S7E40 – “Season Finale”

We have finally reached the end of Season 7! David, Matt, and Andrew gather together one last time before their well-earned break to share their highlights of the past season and talk about Season 8…

S7E40: “Season Finale” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-Week

It is a wonderful thing and a strengthening of faith that… souls differing from each other in place, nationality, language, obedience and age should have been thus led into a delightful friendship.

C. S. Lewis, Letter to St. Calabria (March 17th, 1953)

Season Recap

• David went over the highlights and accomplishments of Season 7 of Pints with Jack:
  • Hosting a free viewing party for “Surprised by Oxford”
  • The first ever C. S. Lewis Reading Day
  • Read “Letters to an American Lady”, his “Letters to Children”, and the “Latin Letters”
  • Brought “Letters from Jack” was back into print, sending it to upper-tier supporters, and sold it to whomever wanted to purchase it
  • Another month of Jack’s Bookshelf
  • Completed The Chronicles of Narnia
  • Paid tribute to Jack’s lifelong master, George MacDonald in MacDonald Month

Chit-Chat

• Matt has officially moved to Old Town Alexandria in Washington, D. C., and is in the thick of wedding and honeymoon planning. He also just got back from a short trip to Oxford, attending a friend’s wedding. While he was there, Matt finished a third of “Perelandra”, and also read “Mystical Perelandra”, a criticism of the novel.
• In “Selected Literary Essays”, Lewis wrote an essay called “Hamlet: The Prince Or the Poem?”, where he stated that reading criticism of “Hamlet” made him want to page through it again.
• David and his wife Marie just finished “Howards End”, which includes scenes from Oxford, including one that takes place in Addison’s Walk.
• Andrew admonished Matt for not visiting the Lewis exhibit while in Oxford. The book “C. S. Lewis’s Oxford” provides a secondary look into that world. Matt mentioned that while there, he was gifted a first edition copy of “The Great Divorce”. He also found another first edition of “The Abolition of Man” in a used book shop.
• The C. S. Lewis conference that Andrew was hosting went swimmingly, and will be repeated next year! Florida listeners, keep an eye out for “Mere Christians: Surprised by Love”, which will dive into “The Great Divorce”, “Surprised by Joy”, and “Till We Have Faces”, and how all of our stories are stories of love.
• For David, life has been exceptionally busy with work projects. His wife Marie’s side of the family continues to grow, with two new babies since every one last spoke. And there is lots of travel in the works for the year; Oregon for The Undiscovered C.S. Lewis Conference, D.C. for Matt’s wedding, and a trip to Ireland and England for a family vacation.

Toast

• In an attempt to enjoy Irish whiskey more, David was drinking Teeling Whiskey (small batch)
• Andrew was two-fisted drinking a stein of Old Speckled Hen, and a dram of Laphroaig.
• Matt had an Non-Alcoholic Blue Moon.

• Matt toasted new Patreon supporters: Kathy Perrine, Sarah Mikhail, Mark Adams, Scott Thompson, Mary Kay Predmore, Kevin Morgan, and Edgar Toscano. Cheers!

Discussion

01. “Season Highlights”

Q. As outlined in the introduction, we’ve done a lot this season! Any thoughts you want to share about Season Seven?

• Matt recalled the letters to Don Giovanni, specifically the focus on the Crucified Christ, and the reverence to Him. Additionally, in the first section, there was an emphasis on the importance of obedience.
• His favourite interview was “Jack’s Bookshelf: Plato”, After Hours with Louis Markos, because Matt enjoyed the influence that Plato played in “The Last Battle”.
• “The Last Battle” was very moving for Matt, and he’s excited to read them through again, since it has been seven years since he read “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”.
• Since Matt is considering reading Narnia on his honeymoon, David encouraged the tradition, recalling when he read “Out of the Silent Planet” on his.
• Andrew loved reading through the letters: always refreshing! He also liked collaborating with fellow Lewis podcasters for C. S. Lewis Reading Day.
• This season, David endorsed a few books, including “Re-enchanted” by Rob Jones, and “Once a Queen” by Sarah Arthur. For the latter, he was invited to the launch party, and judged an English accent competition.
• David had some high praise of Matt’s interviews this season, especially “Lewis on the Christian Life” with Dr. Joe Rigney, and “My Journey” with Will Vaus. From his own sessions, he enjoyed “The Major and the Missionary” with Dr. Diana Glyer, and “Northrop Frye” with Angelina Stanford. In response to the Stanford interview, Kay Pelham wrote a review on FaceBook:

Y’all, this is so good! Angelina lays out the history of literary criticism prior to Lewis, and then Lewis and Tolkien and their work at Oxford, Lewis at Cambridge, how Frye crossed paths physically and philosophically, and she names the bad guys and bad criticism, too!  This is the knowledge she gives in class, and with her usual wit and energy. Don’t miss this! More million dollar teaching for free!

Kay Pelham, FaceBook review

• Finally, this season, David has developed a taste for George MacDonald. Matt mentioned that his fiancee recently finished “Phantastes”, and loved it. David advised that Matt read “The Golden Key” first.

02. “Listener Feedback”

Q. So that’s what we thought of Season 7… let’s now read a few thoughts from listeners in the form of iTunes reviews. I picked one out for each of us…

My very favorite C.S. Lewis podcast! David, Matt and Andrew are intelligent and articulate and always interesting and funny!

Deadhead76

I started listening to the show back in Season 2 and have been really impressed with the commitment that David, Matt (& Andrew) have to elevating their game. It may have begun as a podcast about a couple of CS Lewis fans talking through some of their favorite works, but it quickly became a well-organized, professional production featuring guest interviews “After Hours” on all manner of fascinating Lewis-related subjects. I appreciate that they truly love to connect with their listeners and that they are consistently, creatively engaging Lewis from so many fascinating angles.

One of the latest additions I really enjoyed was Jack’s Bookshelf, which naturally made me want to go read more Dorothy Sayers and also built a deeper appreciation for Jane Austen, whose corpus my wife and I toured a couple years ago with joy. It has been a great tool for study and thought-provoking conversation in my own CS Lewis group, which has been meeting for nearly as long as the podcast has been around. Thanks for all the love you guys pour into the podcast, it definitely comes through – can’t wait for Perelandra!

“A Long-Expected Review”

CS Lewis, Jack to his friends, is a gifted writer. I found Jack first in his book Mere Christianity. This podcast is a Wonderful companion as you read through the book. Highly entertaining and thought provoking. Thanks.

Floridarandy

03. “The Shape of Next Season”

Q. So let’s talk about Season 8…  Now, we had originally intended to start Season 8 in September, but Matt’s thoughtless decision to get married means that we’re going to have to bump it to October. However, the feeds will not be dead until then…

• David will be posting the audio from our two live streams from last year’s #CSLewisReadingDay…as well as probably some stuff from the Undiscovered C. S. Lewis Conference.
• We’re going to be returning to the Ransom Trilogy, this time travelling to “Perelandra”! We’re also going to break up our time on Perelandra a little bit, by interviewing a guest on a “Perelandra”-related subject on the last Thursday of each month.
• Speaking of interviews, we’ve got some great ones lined up for next season…
• We’re going to be discussing Joy Davidman’s book on the Ten Commandments, “Smoke on the Mountain”, with our representative from Orthodox Judaism, Dr. Yaakov Weinstein.
• And speaking of Inklings-adjacent authors, we’ll also be talking with Steve Weidenkopf about another Sheldon VanAuken book, “Under the Mercy”, a sequel to “A Severe Mercy”.
• Dr. Simon Horobin, who recently appeared on a Half Pint video with me will be back to talk about his new book, “C. S. Lewis’s Oxford”.
• Lots of other stuff… I’m probably going to try and arrange something surrounding Sigmund Freud so that we can talk about the recently-released movie about Freud and Lewis, Freud’s Last Session. And we’re planning an event around that movie in the fall.
• An audience favourite, “Jack’s Bookshelf”, will be returning once more and we’ll be looking at figures including St. Augustine, Wordsworth and T. S. Elliot. The title of “Surprised by Joy” came from a poem from Wordsworth!

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?

William Wordsworth, Surprised by Joy

• David and Marie have been reading Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Allen Prufrock” on Saturday mornings.

Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

T. S. Elliot, The Love Song of J. Allen Prufrock

• Andrew’s favourite line from the poem was “There will be time, there will be time, To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet…”, because of a talk he gave at Mythcon 47, titled “Time to Prepare a Face”, found on Mythlore.
• We’ll also have a “Narnia Month” as usual, but since we’ve now finished all the books, we’re going to start looking at the adaptations, beginning with the BBC adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Naturally, we’ll have Dr. Lazo (Lazo Major, Lazo-of-the-many-books, …) joining us in that discussion.
• We’ll also interview guests on Narnia-related topics. Since the subject of the Inklings and environmentalism has come up on the Slack channel, we’ll be talking to Matthew Dickerson about his book, “Narnia and the Fields of Arbol”.
• And before we come to the Season Finale, we’ll be wrapping up Season 8 with “Charles Williams Month”, good preparation for when we finally get to “That Hideous Strength” in Season 10! Sørina Higgins will be joined by other guests as we do dive into Williams’ life, especially all the weird bits!
• There is a new book about Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis written by Oxford professor of systematic theology, Dr. Paul S. Fiddes, titled “Friends in Co-inherence”. No promises, but there might be an episode with Dr. Fiddes in the future.
• And, of course, there’ll be a Half Pint episode each month on our YouTube channel.

Wrap-Up

More Information

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Concluding Thoughts

• Of course, Matt will be on his honeymoon over break.
• Andrew suggested that listeners read “Perelandra”, “The Magician’s Nephew”, and “Till We Have Faces” in preparation for next season. He described the “Venusian” mindset that Lewis had when writing these books, outlined in more detail in “Planet Narnia” by Michael Ward.
• Regarding Patreon, US-based Listeners in the top two Patreon tiers should have by now received their end-of-season “thank you” gift from us – we hope you enjoy them! And all Patreon supporters will be receiving a “welcome to Season 8” before our first episode drops.
• David will be appearing on Pints with Chesterton soon to help his wife finish “The Everlasting Man”.
• Andrew had a final word for listeners, co-hosts, and himself:

If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children

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