(cont'd) But what would those be, in this case? I would guess that returning to the difficult business of "The C. S. Lewis Hoax" would be in order. Here I am saying I think she was mistaken, but what then is the *correct* answer? The whole affair of Walter Hooper insinuating himself into the life of #CSLewis and bursting onto the scene in 1963 after Jack Lewis's death in order to wrest control of his papers away from Owen Barfield, whom I recall was meant to be Lewis's literary executor but for Hooper's intrigues, disgusts me beyond measure. But did Hooper *actually* corrupt "The Dark Tower" with his own writings?

And what about "After Ten Years", the one fragment in the "Dark Tower" anthology that stands out as superlative writing, and whose style is tantalizingly like that of "Till We Have Faces"? Is it really Lewis's work? Is it Lewis, mimicking the style of Joy Davidman? Or did Hooper think to season the otherwise distasteful "Dark Tower" collection with a stolen fragment of Joy Davidman's writing?

~Chara of Pnictogen 🔴

(cont'd) I am not a scholar, though I've sometimes affected to speak and write like one. I have degrees in three subjects but I've never been stable or reliable enough to hold down a career in any field, and after my father died in 2018 I've not even been able to hold down any sort of regular job. I don't suppose I was entirely sane for many years after that. But I would like to pull myself together, and partly that means learning belatedly how to organize my academically-minded thoughts and maybe even act upon some of them.

Back in the early 2000s, when I was trying to maintain conversations about #CSLewis through e-mail and mailing lists, Dr. Lindskoog befriended me and we corresponded for a little while before she became too ill to do so (she passed on in October 2003.) I remember we talked a bit about how she might be better able to use a personal computer in spite of her debilities, and about various topics in #science hoaxes, which had long been a field of amateur interest for me. Dr. Lindskoog did me a great honor that, right this moment, is bringing tears to my eyes: she talked to me as if I were a peer, and that was rare and precious. I am far more used to scorn and slight regard, than anything like *respect*.

Hence I perhaps feel that I owe her something, now that she's gone. I am a religious person, in my idiosyncratic way; I believe in honoring the wishes of the dead.

(cont'd)

@kris_of_pnictogen
One correspondence in "That Hideous Strength" that I'm reasonably sure of is that Lord Feverstone was based on Cecil Rhodes, the businessman turned politician (and Donald Trump is now channeling both).

#Inklings #CSLewis #literature