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55. There Was a Lot to Remember Here and I Don’t Remember Most of It.
Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: The Notion Club
Papers. Written in 1945 during a creative pause in completing the final
third of The Lord of the Rings, The Notion Club Papers found Tolkien on
familiar ground, creating a set of purported notes from regular club meetings
among a group of Oxford professors much like himself and his fellow members of
the famed Inklings. While not advancing beyond a couple of drafts and far from
complete, the papers tell first of a professor who, due to a discussion on how
spacecraft would work in science fiction, avers he has himself been able to
travel in dreams through the reaches of space and meet other minds before
returning to earth. One initially skeptical member over time then tells of his
own unusual dream experiences, building up to a sudden moment during a massive
storm where he invokes the language and imagery of the downfall of Númenor, in
much the same fashion as The Lost Road did nearly a decade prior; related
manuscripts found Tolkien revisiting the Númenorean story in particular, as
well as speaking in detail about his invented language for the society. How
does the novel’s complicated structure work creatively, if at all, and is
there something there that could have been developed further in later drafts?
What does it mean that Tolkien seemed most at ease exploring the possible
sources of his own creativity in such a second-hand fashion, even if the means
by which he did so ended up being incredibly insular? What were the
contemporary sources and inspirations for this effort among his fellow
Inklings and beyond, and are there any parallels he acknowledges or, perhaps
notably, ignores? And who wouldn’t want to talk over the evident problems of
medieval life while getting a haircut from Norman Keeps?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. This is why it’s
important to check the insulation on your windows.
And indeed the WGA strike did end
soon after we recorded our episode. SAG strike still
ongoing for the moment!
More from the Lord of the Rings musical
revival, and who knows
where it will go…
Amazon’s plans for ads for Prime
Video, great. Lovely. Couldn’t agree with that more. Yup.
News about the Tales Of The Shire game and we are very
curious indeed!
Yeah that whole Warren Beatty Dick Tracy thing.
There are indeed skeletons in Stardew
Valley. (The upcoming game Ned
mentioned is Wytchwood.)
The Notion Club
Papers! We recommend
at least a little caffeine before reading.
Knowing a little about the
Inklings will not hurt at all
when it comes to the Notion Club Papers.
Socratic dialogue can
indeed be rollicking.
Our episode on “A Secret Vice.”
Thomas Pynchon is out there and is happy not to
be recognized.
That Hideous Strength
concludes the Space Trilogy by taking a Charles
Williams direction (though as
Jared notes, not very successfully).
If you haven’t seen Inspector
Morse just ask a
relative who still watches PBS a lot. (Because they’ve likely been watching
Endeavour.)
Interstellar is trippy,
man. (In a formal Nolany way, but still.)
The Great Storm of 1987 as
reported on UK TV.
“The Call of
Cthulhu” is
probably Lovecraft’s most well known story. And boy does it have
problems too!
C. S. Lewis’s “The Dark
Tower” is a
weirdly fascinating fragment, while An Experiment With
Time by J. W. Dunne
was a reference point for both Lewis and Tolkien in these works.
Ringu aka The Ring, which of
course has nothing to do with a certain other ring. We think.
Monty Python’s Constitutional
Peasants,
one of their most perfect moments.
David Lindsay’s A Voyage to
Arcturus Tolkien
definitely liked. The Worm Ouroboros by E. R.
Eddison, rather more mixed.
(And relatedly our episode on Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight.)
The Grink! (RIP Twitter,
culturally at least, but Bluesky is starting to gel more.)
Per Ned’s closing comment, Roger Zelazny’s A Night In The Lonesome
October has become a seasonal classic of sorts.
(And the Gahan Wilson illustrations inside are a delight.)
Support By-The-Bywater through our network, Megaphonic, on
Patreon and hang out with us in a friendly
little Discord!
View all episodes
By Jared Pechaček, Oriana Scwindt, and Ned Raggett
4.8
3232 ratings
Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: The Notion Club
Papers. Written in 1945 during a creative pause in completing the final
third of The Lord of the Rings, The Notion Club Papers found Tolkien on
familiar ground, creating a set of purported notes from regular club meetings
among a group of Oxford professors much like himself and his fellow members of
the famed Inklings. While not advancing beyond a couple of drafts and far from
complete, the papers tell first of a professor who, due to a discussion on how
spacecraft would work in science fiction, avers he has himself been able to
travel in dreams through the reaches of space and meet other minds before
returning to earth. One initially skeptical member over time then tells of his
own unusual dream experiences, building up to a sudden moment during a massive
storm where he invokes the language and imagery of the downfall of Númenor, in
much the same fashion as The Lost Road did nearly a decade prior; related
manuscripts found Tolkien revisiting the Númenorean story in particular, as
well as speaking in detail about his invented language for the society. How
does the novel’s complicated structure work creatively, if at all, and is
there something there that could have been developed further in later drafts?
What does it mean that Tolkien seemed most at ease exploring the possible
sources of his own creativity in such a second-hand fashion, even if the means
by which he did so ended up being incredibly insular? What were the
contemporary sources and inspirations for this effort among his fellow
Inklings and beyond, and are there any parallels he acknowledges or, perhaps
notably, ignores? And who wouldn’t want to talk over the evident problems of
medieval life while getting a haircut from Norman Keeps?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. This is why it’s
important to check the insulation on your windows.
And indeed the WGA strike did end
soon after we recorded our episode. SAG strike still
ongoing for the moment!
More from the Lord of the Rings musical
revival, and who knows
where it will go…
Amazon’s plans for ads for Prime
Video, great. Lovely. Couldn’t agree with that more. Yup.
News about the Tales Of The Shire game and we are very
curious indeed!
Yeah that whole Warren Beatty Dick Tracy thing.
There are indeed skeletons in Stardew
Valley. (The upcoming game Ned
mentioned is Wytchwood.)
The Notion Club
Papers! We recommend
at least a little caffeine before reading.
Knowing a little about the
Inklings will not hurt at all
when it comes to the Notion Club Papers.
Socratic dialogue can
indeed be rollicking.
Our episode on “A Secret Vice.”
Thomas Pynchon is out there and is happy not to
be recognized.
That Hideous Strength
concludes the Space Trilogy by taking a Charles
Williams direction (though as
Jared notes, not very successfully).
If you haven’t seen Inspector
Morse just ask a
relative who still watches PBS a lot. (Because they’ve likely been watching
Endeavour.)
Interstellar is trippy,
man. (In a formal Nolany way, but still.)
The Great Storm of 1987 as
reported on UK TV.
“The Call of
Cthulhu” is
probably Lovecraft’s most well known story. And boy does it have
problems too!
C. S. Lewis’s “The Dark
Tower” is a
weirdly fascinating fragment, while An Experiment With
Time by J. W. Dunne
was a reference point for both Lewis and Tolkien in these works.
Ringu aka The Ring, which of
course has nothing to do with a certain other ring. We think.
Monty Python’s Constitutional
Peasants,
one of their most perfect moments.
David Lindsay’s A Voyage to
Arcturus Tolkien
definitely liked. The Worm Ouroboros by E. R.
Eddison, rather more mixed.
(And relatedly our episode on Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight.)
The Grink! (RIP Twitter,
culturally at least, but Bluesky is starting to gel more.)
Per Ned’s closing comment, Roger Zelazny’s A Night In The Lonesome
October has become a seasonal classic of sorts.
(And the Gahan Wilson illustrations inside are a delight.)
Support By-The-Bywater through our network, Megaphonic, on
Patreon and hang out with us in a friendly
little Discord!
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