J. D. Peabody takes David on a fantastical adventure with the Inklings, as they discuss his fictional children’s series, “The Inkwell Chronicles”.
S7E30: “The Inkwell Chronicles” (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Quote-of-the-Week
I longed to make things. Ships, houses, engines. Many sheets of cardboard and pairs of scissors I spoiled, only to turn from my hopeless failures in tears. I was driven to write stories instead, little dreaming to what a world of happiness I was being admitted. You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Biographical Information
Jeff Peabody is the founding pastor of New Day Church in Federal Way, Washington. He is a husband and a father of three grown children. He is the author of Perfectly Suited: The Armor of God for the Anxious Mind, but also of a middle-grade fantasy series featuring the Inklings, which we will be discussing today, The Inkwell Chronicles.
Chit-Chat
- David read the book, but his wife Marie got to it first!
Toast
- David was drinking Best Day Brewing White Belgian Style Wheat
- Jeff had Irish Breakfast Tea from his Inklings mug
Discussion
01. “Background”
Q. Can you tell us about your background in writing?
Jeff came from advertising and jumped into pastoring.
- The Inkwell Chronicles was inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia.
02. “Perfectly Suited”
Q. This wasn’t the first book you had written. Can you tell us about “Perfectly Suited”?
- Perfectly Suited examines the armour of God through the lens of Jeff’s personal struggles with OCD.
For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
03. “Exposure to Lewis”
Q. What has been your own personal experience with Lewis?
- Jeff’s first Lewis novel was Prince Caspian, which led him to the rest of the Chronicles.
- In college he ran across Lewis’ apologetics, including The Screwtape Letters, A Grief Observed, and Mere Christianity.
04. “Inklings and Friends”
Q. What about the Inklings more broadly, like Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers?
- Dorothy L. Sayers is “Aunt Dot” in The Inkwell Chronicles.
05. “Crafting The Ink of Elspet”
Q. Today, we’re going to talk about the first in the series, “The Ink of Elspet.” Could you tell us about the journey from initial idea to putting it on book shelves?
- Jef was inspired by the buried magical rings in The Magician’s Nephew, but remembered that in The Last Battle, the rings were already gone, and lost on the train wreck.
- Lewis could have been inspired by a major train wreck in 1952. What caused the accident? No one knows, so Jeff began building a story around it.
- The second book in the series, Race to Krakatoa came out last year, and the third novel is set to release in September 2024.
- Jeff had appeared on The Inklings Variety Hour to discuss his book series.
06. “Inklings influence”
Q. How did the Inklings influence this book, both in terms of their portrayals and characterisation, and also through the books that they wrote?
- The books are written in a third-person omniscient point of view, similar to Lewis’ style of writing in The Chronicles of Narnia and his interactions in Letters to Children.
07. “Walking the Line”
Q. How did you walk the line between history and fantasy in your books?
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08. “Easter Eggs”
Q. What are some of the Easter eggs in the book?
- All the Easter Eggs
- Marcus Morris created the Eagle, a weekly British comic strip, which inspired “Max Courageous” in The Inkwell Chronicles. Morris also published the magazine The Anvil, which several of the Inklings wrote short articles for, including C.S. Lewis.
- “Elspet” is the mother of P. T. Forsyth, the Scottish theologian. George MacDonald boarded with her.
09. “The adventure continues!”
Q. We’ve talked about book one, The Ink of Elspet, but there are now two more. Could you give a brief overview of the adventures of the children in these books?
- In Race to Krakatoa, someone has created a new type of ink that corrupts creativity to evil ends, and makes falsehood and truth nearly indistinguishable. The children go on a globetrotting adventure to save the Inklings community.
- The story The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois is woven in to the novel.
- The book lands on a cliffhanger, so the third book, Operation Bungaree, will remain under wraps for now…
10. “The audiobooks”
Q. I really enjoyed the audiobook, the quality was wonderful.
- The Ink of Elspet Audiobook, and the Race to Krakatoa Audiobook, narrated by the wonderfully-named “Fenella Fudge”.
Wrap Up
More Information
- JDPeabody.com
- Check out JDPeabody.com/Invisible for more references and easter eggs regarding the true history, and the Inklings themselves! Read the book and see what you recognize.
