On Imagination

As you can see, I lied about what the next blog would be. Oh well.

From about 1925 to 1930, C. S. Lewis and his friend Owen Barfield had a long discussion in writing, principally about imagination, in which they disagreed so vehemently that they later referred it as their “Great War,” an allusion to WWI in which both men played a part.

One of the main points of disagreement was on what imagination was for, and more specifically, whether it could lead to truth. Another way to put it might be, “Could imagination teach us anything of value about reality?”

Let me tell you a story about how this question became important to me.  When I was a teenager, perhaps a bit older than Suzy is at the end of book one, I read The Lord of the Rings. When I finished it, the effect on me was profound.  It didn’t leave me speechless, so much as struggling to find the right words to describe what it produced within me. I recall talking to my mother as she worked away in the kitchen.  And if she was in the kitchen, she was working.  Me, not so much.  Usually, I’d be hanging around waiting to eat.

I don’t remember exactly what I said to her, but I was probably going on in my inarticulate way, trying to tell her how much the book had meant to me, how I felt—no, knew—that it had changed me somehow.  Who knows how long I was talking as she was chopping vegetables for the salad. And, yes, I know there was no reason I couldn’t have been chopping them too, though (given the way I was feeling with the spirit of epic adventure calling strongly to me) I would likely have reached for a sword over a chef’s knife had one been on offer. In any case, I eventually stopped talking and silence—a blessed one, no doubt, from my mother’s point of view—ensued. A few seconds later, she looked up from her work and said, “But it isn’t true.”

I can’t remember how I replied to this, but I do know that I would have wanted to say something about it being truer than the kitchen table I was sitting at. I can only hope that I rapped it for dramatic effect. The one thing I’m sure of is that I didn’t have the vocabulary or training then to explain what I meant. Could I talk to her now, I believe I could take a stab at it. But alas, she has gone to her well-deserved rest.

If anyone reading this has been profoundly moved by something they’ve read, or seen, or heard, I would encourage them to take the experience seriously, to ask what has been awakened within them and what they ought to do about it.