Literary Giants Literary Catholics (32 page)

The cult of “deconstruction” now exerts a grip on the discipline of literary criticism that is vicelike, in both senses of the word. In fact, and ironically, “deconstruction” is best expressed through the deconstruction, anagrammatically, of the word itself. Deconstruction is the “destruction con”. It is the confidence trick by which the edifying edifice of culture is destroyed in the name of “cultural” dissection. It is the destruction of art for “art’s” sake. These cultural vivisectionists, practicing their “criticism” much as Josef Mengele practiced his “science”, treat artistic works as objects on which to experiment with their existential prejudices. It is literary criticism as cultural abuse. Art as victim.

It was, I think, C. S. Lewis who wrote, no doubt with the cultural abusers in mind, that there are two types of people in the world, those who do things to books and those who allow books to do things to them. The Bloomsbury group and their relativist ilk represent those who do things to books, whereas the Inklings represent those who let books do things to them. The former abuse tradition, molding it into their own pathetically deformed image; the latter use tradition as a mold, forming themselves in the space it provides, enabling its light to shed illumination on both the self and the not-self, that is, on both the subjective and the objective. As such, the Inklings represent not only the antithesis of the Bloomsbury group but also the antidote to its poison. The Inklings represent the power of civilized reconstruction amid the barbaric wasteland of deconstruction. They offer inklings of grace to a sceptic-soiled world.

Lewis disliked those who did things to books, and not merely because what they did to the books was often unmentionable. Apart from the fact that such people were often vandals or vivisectionists, they were also depriving themselves, and those influenced by them, of the enormous benefit that the books could bestow on them. A good book enables the reader to enlarge his experience of life; it enables him to share the life experience and the wisdom of another, namely, the author. The better the book, or the author, the greater the benefit to the reader—but only if the reader is prepared to let the book be a teacher. If he approaches the book with the humility of receptivity, or the receptivity of humility, he will receive its riches in abundance. The book will provide metaphysical nourishment, and this spiritual nutrition will enable him to grow. It will enable him to ennoble himself. If, however, he insists on squeezing the square peg of the book into the round hole of his own preconceptions, he will be severely limiting his ability to benefit from the book’s beauty or its wisdom. He will be too busy making the book small enough to fit into the narrow confines of his own prejudices to enjoy the nourishing fruits it has to offer. And there’s the rub. In doing things to books, we prevent books from doing things to us, and for us. In the penury of our selfishness, we are depriving ourselves of the many riches to be derived from selflessness. And this is the paradox at the very heart of Lewis’ statement. In humility there is reception; in pride there is only self-deception.

Thus, for instance, Wells’ blind faith in scientism, the belief that “progress” is both inexorable and inexorably beneficent, led inexorably to his inability to view or value the treasures of the past or the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Thus Shaw’s belief in man’s perfectibility, that man can become superman, blinded him to the base and basic reality of man’s weakness, and this in turn hardened his heart and hindered his ability to sympathize and empathize with beleaguered humanity. Thus Strachey’s cynical prejudice against the Catholic Church rendered it impossible for him to understand the great mind and heart of that truly eminent Victorian Cardinal Manning. Prejudice prejudges, and one who prejudges is not fit to judge.

Of course, the secularists and deconstructionists will counter that the Christianity of Chesterton, Belloc and the Inklings meant that they were as prejudiced in their assumptions as were their enemies. Indeed, those secularists who, in spite of their prejudices, have read the Bible, might remind us—no doubt with a smile of triumphalism—that we should examine the plank in our own eye (perhaps, in fact, two planks hammered together in the shape of a cross) before pointing out the motes in the eyes of others. Our reply, of course, should be, “Of course!” It’s our duty to remove these planks. They are merely a metaphor, a euphemism, for the pride that must be overcome with the paradoxical strength of meekness in order that the clarity of charity might be attained. If we do not remove the planks from our eyes, we will find ourselves doing things to books, not letting books do things to us. Planks impair vision!

The difference between Christians and secularists does not lie in the existence of the planks, which afflict the vision of believers and unbelievers alike, but in their attitude toward the planks. Christians know that the planks are a recurring problem, that we must be on our guard against their return, and that when we discover their return it is our duty to remove them so that we can restore the clarity of our vision. The problem that our opponents must overcome is much more serious. Many are not aware that planks are a problem. Indeed, many are blinded by the belief that the planks do not exist! If the planks are a euphemism for pride, those who fail to see that pride is a problem, still less a mortal sin, will hardly be bothered to remove them. Those who are proud of their pride are scarcely seeking humility. They might even cherish the plank in their eye as a precious possession and make it the prism through which they view “reality”. This is, in fact, exactly what the deconstructionists are doing. They make themselves the sole arbiters of “reality”. Their “truth”, even if they admit reluctantly that it may not be the only “truth”, is, they say, at least as valid as all the others. In subjecting truth to their own prejudices, they are denying, implicitly at least, the validity of objective criteria. The plank in their eye has become the touchstone of reality. Thus, we see (even if they don’t) that prejudice is the product of pride. In this way, the cross, far from representing a plank (or two) in our eyes, serves rather as a telescopic sight enabling us to see more clearly.

Ultimately the cross is the very crux of the matter, in the sense that a paradox of cross purposes is at the center of the problem. It is, in fact, not only a paradox of cross purposes but a paradox of crossbeams. The beam in the eye of the proud can be removed only by the beam of light that enters the eye of the humble. The blindness of Bloomsbury is curable only through the inklings of grace.

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Roy “Strider” Campbell and the Inklings

O
N 3 OCTOBER
1944, during the final months of the Second World War, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams called in at the Eagle and Child pub in the center of Oxford for their customary pint of ale. They and the other Inklings met on a regular basis in this particular pub, which was known affectionately as the Bird and Baby. On this occasion, however, Tolkien and Williams arrived at noon and were surprised to find C. S. Lewis and his brother “already ensconced”. The conversation was “pretty lively”, and Tolkien noticed “a strange tall gaunt man half in khaki half in mufti with a large wide-awake hat, bright eyes and a hooked nose sitting in the corner. The others had their back to him, but I could see in his eye that he was taking an interest in the conversation quite unlike the ordinary pained astonishment of the British (and American) public at the presence of the Lewises (and myself) in a pub.” The stranger reminded Tolkien of Strider in
The Lord of the Rings
, the mysterious Ranger who eavesdropped on the conversation of the hobbits at the Prancing Pony at Bree.

All of a sudden he butted in, in a strange unplaceable accent, taking up some point about Wordsworth. In a few seconds he was revealed as Roy Campbell. . . . Tableau! Especially as C.S.L. had not long ago violently lampooned him in the Oxford Magazine. . . There is a good deal of Ulster still left in C.S.L. if hidden from himself. After that things became fast and furious and I was late for lunch. It was (perhaps) gratifying to find that this powerful poet and soldier desired in Oxford chiefly to see Lewis (and myself).

The “violent lampoon” to which Tolkien referred was Lewis’ poetic riposte to Campbell’s long poem
Flowering Rifle
. Campbell’s poem, published five years earlier, was a robust and often embarrassingly jingoistic eulogy to the victorious Nationalist forces in the Spanish civil war. In a poem entitled simply “To the Author of
Flowering Rifle
”, published in
The Cherwell
magazine on 6 May 1939, Lewis had condemned Campbell’s lack of charity, reminding him that “the merciful are promised mercy still”. Campbell was a “loud fool” who had learned the art of lying from his enemies on the left,

     since it was from them you learned

     How white to black by jargon can be turned.

Lewis had retained his early admiration for Campbell’s poetic powers, declaring that his verse “outsoars with eagle pride” the “nerveless rhythms” of the left-wing poets. Yet his “shrill covin-politics” and that of his enemies were “two peas in a single pod”:

     —who cares

     Which kind of shirt the murdering Party wears?

Although Lewis’ critique of Campbell’s harshness and lack of charity in
Flowering Rifle
was justified, his simplistic approach to the religious and philosophical dynamics of the war in Spain exposed his own political naïveté. Campbell was actually living in Spain when the war began, and he and his family were lucky to escape with their lives. Many of their friends were not so lucky. The priest who had received Roy and Mary Campbell into the Church in 1935 was murdered in cold blood in the following year by communist militiamen, as were the Carmelite monks whom Roy and Mary had befriended in Toledo. In seeing the war in Spain as a fight to the death between traditional Christianity and secular atheism, Campbell was closer to reality than was Lewis with his simplified depiction of a battle between “left” and “right”. The war was beyond politics. It was a struggle for the religious heart and soul of Europe.

Campbell had read Lewis’ attack on him, but it seems, from Tolkien’s rendition of events, that he had taken the criticism in good spirits and that it was Lewis who became aggressive during the “fast and furious” discussion in the Bird and Baby. In spite of their differences, Lewis invited Campbell to a gathering of the Inklings in Lewis’ rooms in Magdalen College two days later. Again, it was Lewis who became aggressive. According to Tolkien, Lewis “had taken a fair deal of port and was a little belligerent”. He insisted on reading out his lampoon again, but Campbell laughed the provocation aside.

If Lewis was belligerent toward Campbell, Tolkien was transfixed by him, listening intently, as the assembled Inklings “were mostly obliged to listen to the guest”. Paradoxically, Tolkien felt that Campbell was “gentle, modest, and compassionate”, even though he and the others spent most of the evening listening to Campbell’s embellished and highly romanticized account of his own life. Tolkien’s report of the biographical monologue is awash with the combined effects of Campbell’s exaggeration and Tolkien’s faulty memory.

What he has done . . . beggars description. Here is a scion of an Ulster prot. family resident in S. Africa, most of whom fought in both wars, who became a Catholic after sheltering the Carmelite fathers in Barcelona—in vain, they are caught & butchered, and R. C. nearly lost his life. But he got the Carmelite archives from the burning library and took them through the Red country. He speaks Spanish fluently (he has been a professional bullfighter). As you know he then fought through the war on Franco’s side, and among other things was in the van of the company that chased the Reds out of Malaga. . . . But he is a patriotic man, and has fought for the B. Army since. . . I wish I could remember half the picaresque stories, about poets and musicians etc. from Peter Warlock to Aldous Huxley. . . However, it is not possible to convey an impression of such a rare character, both a soldier and a poet, and a Christian convert. How unlike the Left—the “corduroy panzers” who fled to America (Auden among them who with his friends got R. C.’s works “banned”).

If Campbell had made a favorable impression on Tolkien, who thought him “old-looking”, “war-scarred”, and “limping from recent wounds”, Lewis’ attitude remained as combative as ever, much to Tolkien’s evident chagrin.

C.S.L.’s reactions were odd. Nothing is a greater tribute to Red propaganda than the fact that he (who knows that they are in all other subjects liars and traducers) believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him. . . . But hatred of our church is after all the real only final foundation of the C of E—so deep laid that it remains even when all the superstructure seems removed (C.S.L. for instance reveres the Blessed Sacrament, and admires nuns!). Yet if a Lutheran is put in jail he is up in arms; but if Catholic priests are slaughtered—he disbelieves it (and I daresay really thinks they asked for it). But R. C. shook him a bit.

Following the meeting, Lewis stated that he “loathed . . . Roy Campbell’s particular blend of Catholicism and Fascism, and told him so”. His judgment was unfair. Campbell never considered himself a fascist, at least not in the sense in which it is usually understood, and his support for Franco’s Nationalists was based on the simple and laudatory desire to defend traditional Christian culture from the destructive atheism of the communists. Having been received into the Church in the year before the outbreak of the war, he considered it his duty to defend the culture and traditions he had recently discovered and embraced. Furthermore, having witnessed the cold-blooded murder of his friends, it is scarcely surprising that Campbell was somewhat vociferous in his attacks on communism. He was, however, as vociferous in his attacks on Nazism. Before the Spanish war had started, he had made the acquaintance of two Norwegians, also living in Spain. One was a communist and the other a Nazi, but, Campbell observed, “they were both staunchly united in their hate of Christ and Christianity”. “From the very beginning my wife and I understood the real issues in Spain”, Campbell wrote on another occasion. “Now was the time to decide whether . . . to remain half-apathetic to the great fight which was obviously approaching—or whether we should step into the front ranks of the Regular Army of Christ. Hitler himself had said, even by then, how much more easy the Protestants were to enslave and bamboozle than the Catholics.” One can imagine Tolkien nodding sagely in agreement with Campbell’s words, perceiving them as an example of Campbell’s Strideresque wisdom in comparison with Lewis’ naïve credulity.