Walter Hooper: The Life and Writing of C.S. Lewis - Part One

well let me say welcome to Socrates in the city oxford edition thank you thank you I didn't know that the English were capable of such enthusiasm I thank you for surprising me this is really such a joy for me to be here many of you are familiar with Socrates in the city you know that we've done them throughout the United States mostly in New York City never here in merry old England it struck me that most of the people that I wanted to interview that's an exaggeration many of the people I want to interview were here in Oxford and I thought if we did it here it would be very easy to get to sort of set up and do a number of these but I'll tell you a secret we would not have done any of these we're doing eight sessions we wouldn't have done any of them if this morning's guest mr. Walter Hooper had declined because as far as I was concerned this was this was the most important one this was the one that I wanted most to do and I'll tell you why and and this explains really why I'm so excited this is a dream come true for me actually because it struck me a number of years ago that there were several people out there whom no one had invited to do a TV chat show kind of thing they hadn't been able to tell their stories in that format so there are audio tapes here and there and different things and their interviews you can read but I thought can it be possible that Walter Hooper of all people has not been sat down to have a proper conversation about his life and the gigantic influence he has had it means actually more than gigantic it's dispositive would be a good William F Buckley word on the legacy of CS Lewis it's it's it's outrageous and so I think the side of me that's annoyed by injustice says somebody somebody's got to do this this is absurd maybe I could do it what a thrill that would be what a dream it would be and so it's a little bit a long time in coming I first had this ambition I remember distinctly I guess what's the second trimester of my mother's pregnancy with me in 1963 early 63 I knew that I wanted to do this but I really want to do this for a long time so I can't believe that we're here that mr. Hooper has consented it's just a thrill for me that we're finally going to do this and it's particularly thrilling that you've given me this much time because I as I spoke with Walter Hooper at last year I realized there are so many stories it's not like a typical Socrates event where you can sort of do it and you're done it's about a book or something like that it's about the lifetime of CS Lewis it's about his entire move his body of work and about how Walter Hooper as magnificently and utterly uniquely played a role in bringing CS Lewis to the world so someone who's a devotee and lover of CS Lewis and his works I couldn't be happier so so in just a moment a little bit more properly introduced mr. Walter Hooper before we go on we've got a number of sponsors who've made this possible I want to thank them my friend Barbara Bryant of st. Louis our friends Laura and David Thayer of Philadelphia Lisa and Kenny trout of Dallas Sharon Van der Paul of Grand Rapids Michigan and our dear friend Suzie and Jerry Wilson also of Dallas without them this wouldn't be possible I also want to thank the NRB Network and Jerry Johnson who is here for making this possible we are going to air all of these on the NRB Network really really excited if you're watching on the NRB network hi and I want a last but not even close to least my chief of staff and friend ELISA lab heiress who's sitting here in the front row who has done so much work that I try not to think about it because it would just embarrass me that anybody working with me would do this much work but this has been this has been months in the making so ELISA from the bottom of my heart thank you and where the flowers know you could take those we really we we all know that this has been it's been a long time in coming so this is a great great treat for me just a few words there's really not much to say about Walter Hooper because it all sounds insignificant compared to what it is that I think makes him significant but the sort of the little factoids are that he's an author of course and a trustee of literary estate of CS Lewis these are some important facts he was born in Reidsville North Carolina in 1931 served in the US Army for two years earned his master's in education in 1958 and taught English at the University of Kentucky in the early 1960s after he'd correspondent with CS Lewis for a number of years starting with his time in the Army he was able to visit CS Lewis in England where the great CS Lewis the legend asked Walter Hooper to stay with him at the kilns at his home as secretary so following Lewis's death which actually was just a few months later Walter Hooper worked with Lewis's dear friend fellow inkling Owen Barfield really to organize and preserve Lewis's rather vast works so many essays and writings and of course letters we can talk about that as well he became friends with a number of the Inklings most of whom were living at that time including Tolkien Charles Williams and of course on Barfield mr. Hooper was ordained as an Anglican priest and was the chaplain in fact of to Oxford colleges and served as assistant rector of the Church of st. Mary maudlin in Oxford Walter Hooper converted to Catholicism in 1988 we have so much to talk about so I'd better shut up and just say please give a warm Socrates in the city Oxford edition welcome to mr. Walter Hooper well probably the best thing I can say is I have no idea where to start so in lieu of a bright idea I'll start at the beginning if you would tell us your story and how it is that you came to meet Louis and to work with him I was in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill North Carolina in 1953 before any of you were born anyway at that time it's not generally known now but the Korean crisis was going on you know America had not quite pulled out of Korea and so all the young men were being drafted and I was begging my draft board to give me just a few more months a few more months and during those last few months someone introduced me to a book called led us to young churches by JB Phillips which have a introduction by Lewis it was introduction which absolutely or changed my life I never heard such a voice of faith in my life and I kept saying to other people this man really believes and they said but all the believers believe and I said no this is different and I've been thinking about that since all those years and I think what I would say it was different because Lewis believe with the confidence I think that you would find in st. Peter and st. Paul he would have tested everything against this he knew it in a way that we just don't know things today anyway I was going in in badami straightening the army and I thought if only could get a book by Luis unfortunate that the Chapel Hill didn't have his books in stock at that time but anyway in Greensboro there were two elderly women the strong sisters who like to put the book a write book in the right hands so they got up produced a copy of miracles anyway this was basic tracking and you don't have on Oh places you can store things you know so I kept it inside my shirt this hardback book and so doing calisthenics and all of that it was jumping up and down with me but so far none of the sergeant's discovered that even you know climbing under barbed wire but I can make such a huge impression on me that every ten minutes that would be a cigarette break you know arm so you could stop that and then assemble you again and then after ten minutes but I used this ten minutes sitting under a pine tree I think I could recognize the pine tree I was sitting under when I read that wonderful book wonderful book it really just changed my life I've read it many times since then and I knew I had made a huge discovery you know larger than anything I would expect it to happen in my whole life you you were really at that point it seems to me before you got the Miracles book looking for anything by Louis or were you specifically looking for a miracle oh no anything anything no you read this introduction in a JB Phillips translation and by the way Lewis was a real encouragement to Philips writing that great translation were you aware at that point of who Lewis was and of his other works or were you just waiting for these sisters in the Greensburg bookstore to get you something by Lewis what did you know about Lewis at that point I knew almost nothing except that the the captain of the football team at University of North Carolina he had mentions and Screwtape Letters but I didn't see it okay so that that was out in 53 they let the Screwtape Letters it came out in 1942 oh and but I mean this was 53 that I'm talking about but no I didn't know what other books they were you just rather randomly receive this copy of miracles because I'm thinking of all the books of Lois that I loved that's one that I didn't love I mean it's fine I guess I find it rather difficult reading but when you're in basic training I guess you'll take what you can get and it is it is of course great but it takes more effort than some of his his other books anyway go ahead well I was happy to take that effort I remember one of the sergeant's saw me reading bad and he's the soldier you better really ought to be really a work on Korean and learning Korean but one of the things I'm really glad about unlike you so you can go to a bookshop like Blackwell's or maybe even here and you can save there the Chronicles of Narnia and their theological works like new Christianity and so on and then there's his literal criticism I didn't know about these different categories and I'm glad I didn't because he didn't he didn't like being known as several authors but as warned offer of many different types so the the books came to me in a very eagerly piggledy order I think one of the first ones was in fact the etherion torso which was a work by Charles Williams with the commentary on his poems by CS Lewis which one was that a three and etherion torso 2047 and then came our english literature in the 16th century which I love and then came Screwtape Letters and then Oh The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe which had long been art so they came you know I like but I could hear the voice of ceaseless in each of those you know the same bin a siren voice that had reached me from miracles in his reply to me and I didn't expect a reply um he said even at our sins we should look no longer than to know and repent them but they're not a proper object of contemplation where the man comes under the vine meridian he loses his consciousness of self and in the end becomes a creature which fills other people's lives while they in turn help fill our lives but how far from this one is at present he entered so deeply into other people's lives that for a while I wondered before I met him is that any CS Lewis left if he's so spread out in other people's lives and other people are so influential to him well I was to find out later that's extraordinary what you're telling us that he takes the trouble not just to reply but to reply sensitively and in some depth mm-hmm that's it's hard to believe what was are later discovered he he believed that if you write a book or write anybody can write a book if they want to but if you publishable and people you send it and people buy it you have responsibility to those people who write to you you didn't have to do that you in one way ask for that and you all from being paid for it as well so you must reply to people he took them seriously anyway he replied buying or writing an ink with this hand and he replied by return of post which in this country means the same you write the same day you gap of persons letter so he wrote enormous numbers of bladders but but I mean when you look at the quality of the letters you realize he really did answer what I had said to him anyway I liked him even more I'm as a as a man and from that time on after reading six or seven of his books and waiting to read them it made army most wonderful experiences of my life I hated to leave you know in my two years four days and one breakfast were concluded and her anyway I ended up shortly after that our teaching in the University of Kentucky and I had a chance to write a book about Lewis for the Twain's English author series so I wrote to him about that I wit or exchange a good many letters and he said it's far better the answer were right about the unanswering dead because they can't blow the gaff on all the mistakes you make but if insist you know go ahead and write it but uh if you like to or I'll see you if you have come to Oxford so I went to Oxford what what year was this 1963 63 and I had an appointment with him it be killed his house about four and a half miles away on Monday the 10th of June 1963 and I'd only just got here I had not any idea that in English homes they at that time at least the bathroom and the laboratory were separate rooms anyway I went out on Friday as a friend probably so you should find out way lives and be a pity if you know you miss seeing him on Monday because you simply couldn't find the house well nobody industry new way lived since finally somebody said his housekeeper leaves a number 11 kill Lane so she told me for housekeeper how to get to it and she said he's there now if four o'clock he would be having team so go on up so I did and I rang the doorbell and then I know whether you've had these experiences but they happen to me pretty often I suddenly saw myself of what I was armed ignorant beside him and a Tarheel North Carolina what was I doing bothering this man and um I just wish there had been arm a hole big enough to just hold me and brought me into it I really wanted to flee even though he invited you even though he didn't bite him beam but I assumed this would be just the one chance I would have to see him to one chance so I really when he invited me in what I thought this this is what I bought it for years and years and her and he could not have been nice own or the talk was exciting because everything was a kind of disputation with them because you were always talking towards truth Vincennes I remember up during the conversation we had he made a very important distinction as he does in his books I asked him which of your books do you think best and he said I think of peril Andrew is best and then he asked me which of my books do you like the most and feeling that we perform at the same thing I said well I agree with you I agree with you peril Andrew his past he said no bias you asked me which is best I'm asking you what you like the most and I said the one I like more than any book in the entire world is that hideous strength he said so do i but don't you see they're different you know you might find one thing far better than another but you might really like something else but it's like it was I guess it was like sitting with the old knock yeah I think so and you have to explain it that was Louis's tutor I can't when he was what 15 years old yep this when he was always so in one way so why do you say that do you have to really do even know what you're talking about it in other words even the difference the distinction between what do you think is my best book then which book do you like you're the best there are two different questions yeah but I that's a fact but you wouldn't most people wouldn't make that distinction when you're sitting with CS Lewis he did make it so here you are with him for the first time and he's having a wonderful conversation with you but it's interesting that he doesn't relax that way he has of forcing his interlocutor I guess to think hard so you say that hideous strength and then strangely enough he says that's also the book that he likes better from the moment I got that he brought in a pot of tea and I love tea very very much I'm not coffee but tea and he was a God gallon tea drinker after we finished one part he went in the kitchen in brought back a second part and then a third part by this time I must have had 12 or cops world cup Sally I was very uncomfortable like most Americans I didn't know that they had two different rooms you know the bathroom in the laboratory so I said professor Lewis to think I could use the bathroom he said certainly so he took me to what was just the bathroom they'd had a bathtub in there and he took out about four towels and put them bow on the side of the bar it took four tablets of soap and put him beside boy tablets of soap he's having a little fun with Tarheel so our then he closed the door he said you think you have enough above and I said I'm sure I will and so he closed the door so he closed the door you you didn't object you just I I had a very anxious about two or three minutes wondering what to do and the bathroom don't you wish you had taken a bath well um I was too uncomfortable for that so I went back into the common room I was and I said professor Lewis actually wasn't a bath I wanted and he said he was laughing he said that will cure you of those American euphemisms now let's start over again where do you want to go if we're gonna play that name 50 50 years later 52 years later I want to throw it right back at Lewis but I'll throw it back at you lavatory obviously the etymology of that has nothing to do with flushing a toilet I know so therefore isn't that equally wrong and an equally bad British euphemism for oh I will it I thought so but I was wouldn't our so to her oh you okay so so he was a jokester well he it broke bombing he was a man who knew language and there was interested in language and he he told me that right before that an American beautiful American girl of long blonde hair had been entertained by these two elderly ladies who his neighbors and they pay combatted on her beautiful blonde hair how do you make it so beautiful they asked they went that night is and she said I wash them I wash my hair every day in the laboratory well they said to him we never want her back again Oh Brutus girl we've ever met and so he was already primed to think of the results she was getting me some ah now okay okay well the find about two hours after that it was time for me to go and he took me to the to the bus stop which was also where the AMPA for arms that his pub local probable hub so we went in and we had a a pint of beer together and then the bus came and my heart was breaking I remember on the bender short journey to the bus stop regretting that I had even met him because I liked him so much I remember thinking I really love this man and I thought this was it no and I thought was might have been better never to bet him than to taste that wonderful personality and then give it up whatever anyway so skating on the bus I said well thank you very much professor Lewis as being very nice meeting you is it you're like getting away oh no you're not getting away you coming to banking meeting on Monday what are the Inklings were at that time meeting just on the Mondays because Lewis was had been gone once he went to Cambridge they had to change that because he went to Cambridge on Monday afternoon so it had been on Tuesday for many years but it changed as if this is in the ED lunch a well back started about eleven o'clock drinking beer I'm suppressing here I'm surprised that the Inklings were meeting as late as 1963 I hadn't realized that it went on so long continued to throughout the rest of his life oh no they loved the inkling meetings you know and they were meeting at that time they had been to this last several years in the land and flag which is a cross from the bird and the baby and there were eight what happened to make them quit the bird and baby well see in the old days the rabbit room which they met in was part of the publicans own territory that was that sitting-room it didn't it wasn't part of the pub it was part of whether public and lived see here keeper see love was called the publican that's right that's what they call the no no that sounds but anyway they they still are another sin ensign but anyway the the publican Charles blade Grove who had in let's said to them have this room you could meet him okay so no one else was allowed to go in there this was that they had a the rabbit room where we can walk for now so no nobody else would have gone in there because it was a private really was a private room okay so anyway but he had died and the new people who other publicans had opened it up to everybody so they wouldn't have had it privately and they might not have been able to get in at all so they were just having in the in the open room part of the power of the land implying but it was alright I mean they like that too there were eight people that remember and one of those who was occasional visitor was Louis's friend roger lancelyn green who a lot to do with the Nanyan stores and whose books I had read and liked very much and in his King often the Knights the round table he had made a great deal of the spiritual Kingdom of what low grasses calm in and and authors at his etherion book and I mentioned that low grass the spiritual Kingdom which Lewis mentions and batted Lea strength anyway Lewis picked up what I said then it went like a ball you know round the room that other people talked about it he then asked me more questions and I answered he was a very easy man to talk with in these groups he brought you out instead of making you feel small or ignorant anything he brought you out here ially he was like God I beg him that way he wanted you to shine he really wanted the best of you to shine forth there now the Curris thing was he didn't do much talking himself but he made good talk possible but I've never seen anybody who could bring you out more and make you shine when I left that meeting I thought Walter Bupa you are beginning to get intelligent and who else was in that room was talking there at that time no his son or Christopher was son was there I'm sure I think who else own Barfield was he there no he wasn't no no and but John Walsh the a historian was an Barris other members you know that rid of the university like Colin Hardy was always there and dr. Haddad was his doctor and several others but it was a very lovely group but Lewis made it possible it made it work anyway then I thought I'm back to my old warriors again I won't see him anymore this is it I've had him Eddie's at least two times I thought I should be very grateful anyway we step outside and he went down to give some money to this beggar who was sitting on the car the curb though and I am ashamed that I said it but I said the usual thing I said to do is aren't you afraid that this man will spend that money on drink and he said well if I kept it I would and then after that I started on my well thank you very much professor he sees that you're not getting away you're not getting away you coming back to the kills on Wednesday and so how did he know that how long were you planning to be in Oxford a number of months all useful okay so he said you coming on Wednesday and so Wednesday was a lovely day which I asked him what he did for instance that day what he did with his manuscripts and he said well I it was always short of paper and paper was valuable he said because of the war and he said when I write a book saved like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe I turned it over then I write another book on the back of that and then he said and then I throw it away well what can I say stop and but I think he knew that I really did appreciate his writings and was sorry that he did that but I didn't a say anything anyway then he said were you not leaving because you're coming back on Sunday because we're going to church together and you having breakfast there and you have what their breakfast he loved cooking breakfast and now what do you think was behind this did he have a specific reason or he just said no you know you must come back what what do you suppose was going on well I think he knew I liked him very much and I had come a long way and he knew you were working on this book yes he did okay that was very little was said about that he may have liked me I mean this is awful thing to say and I apologize I think of him as just being very good to me but anyway it was not very long after that but we got into the habit of the the three meetings a week and then in early July I went out one Sunday to find him he was an endoscope and he was trying to write a letter to the American lady as she's been called the letters to her were published as American lady mrs. Shelburne anyway who was a complaining person anyway he could hardly push the pen across the paper and he was going into the hospital I didn't realize that he had or problems he had an affected kidney and an affected prostate line but they were he was too weak his heart was too weak for an operation otherwise it'd be very simple and they would be I think in America now but all because they are feared to operate because of his heart he was put on a low-protein die and occasion about once a month he went into the hospital for blood transfusion Wow but he looks so well you would have never guessed anything was wrong anyway besides this you know this problem that is the problem of writing oh he said I'm getting rheumatism in my hand and said usually I have my brother to help me who drives the typewriter drives the day right so typewriters they expressed it so he said but he's an alcoholic he was at that point in Ireland Andromeda where he been going since 1947 and he'd been away already for about six months and so Lewis said the thing is that I really need a secretary would you stop and and live here with me and give up your job and I said yes and anyway he wind in the hospital the next day and then I had become friends with Austin Farah and his wife the ward of ki born and I was with them when we heard that Lewis had had a heart attack and probably was dying anyway after three days we were still waiting by the telephone to him here dying but they rang to say professor Lewis has come out of his coma and is asking for his tea No so we heard around to took the hospital what no matter what month this was this was in July July Austin Paris said you know you you had us worried jack in there said no I don't think it can be said I was a very well man but he said on water I want you to arrive tomorrow morning early with pen and paper because we gather get on with those letters it was the letters were stacking up so for the next two weeks I went by and we worked all day but one of the things I learn as beginning is workers and secretary was I had a lot of correspondence with this lawyer owen Barfield and you mentioned owen bar film was very valuable to him many many ways but in 1941 as Muirfield explained to me Louis that was the year of the Screwtape Letters they were they were published separately in a magazine Church magazine one at a time and it was also 1941 they gave the first series of mere christianity broadcast but rather than receive any of the money Lewis sent both the BBC and the people who were publishing the Screwtape Letters a list of widows and orphans think of st. James's epistle widows and orphans each of the fees were to be sent to a widow or offer them at the end of the year Lewis had to pay tax on all that money he given away and he was really in a quandary so he turned to an Barfield and out of that tobacco what they did together was to set up a charitable organization called the agape farm into which two thirds of Lewis's total income went to be given anonymously to people in need like widows and orphans I couldn't believe that he put so much into it when I thought about how poor the house was when the Husky became dan 1952 she told me she still found the blackout curtains still up on the windows because you know you don't want the Germans to see the light on so you put blackout curtains just this hemline material to fit too so when it was over a couple of bachelors living they're too lazy to go down the haha that's amazing though he said no but why spend money on one curtain Caesar they just don't want to waste money on him so she said well do you mind if I wash these blackout curtains she said go ahead well she put him in soap and water and they melted they turned into ink and you know he bet she poured him out they were probably so full of smoke but they were carcinogenic curtain loss well he he that was one ashtray in the house everybody smoked when I first arrived though with I come from the tobacco town and I gave him a carton of Lucky Strikes which I could cigarettes but strong and then I thought maybe would like something with filters on and uh no okay pack of those you know a carton of filtered cigarettes he looked at those in he said you know my brother and I don't smoke cigarettes with contraceptives on my table the way to his ass keeper in Irwin I for one astray but I'll skip this one ashtray can I get more ashtrays he said he always just flicked the ashes on the carpet he said you see ashes are good for rugs yeah only my delivery man believed it but anyway I said to him and really seriously but Jack why give away so much and he took it very seriously in his Cerdan well I thought God was so good in having me but the least I could do was to give part of back what I made in his service and I thought with shame when was the last time I thought how good God isn't having me but he really had the the temperament of a child Christian in a way and so gracious so grateful that God would have him but that was part of that faith that he had anyway when he came home I thought this is going to be really difficult because I can't keep up the level of this wonderful conversation that he's good at all the timing but he didn't want to talk on time I got and I discovered something it may strike you is on you or simple but he like and I'm sure this he did this with warning he like to sit quietly reading his book with another person so he would say is he picked up his book water didn't you bring your book so he liked to just sit with somebody I've learned but with somebody and then if you had something to contribute you might talk for a while and then go back to the books anyway I found it extremely relaxing I loved being there with him but I have occasional mysteries Ike when I gave him a cup of coffee after lunch I left him alone I felt he needs to be alone so I closed the door and I wondered does he take a nap but I tried to look through the keyhole and anyway I couldn't find out so finally one day I just said Jack I have to know this do you have take a nap when I leave the room oh no oh no he said oh no you see but sometime when that takes me and I think that is the nature of naps you could get in your pajamas and get in bed and one o'clock or something but you'll you won't go to sleep naps have to do for taking her and her unknown but he he was wonderfully cheerful um he had heard me say over and over and over again as seus Lissa said oh but you jab you all see is mesangium so he would start this and ceaseless is said I would like a pot of tea mr. sir said you will make it serious Lisa said I will drink it but then one day but serious things had happened to him I found him really worried about his brother this brings up something a very important conversation that change I think my life permanently I didn't know it at the time but in one way this is occasion the owner time for I won an argument with them arm but anyway he was very worried about what would happen to his brother when he himself died his brother was significantly older than he was at least a few years he was four years old four years old then but he was an alcoholic and you know he just let money just waste away he didn't have enough to live on himself I think not Grumpy's pension so Lewis was worried about what what he would live on when he himself time I said is simple he will live on your royalties yeah and he said but what you don't understand is that after an author dies after about three years after he dies his books trail off to nothing and this will happen and I said but it won't happen to your books and he said well sometime an author has a resurrection like Sir Walter Scott was having them but is this it very very mine will stop and I said actually they won't stop and he said what is it about this young secretary who knows things that I don't know why won't they stop and I said because your books are so good and your readers are not that stupid I'm not sure he believed it but I believed it when you said to him your books won't disappear and and you insisted I feel like you sort of cheated because a large part of the reason his books did not disappear as he thought they would is absolutely and only because of your efforts that's an historical fact so don't argue with me no no but the fact is that as good as his books are I am aware and I hope you'll tell us today and in the next two days what your role was the role that you played in helping his work to live on past him because it it really ends up being a huge effort so so you cheated when you said yes they will because you made sure that they did but we don't know what would have happened if you were taken out of the equation well I couldn't believe that they would stop but then when he died and I went to Blackwell's and saw huge quantities of his books remaindered then I began to fear he could have been right but I still want to stop this yeah can you tell us about his death because were you were not here at that no no it wasn't him he teased me he said he saw me this little notebook coming out and scribbling things in it he said you know the not the divine joke on you is going to be I will die and you won't be here take down my lost immortal words and I said in that case I'll even know what you write and bounce from the face so anyway then we get left but we exchange many letters about then of what we're going to do when I get back and so I've retired you know from my my job and was waiting to come back in January when he died the same hour that President Kennedy I knew it was the same day November 22nd 1963 but I never know it was the same hour well one of the people who acted quickly at that time was Austin Farrar again who wrote to me in certain please come back please come back I feel there's a work for you waiting here you do needed so I did go back and I lived with them for several months and we can about Keeble college with with the Austin fair yeah and then this was the time when I met warning oh you hadn't met him at all he was entirely oh that's right now I don't quite understand he would go to Ireland just to go to Ireland or because when when Lewis said to you that he was an alcoholic I wasn't aware if there was some connection with Ireland would he just go off on a drunk to Ireland or he as he reveals in his own biography of brothers and friends in 1947 he went to draw hotdogs and best near Dublin and on he was to meet a fellow friend though but anyway the friend didn't show up and he became got very very drunk and ended up in the hospital and one of the first people to see he saw when he opened his eyes was mother Mary Martin the founder of the medical missionaries of Mary who built that huge hospital Our Lady of Lourdes hospital so she nursed him back to health with what the doctors so she'd then sent for CS Lewis to come over though and he went over very worried about his brother this 1947 but warned he wouldn't come home with him he wanted to stay in this in the white horse and he had found a little anglican church star which he went to and so it became this home away from home and the nuns allowed him to go out all day and drink and yet come home at night to the hospital and he had a nice library close friend major Henry another alcoholic another major who had a car and they would best go around all day long you know from pub to pub Little Billy to village so oh he got used to about life he liked it and so this is where he was when I was with Lewis but you know was the connection to Ireland I just have to ask because they had grown up in Ireland it was that war nice connection that he had friends from childhood or no it's just that he loved Ireland things a much more relaxed they were at that time in Ireland than they were in England I mean you couldn't very well go to a hospital and in Oxford and you know and drink all day and then go home head into the hospital and asleep and the bad you know oh but they allowed it and anyway he came back for to look after his brother though in November yeah right before his brother died so about a few weeks to go boom anyway when he came back to take care of him down but then warning I was getting ready but I met him to go back to our room but anyway he had decided that he was a broke man he didn't have enough money and so he moving out of the kills which could have been his for the rest of his life but he bought the taxes would be so much so he had bought a small house close by and he was getting rid of rid of everything anyway he gave me a lot of his lewis's notebooks and papers and he invited me to start editing Louis's writings so this was what made it possible for me to do what I've done for the last 50 years this idea that now you come back and you are deputized with this job of dealing with the works of Lewis that there's no one else overseeing this and sometimes I think with famous people we assume someone's taking care of bat something there's somebody to take care of that but the idea that there was no one the idea that his brother is so worried that he can't I mean what a strange irony that he's making so much money in royalties he's giving it all away and now his brother is worried that he can't stay in the kilns and that he's got to move out and well that they both been tended to panic I think this was in the nature of that family but it wasn't really up to him I mean he had he was the beneficiary of Lewis's world but it was really up to two other people Lewis's executives to decide who did what and they were Owen Barfield and Cecil Harwood and the at that time you know because books were of copyright for 50 years after the author's death they didn't think they could live for 50 years but they thought I could but they saw my interest and they had things their lives were very complex and busy they were writing their own books and they didn't want to spend all that with that friends books so they were happy to save this young American you know who could do all this legwork and who was interested and what needed to be done just so we understand I mean he dies it's difficult for us to imagine what what was necessary he'd written all of his books obviously what was well I had heard from one of the publishers that one of the best ways to sell a new book is to bring back old books that of the same author well Lewis was working on a volume of all of his own poems when he died and so I felt as a tribute to him I should finish the book that he wanted to put into prayer okay so and was the publisher well Jeffrey bless okay the famous yeah I then presented them with the poems and they were willing to publish them and so that was but that book came out but then I then began I realized that Lewis knew very little about his own writings and he didn't have copies up and he had a copy one of the Nanyan stories he had very few of his own works one time instance he said what is your favorite poem can you quote your favorite poem I said I can he said would do so it was actually a poem from his book of pilgrims regress which I like very much caissons it's called you know what I quoted the poem and he said wow that's so good could you write down a copy for me I said but Jack it's your poem is it that's not half bad is it I'm confused because I was under the impression that Lois surely had what we call a photographic memory he did but except his own works you don't think he was putting you on now I'm wondering I guess he was such a joker no no amazing well it's almost like he had some kind of extreme humility which I always went when I encounter that I always wonder if that is God's will or if one can push it too far and and be so self abasement well I think what's he wrote something he ceased to have much interest in it he went on to something else yeah but I hate what kind of lie dude I mean he really was thrilled to hear that poetry that's amazing now did he have any sense of I mean you said that he is keeping up this outrageous correspondence with dozens and scores of people around the world and spending great effort in that did he have any sense do you think that what he was writing would be collected at some point you if people listening don't know you among all the things you've done one of the greatest things you've done is published three gigantic volumes of Louis's collected letters a gigantic editorial effort to do that but Lewis is pouring so much of himself into letters to strangers practically do you suppose that he had any sense that they might be preserved I think yes I saw one time a note he wrote when he was in the hospital to his brother he was worried again about what his brother would live on when he died and in that little short note he said what you might do to try to keep the wolf from the door is to collect and publish some of my letters their ritual spiritual letters and so I knew that he was aware but been ripped that way work junker they were not junk when text messages he didn't preserve letters to him and I don't he could have told you where the letters were sent to well this is the question I want to ask this because we're not going to do any of this in order but since we're on this subject in collecting his letters surely there are many many letters that he wrote which you wouldn't have been able to get back to publish do you have any well as he spent two hours every morning writing letters what I have published in something like um 3,500 pages they can't represent all that he wrote so you know but there that that's the best I can do so far well so far he's so beginning 1967 I began collecting his letters for the Bobby in my brain so at least I had the advantage of knowing who he million people who wrote to him so I wrote to them and asked for his letters the body and library is not able to pay some you know he'd sound like that so or they have our number of people called the Friends of the Bodleian of which I'm one and we just collect four on behalf of the body and library so that's where most of the letters or good most of them are but then the good thing in Wheaton College is well but Wheaton and the Bob Lee and have an exchange program they send copies of what they have and we send copies of what we have been there it's just extra well I just think that anyone who loves Lewis he's a never-ending fountain you don't ever have to stop reading Lewis and reading those letters I know that I haven't read all of them yet but I have them you were talking about the job that was given to you that he didn't care about his own writing so you're you're presented with what at that point your job my job was to I wanted his books to stay in print but I believe is if that publisher said a new book helped sell old books well I began to go of the bubbling library and look through everything and we take out say a journal like The Guardian this is a church magazine and start with page one it would take me usually two weeks just turning pages see if I can find anything by sea as schoolers and I did that with the church times of page-off page-off the page and now but ah one time I was seated across the seat from this tall priest from Canada and he could watch because he was very told he could look down over the partition and see what I had and one of Lewis's friends had told me a young man that he was pretty sure he'd seen something by Lewis in something called men only what I got it into my head that then only was about deep-sea fishing and wrestling with bears and things threats are ordered ah as I always did something like you know from 1930 up to 63 so they had piles of these something they brought him in two or three trolleys and they put our stack of about a hundred in front of me we weren't about the safest shape Lord no our and the priest was looking at me I was so embarrassed they were pornography that you haven't understood that yet and in a way I followed him up when he was just shaking his head all the time and I followed him and I said well this not what you think what do you think I think he said I said isn't it I'm not reading pornography I'm looking actually to see if there's an essay by CS Lewis and you really expect to find a member and I said well somebody said they thought maybe there was be said I don't believe you anyway I followed him down to st. Penny's pleading with him I said just give me a chance I'm really not what you think he said mm-hmm we'll see we'll see because it was loud the next day and anyway he saw me as I went through on top 1963 turning every page I didn't find anything by see ha ha ha but anyway during the on that year I found a lot though but when you say found things so found essays or little things that oh now I can collect Oh many many things and reading his poems you said he wondered the things that he simply didn't know about how many poems he published and where they were and they were mostly published in punch magazine yeah and other places so I found many many poems and that's what was published in you know October ok 464 so that was the book so that really was your initial project was to get out this new book yeah within a year of his death and so you were looking for for his films now that was selected poems or collected poems what was that it was just poems it was called it was selected but they just called poems okay and so wasn't definitive it wasn't the best love that you thought no no but I liked his poems for very much and at the same time I had inherited from Warren him a number of other manuscripts such as some many essays that he had read in Cambridge to various groups and so I published a volume with Cambridge and then a copy with our blasts but at that time blast soon went out of business and I had to deal with HarperCollins or colleges if they were called at that time he's before Collins and Harper merged before they emerge and the two people who ran it were some sir William Collins and his wife Lady Collins lady Holland lady comments I remember about her I remember you telling me about her well she was the one who published the paperbacks of Lewis's works called blessed into him and I had to go up and talk to her in London about this new book I had and London I had never met anybody that grand as grand a lady Colin anyway lady Collins was in an office they took me up and opened the door and I saw it once all the furniture was covered in green velvet there was a little fire in the grate and Lady Cotton's were sitting by on that green velvet chair holding a chihuahua and spoke who was now covered in green velvet no okay and she's smoking such erroneous cigarette through a jade holder oh I think this is most romantic human being I have ever laid eyes on and and then tea was brought in in Georgian Oh silver how did you know what the silver was Georgian because I I knew enough about sober uh-huh I think you still do actually if she told me to jump through the window I would have dragged it on it but I I said lady Collins you can have this new book on condition that you bring back two of the old books or out of breath half off is a very brave and I thought she'd just say no I'm not but she said all right which one which two do you want me to bring back and I said pilgrims regress and abolition of man which one would you like first and I said abolition a man she said all right you write the blurb for the back of it and I'll bring it out oh my god well she was wonderful wonderful I loved her very very much and but I just want to say and I don't care what you think how wonderful you are that you were there with this eccentric woman and you had enough bravado and confidence in what you were called to do to to say to her that she must put out two new books that's those of us who love Lewis must know that we have you to thank because I cannot imagine what might have happened as I hear as I've heard you tell some of these stories before it becomes eminently clear that that it is not even close to inevitable that his works would have carried on I mean the abolition of man which is so central to so many people's lives it's a prophetic work unfortunately speaking about much that's happening today and that's finally many things that are finally bearing fruit today many trends that Lewis had his finger on you know the idea that you were able in 1964 to get this woman to say she'll be at that little town that's not insignificant so I just want to annotate your comments to say that that that's that's a big deal that as a young man you were willing to to sort of put that out there and how wonderful that she had the wisdom to see that this was it was a good idea but that's I'm I'm excited just to hear this well thank you I it sometimes it wasn't little people romantic people like lady Collison but I'm number oh and barfi room he kept being amazed he said you you don't mind doing anything do you but as you do sacrifice anything for SIA sir but we had just received a contract for a book that I put together called God in the dark I given to people Birdman's now and they did you come up with that title where does that title come from it comes from one of lewis's essays the people in the past they believed in God or the gods and they believed they were there they were being judged but for the modern man the roles are reversed God is in the dark and man is on the bed well that's one of those British terms that most Americans have no idea what that means no I wonder why they even chose it God in the dark it's it's it's just an old foreign term well we got the contract for them they were willing to take it but they were giving Lewis and this is what really hurt me they were giving lowest 10% royalty that's what you start a young man with you start with 10% and so Owen ba phasis were best outing him as though he's nobody and so I struck through it with a big bent and put 15% he said you can't possibly get away with that can you I said try it let's see I did I'm surprised too but anyway in New York mullets burner yeah that's terrific and do they even have a word for this in England what'd I do well let's ba what would they call that I I think it's I think that characteristic it maybe it took an American - I think you be so open grassy would be maybe I'm much worse a little Pressy yeah I was very passive then I'm not now I've lost it something I think you know but I needed to be at that time yeah and I thought about argument with Luis which I obviously have one would you say yeah yeah well it's it's extraordinary and it's absolutely extraordinary I think if there's so many things I'm so glad we have a couple more days to continue our conversation although I confess I hate to stop now just because it's there's so much that I want to ask you about these manuscripts and about war knees bonfires where he would put the manuscripts on and rescuing manuscripts and just is just so much but I guess we'll get to that tomorrow same bat-time same bat-channel 11 a.m. here it's in all dates I want to thank you again for being part of this and I do mean that if you had not consented to doing this you know we've been emailing over the year we wouldn't have done any of this I said to me this is the this is what must happen the other stuff is ancillary we've got wonderful interviews but this I felt must happen because as I said to me it's it's nothing less than an injustice that these stories haven't been told in a in a more public way I know that many of them are out there you've written things you send me some things but to hear them from you is significantly different so thank you for being here and we'll let you leave if you promise to return tomorrow and so thanks great no I think yeah I know there's a wait we've only scratched the surface that's what so that's why I said we've got to do several of these so but in the interest of your time and energy we'll do it in this fashion so another enthusiastic Socrates in the City Oxford round of applause you

Channel: socratesinthecity

Views: 116,975

Keywords: EricMetaxasSocrates, Eric Metaxas, C.S. Lewis, Walter Hooper, Literature (Media Genre), Writing (Interest)

Id: slMLk4dhh0M

Length: 72min 52sec (4372 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/pintswithjack]

If you want to watch his requiem mass, the livestream and service sheet are here:

https://www.pintswithjack.com/post/walter-hooper-requiem-mass

[u/annafanten]

Great video, thank you for sharing.

[u/hmyers8]

All three parts of the interview were absolutely incredible.