Rev. of "Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop. Oxford University Press. 2015. 464 pp. ISBN 9780199284153. Mythprint 53.3 (Fall 2016): 7-8.
Grevel Lindop's Charles Williams: The Third Inkling is an exceptional book, offering new material about Williams's life based on previously unexamined documents and first-hand interviews. It unquestionably belongs in the "highly recommended" category for serious historians of early twentieth century British authors, particularly the Inklings, and students of poetry and potboiler alike. That said, if you are thinking about picking up The Third Inkling because you have enjoyed a few of Williams's novels and because you think it might be an interesting "tell-all" about his occult activities, but you are also the sort of person who doesn't patronize philandering, slightly sadistic authors with quirky sexual preferences, you might want to leave it on the shelves. Academics weary of accounting for classroom evaluations that lack the enthusiastic praise indicative of high "groupie" appeal might also want to give it a miss. That's not a judgment on Lindop's research or writing, but rather an observation about the emotional stuffing of Williams's life.
While reading The Third Inkling, I thought repeatedly of the birthday speech Tolkien gave to Bilbo: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." The descriptive aptness of this quotation is far from precise, but, just so, I found I had soon learned more than I cared to about Williams's methods of making life interesting, and finished the book not knowing nearly as much as I wanted about his wife Michal and son Michael. Like Bilbo's neighbors, they are there near the beginning and back again at the end, but in between we do not hear much about their activities. Lindop does mention them from time to time, returns more seriously to them—as Charles did—at the end, and clearly sympathizes with Michal's position, but most chapters are full of Williams carrying on with … well, whoever he was carrying on with, and so he makes less of Williams's family than does the impression of their plight. In addition, I repeatedly wondered why the family always seemed to be so short of money? Surely Williams's job was a reasonably good one, so how could his salary not have been enough to keep a practical wife and a single child? How much, or rather how little, I wonder, did a man in Williams's position earn that he was so driven to write and lecture so much beyond what he really had time for, simply because such opportunities meant a little more money? Or was money not the real issue driving him? Lindop makes the financial difficulties apparent, but stops short of explaining why they existed or even offering so much as a paragraph on salaries in the publishing industries during the period of Williams's working life.
Lindop's research and contacts did lead him to new details about Williams's involvement with Arthur E. Waite and various secret societies. These, like the details he exposes regarding Williams's relationships with various women, may be of special interest to some readers. Certainly there is much about Williams's relationships with women in this book; many of the numerous quoted passages convey the realities of these associations as the participants experienced them. By comparison, Williams's involvement with secret societies, particularly those associated with Arthur E. Waite, is little explored. Of noteworthy interest, however, is Lindop's discovery that Williams's own decks included a Marseilles Tarot and the Rider-Waite Tarot (1909), designed by Arthur E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith. Lindop does not mention the possible connections between Williams and Waite's second Tarot deck, referenced with some illustrations in Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's A History of the Occult Tarot (2002) and more fully studied and illustrated in Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin's Abiding in the Sanctuary: A Christian Mystical Tarot (1917–1923) (2011).
Lindop discusses The Greater Trumps (1932), Williams's only novel including Tarot without thoroughly examining the possible influence of Waite's rituals on it, perhaps because he thinks of it as a "(rather silly) adventure story" (ch. 12). He makes no such judgment of Williams's other novels, however often they were rejected for publication. He does add an interesting argument to the ongoing discussion about Williams's membership in the Golden Dawn. Lindop takes Williams's declaration that he belonged to the Golden Dawn seriously, in spite of considerable evidence that Williams could not have belonged to the original organization. As Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett summarize in their A History of the Occult Tarot 1870–1970 (2002), the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, came under Waite's leadership in 1903 and he renamed it "the "Order of the Independent and Rectified Rite" and then dissolved it in 1914. He founded "The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross" in 1915 with new members and members of the former Golden Dawn (121-22, 143). At the end of Chapter 5 of The Third Inkling, Lindop cites a document written by Williams as an indication that he had passed into the advanced grade of Waite's Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn; a problematic claim given that Williams did not meet Waite until 1915. Lindop rhetorically asks,
Did Nicholson and Lee (or someone else) initiate Williams to that level? Again, we may never know. But the likelihood is that from 1919, if not earlier, Charles Williams was an initiate not only of Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, but also of one of the Golden Dawn's original branches—either the "Independent and Rectified Rite" or the magically oriented Stella Matutina. He probably never told Waite about his parallel membership. (ch. 5)
While the Stella Matutina was indeed a separate offshoot of the Golden Dawn, unassociated with Waite, the "Independent and Rectified Golden Dawn" was Waite's creation, so it is unclear how Williams could have joined it without Waite knowing. Lindop proposes that Henry Lee initiated him into the "original" Golden Dawn after it ceased to exist so that their conversations would not be hampered by the oaths of secrecy associated with membership. This explanation for the oft-cited point about Williams's apparent claim to membership in the (original) Golden Dawn is plausible, although, as I am sure Lindop is aware, not entirely satisfactory. Given the seriousness with which membership in such societies was taken, it seems unlikely that anyone, least of all Williams himself, would have construed an after-the-fact initiation to a defunct organization, conducted for the purpose of circumventing oaths of secrecy, as an indication of legitimate membership in anything. Even so, it is a possibility and it does explain the otherwise contradictory information available on the subject.
The Third Inkling is a thoroughly researched and detailed accounting of Charles Williams's life—including his all too human failings—that offers much to anyone curious about him, his relationships, his ties to the Inklings, his involvement with secret societies, and the formation of his own Companions of the Co-inherence and the effect it had on his life.
Grevel Lindop's Charles Williams: The Third Inkling is an exceptional book, offering new material about Williams's life based on previously unexamined documents and first-hand interviews. It unquestionably belongs in the "highly recommended" category for serious historians of early twentieth century British authors, particularly the Inklings, and students of poetry and potboiler alike. That said, if you are thinking about picking up The Third Inkling because you have enjoyed a few of Williams's novels and because you think it might be an interesting "tell-all" about his occult activities, but you are also the sort of person who doesn't patronize philandering, slightly sadistic authors with quirky sexual preferences, you might want to leave it on the shelves. Academics weary of accounting for classroom evaluations that lack the enthusiastic praise indicative of high "groupie" appeal might also want to give it a miss. That's not a judgment on Lindop's research or writing, but rather an observation about the emotional stuffing of Williams's life.
While reading The Third Inkling, I thought repeatedly of the birthday speech Tolkien gave to Bilbo: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." The descriptive aptness of this quotation is far from precise, but, just so, I found I had soon learned more than I cared to about Williams's methods of making life interesting, and finished the book not knowing nearly as much as I wanted about his wife Michal and son Michael. Like Bilbo's neighbors, they are there near the beginning and back again at the end, but in between we do not hear much about their activities. Lindop does mention them from time to time, returns more seriously to them—as Charles did—at the end, and clearly sympathizes with Michal's position, but most chapters are full of Williams carrying on with … well, whoever he was carrying on with, and so he makes less of Williams's family than does the impression of their plight. In addition, I repeatedly wondered why the family always seemed to be so short of money? Surely Williams's job was a reasonably good one, so how could his salary not have been enough to keep a practical wife and a single child? How much, or rather how little, I wonder, did a man in Williams's position earn that he was so driven to write and lecture so much beyond what he really had time for, simply because such opportunities meant a little more money? Or was money not the real issue driving him? Lindop makes the financial difficulties apparent, but stops short of explaining why they existed or even offering so much as a paragraph on salaries in the publishing industries during the period of Williams's working life.
Lindop's research and contacts did lead him to new details about Williams's involvement with Arthur E. Waite and various secret societies. These, like the details he exposes regarding Williams's relationships with various women, may be of special interest to some readers. Certainly there is much about Williams's relationships with women in this book; many of the numerous quoted passages convey the realities of these associations as the participants experienced them. By comparison, Williams's involvement with secret societies, particularly those associated with Arthur E. Waite, is little explored. Of noteworthy interest, however, is Lindop's discovery that Williams's own decks included a Marseilles Tarot and the Rider-Waite Tarot (1909), designed by Arthur E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith. Lindop does not mention the possible connections between Williams and Waite's second Tarot deck, referenced with some illustrations in Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's A History of the Occult Tarot (2002) and more fully studied and illustrated in Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin's Abiding in the Sanctuary: A Christian Mystical Tarot (1917–1923) (2011).
Lindop discusses The Greater Trumps (1932), Williams's only novel including Tarot without thoroughly examining the possible influence of Waite's rituals on it, perhaps because he thinks of it as a "(rather silly) adventure story" (ch. 12). He makes no such judgment of Williams's other novels, however often they were rejected for publication. He does add an interesting argument to the ongoing discussion about Williams's membership in the Golden Dawn. Lindop takes Williams's declaration that he belonged to the Golden Dawn seriously, in spite of considerable evidence that Williams could not have belonged to the original organization. As Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett summarize in their A History of the Occult Tarot 1870–1970 (2002), the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, came under Waite's leadership in 1903 and he renamed it "the "Order of the Independent and Rectified Rite" and then dissolved it in 1914. He founded "The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross" in 1915 with new members and members of the former Golden Dawn (121-22, 143). At the end of Chapter 5 of The Third Inkling, Lindop cites a document written by Williams as an indication that he had passed into the advanced grade of Waite's Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn; a problematic claim given that Williams did not meet Waite until 1915. Lindop rhetorically asks,
Did Nicholson and Lee (or someone else) initiate Williams to that level? Again, we may never know. But the likelihood is that from 1919, if not earlier, Charles Williams was an initiate not only of Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, but also of one of the Golden Dawn's original branches—either the "Independent and Rectified Rite" or the magically oriented Stella Matutina. He probably never told Waite about his parallel membership. (ch. 5)
While the Stella Matutina was indeed a separate offshoot of the Golden Dawn, unassociated with Waite, the "Independent and Rectified Golden Dawn" was Waite's creation, so it is unclear how Williams could have joined it without Waite knowing. Lindop proposes that Henry Lee initiated him into the "original" Golden Dawn after it ceased to exist so that their conversations would not be hampered by the oaths of secrecy associated with membership. This explanation for the oft-cited point about Williams's apparent claim to membership in the (original) Golden Dawn is plausible, although, as I am sure Lindop is aware, not entirely satisfactory. Given the seriousness with which membership in such societies was taken, it seems unlikely that anyone, least of all Williams himself, would have construed an after-the-fact initiation to a defunct organization, conducted for the purpose of circumventing oaths of secrecy, as an indication of legitimate membership in anything. Even so, it is a possibility and it does explain the otherwise contradictory information available on the subject.
The Third Inkling is a thoroughly researched and detailed accounting of Charles Williams's life—including his all too human failings—that offers much to anyone curious about him, his relationships, his ties to the Inklings, his involvement with secret societies, and the formation of his own Companions of the Co-inherence and the effect it had on his life.