produced media to begin to value these sorts of things -- stewardship for starters? I don't think it's impossible. But it may be very, very difficult. 

For now, as Wendell Berry said of the man who refused to use a chainsaw, "I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts."

Walter Hooper, 1931-2020

Two more quick reflections that leaped out at me as I scanned Google for memories of Walter Hooper. First, I really liked a story that Joseph Loconte tells in his reflections on Hooper in the National Review:

At a recent conference in Slovakia, Hooper was asked to explain why he invested so much of his life quietly serving someone else’s legacy. He did not hesitate in answering: “I said, ‘It’s been wonderful. I wish to God I could do it all again.’"

 And, finally, one more quote from a lovely piece by Michael Coren in The Toronto Star:

He once said to me, “I know that when people visit me from America, Australia, Japan, anywhere, what they really want to know is what was Lewis like.” A pause. “And that’s OK, that’s OK.” In other words, he was aware that he was a point of contact for one long gone, and sought after for someone else. But his invincible humility allowed that to flourish, and he embraced it as vocation.