S4E29 – AH – “After Hours” with Holly Ordway

Posted on by

Last year when we had “Tolkien Month”, I heard that Dr. Ordway was finishing up a new book on Tolkien. Since the book is coming out shortly, she came on the show to talk to us about it and Tolkien’s reading habits…

S4E29: “After Hours” with Holly Ordway (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

Timestamps

00:00 – Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:11 – Welcome
01:12 – Dr. Holly Ordway
02:05 – Chit Chat
02:51 – Quote-of-the-week
03:33 – Drink-of-the-week
03:49 – Patreon Toast
04:01 – Interview
49:10 – “Last Call” Bell

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

No Skype Session today!

Show Notes

Opening Chit-Chat

Last season we spoke to Dr. Diana Glyer who explained that the established narrative around literary influence of the Inklings was incorrect. It was commonly thought that the Inklings didn’t influence each other, exemplified by Lewis’ comment that “No one ever influenced Tolkien — you might as well try to influence a bandersnatch”. Well, today we have on the show Dr. Holly Ordway, and in her new book she asks us to re-evaluate some other narratives surrounding the creator of The Lord of the Rings…

Biographical Information

Dr. Holly Ordway is the Fellow of Faith and Culture for the Word on Fire Institute. Her writing, speaking, and teaching at the Institute focuses on imaginative and literary apologetics, and on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. She is also Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. In addition to writing articles, essays, and poems, in pre-COVID days she travelled in the US and internationally as a guest speaker. She has written a number of books: Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith …and a memoir Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms. But her newest book, and the subject of today’s episode, is Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages.

Biographical information about Dr. Holly Ordway

Quote-of-the-week

“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison.

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others…. in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. ”

C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

Drink-of-the-week

  • The next thing is our drink-of-the-week, which today is…Typhoo Tea…which I recently found out was the tea Lewis typically drank.

Patreon Toast

  • Finally, we toast one of our Gold-level Patreon supporters. Today we are toasting Kayla Sanderson:

Kayla, may your life be filled with great literature and, of course, big cups of tea. Cheers!

Patreon toast

Discussion

Biography

  • So when did you first pick up a Tolkien book?

Origins

  • As I mentioned in the introduction, you’re bringing out a new book, Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages…
    • What was the genesis of this book?
    • Why did people think Tolkien didn’t read much modern literature?
    • What did Carpenter get wrong and why?

Methodology

  • How did you work out Tolkien’s reading habits and whether or not he read a particular book?
  • Who were some of the people Tolkien read?
  • Were there any books/influences you came across which surprised you?

Lewis

  • A lot of people express their opinions very boldly about the friendship between Lewis and Tolkien, particularly towards the end of Lewis’ life, as well as Tolkien’s thoughts about Jack’s books. Given that you’ve immersed yourself in the primary sources, I’m really interested to know what the truth actually is.
  • What did Tolkien actually read of the Narnia Chronicles and what did he actually think?
  • What about Lewis’ other books?
  • What can you say about the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis towards the end of lives?

Walter Hooper

  • Lewis’ former secretary, Walter Hooper recently passed away. Did you have any contact with him during your studies and your time in Oxford?

More Holly Ordway

Posted in After Hours Episode, Podcast Episode, Season 4 and tagged , , , , .

David

View posts by David

After working as a Software Engineer in England for several years, David moved to the United States in 2008, where he settled in San Diego. Then, in 2020 he married his wife, Marie, and moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Together they have a son, Alexander, who is adamant that Narnia should be read publication order.

5 Comments

  1. Oronzo Cilli’s “Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist” was published in 2019; was this work useful as a resource or cross-check in the detective work for “Tolkien’s Modern Reading” at all? (I’m thinking it might have come out too late to be of any help.)

    • I passed on your message to Dr. Ordway:

      “Yes, I did reference Cilli’s book in my research (I also saw a pre-publication version, as well as the final published version), and it provided some useful information about books Tolkien owned.”

  2. I’m only four chapters in so far, but I’m really enjoying the book. Thanks for this podcast. It was a good primer before starting.

Comments are closed.