The Dark Tower and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: One suspect novel fragment and some other works.
Review: 'm not going into the question whether Jack Lewis wrote The Dark Tower or not. Other reviews have already commented on that. I personally agree that much of the posthumous Lewis canon, and just about everything that has come from the hands of Walter Hooper, is very highly suspect. Given the nature of "The Dark Tower," I highly doubt he did write it. Much of Hooper's stories feel phony, such as the legendary bonfire and him sitting around with Lewis and Lewis asking Hooper what kind of books he wants him to write.

What I will comment on is the quality. Reading it, you get the sense Lewis (if it is Lewis), didn't really know where to go with his story; there are some very disturbing scenes. The Stingingman, with all its twisted Freudian implications, gives off an aura of `bent' sexuality (to use a term from OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET). Although there were Christian symbols in it, there was not a corresponding image of goodness and a beautiful vision of Godliness to rally around. The trilogy is balanced in this respect: depicting horror, and counteracting that image with goodness. The N.I.C.E. had its counterpart, the house on St. Anne's. The staleness and artificialness of the N.I.C.E. was sharply contrasted by the natural beauty and life flowing from St. Anne's. In PERELANDRA we have a vision of the satanic Un-Man, along with that supreme vision of beauty The Green Lady. Not so in "The Dark Tower." The Stingingman is the most dominant image here. There is nothing to balance it out here.

The concept of this story was probably already embedded in Lewis's mind, because the ending of OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET hints at it. "If there is to be any more space-traveling, it will have to be time traveling as well ...!" The opening scene is dons, along with Ransom, discussing time, the only Christian being Ransom (though Lewis is there, I do not remember if he is representative of Christianity. Must likely he is). Most notable MacPhee is there, unchanged skeptic later to appear in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. The story is that these dons have a chronoscope that can see into an "Othertime", a concept used in Lewis' completed Narnia series. During their chronoscope experiments, they see an idol, one head and many bodies, along with a horned man. This horn man stings these people that come to pray to the idol in this room. The people stung become automatons and some grow horns. Soon they realize one of these automatons (which later turns into a Stingingman) looks remarkable like one of their own dons' assistant Scudamour. Scudamoure is not only in there, but also a double of his fiancee Camilla. Scudamour destroys the chronoscope, and is transported into the Othertime, where he has to convince Camilla he will not sting her. The Dark Tower and its city is besieged by White Riders, who desire to destroy the stinging man and his damned city of evil. When Scudamour was there, he could not say God, because it was not in their vocabulary/ One thinks of Gandalf the White Rider.

When read to the Inklings (presuming it is an authentic work; when asked, many of the Inklings never heard of this story), some thought of the main antagonist, the Stingingmen, had unpleasant sexual connotations. But there is some good stuff, such as Camilla. "She was so free to talk about things her grandmother could not mention that ransom once said he wondered if she were free to talk about anything else." To bad that it ended where it did; the plot was actually getting very intriguing. A vastly interesting fragment, although it is so disappointing it is only that - a fragment.

The rest are interesting. In THE MAN BORN BLIND, the story is told of in TOLKIEN AND THE SILMARILLION by Clyde S. Kilby, and out-of-print dated book about Tolkien. To quote my own review of that book, I do so now:

"A very notable feature is it also talked about the then unpublished C. S. Lewis short story about a man born blind and then getting his eyesight back by surgery, he doesn't understand the concept of light, thinking it a solid substance. It sounds something of a tribute to MacDonald's musing on lights as emphasized in his faerie tales. Or perhaps it was insipiered by that . . . . It is different than the story in some respects, and Hooper felt that Tolkien probably was told a version and had not read the story. "

THE SHODDY LANDS is about a man getting an inside view into a vain person's mind (a woman's). A stream of consciousness piece, which Lewis liked to call "Steam of Consciousness" is rather charming. This, and MINISTERING ANGELS, a story about a bunch of [prostitutes] going to relieve "sexual tension" of males upon Mars, which has rather comic events (the story was suggested by a serious suggestion by Dr. Robert S. Richardson in his article `The Day After We Land on Mars." were published in periodicals SF magazines.

FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN is a piece about mythology on the moon, and very entertaining. The surprise ending, if you are familiar with mythology, is a very good idea, though if you are not then the whole story's point will be lost on you. AFTER TEN YEARS would have been another TILL WE HAVE FACES had Lewis lived to complete it. It would have been wonderful to see another work like TILL WE HAVE FACES. The story is tantalizingly brief, but, like THE DARK TOWER, was meant to be a complete novel.

This review used Hooper's preface and David C. Downing's PLANETS IN PERIL. Anyway, some good stuff, some bad stuff, but it is Lewis, after all. 3 stars. 3 stars because of the fragmentation, one extra because it is, after all, C. S. Lewis. Then again, maybe it isn't Lewis. (Check the stars.)

Rating:
Summary: One suspect novel fragment and some other works.
Review: 'm not going into the question whether Jack Lewis wrote The Dark Tower or not. Other reviews have already commented on that. I personally agree that much of the posthumous Lewis canon, and just about everything that has come from the hands of Walter Hooper, is very highly suspect. Given the nature of "The Dark Tower," I highly doubt he did write it. Much of Hooper's stories feel phony, such as the legendary bonfire and him sitting around with Lewis and Lewis asking Hooper what kind of books he wants him to write.

What I will comment on is the quality. Reading it, you get the sense Lewis (if it is Lewis), didn't really know where to go with his story; there are some very disturbing scenes. The Stingingman, with all its twisted Freudian implications, gives off an aura of 'bent' sexuality (to use a term from OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET). Although there were Christian symbols in it, there was not a corresponding image of goodness and a beautiful vision of Godliness to rally around. The trilogy is balanced in this respect: depicting horror, and counteracting that image with goodness. The N.I.C.E. had its counterpart, the house on St. Anne's. The staleness and artificialness of the N.I.C.E. was sharply contrasted by the natural beauty and life flowing from St. Anne's. In PERELANDRA we have a vision of the satanic Un-Man, along with that supreme vision of beauty The Green Lady. Not so in "The Dark Tower." The Stingingman is the most dominant image here. There is nothing to balance it out here.

The concept of this story was probably already embedded in Lewis's mind, because the ending of OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET hints at it. "If there is to be any more space-traveling, it will have to be time traveling as well ...!" The opening scene is dons, along with Ransom, discussing time, the only Christian being Ransom (though Lewis is there, I do not remember if he is representative of Christianity. Must likely he is). Most notable MacPhee is there, unchanged skeptic later to appear in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. The story is that these dons have a chronoscope that can see into an "Othertime", a concept used in Lewis' completed Narnia series. During their chronoscope experiments, they see an idol, one head and many bodies, along with a horned man. This horn man stings these people that come to pray to the idol in this room. The people stung become automatons and some grow horns. Soon they realize one of these automatons (which later turns into a Stingingman) looks remarkable like one of their own dons' assistant Scudamour. Scudamoure is not only in there, but also a double of his fiancee Camilla. Scudamour destroys the chronoscope, and is transported into the Othertime, where he has to convince Camilla he will not sting her. The Dark Tower and its city is besieged by White Riders, who desire to destroy the stinging man and his damned city of evil. When Scudamour was there, he could not say God, because it was not in their vocabulary/ One thinks of Gandalf the White Rider.

When read to the Inklings (presuming it is an authentic work; when asked, many of the Inklings never heard of this story), some thought of the main antagonist, the Stingingmen, had unpleasant sexual connotations. But there is some good stuff, such as Camilla. "She was so free to talk about things her grandmother could not mention that ransom once said he wondered if she were free to talk about anything else." To bad that it ended where it did; the plot was actually getting very intriguing. A vastly interesting fragment, although it is so disappointing it is only that - a fragment.

The rest are interesting. In THE MAN BORN BLIND, the story is told of in TOLKIEN AND THE SILMARILLION by Clyde S. Kilby, and out-of-print dated book about Tolkien. To quote my own review of that book, I do so now:

"A very notable feature is it also talked about the then unpublished C. S. Lewis short story about a man born blind and then getting his eyesight back by surgery, he doesn't understand the concept of light, thinking it a solid substance. It sounds something of a tribute to MacDonald's musing on lights as emphasized in his faerie tales. Or perhaps it was insipiered by that . . . . It is different than the story in some respects, and Hooper felt that Tolkien probably was told a version and had not read the story. "

THE SHODDY LANDS is about a man getting an inside view into a vain person's mind (a woman's). A stream of consciousness piece, which Lewis liked to call "Steam of Consciousness" is rather charming. This, and MINISTERING ANGELS, a story about a bunch of [prostitutes] going to relieve "sexual tension" of males upon Mars, which has rather comic events (the story was suggested by a serious suggestion by Dr. Robert S. Richardson in his article 'The Day After We Land on Mars." were published in periodicals SF magazines.

FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN is a piece about mythology on the moon, and very entertaining. The surprise ending, if you are familiar with mythology, is a very good idea, though if you are not then the whole story's point will be lost on you. AFTER TEN YEARS would have been another TILL WE HAVE FACES had Lewis lived to complete it. It would have been wonderful to see another work like TILL WE HAVE FACES. The story is tantalizingly brief, but, like THE DARK TOWER, was meant to be a complete novel.

This review used Hooper's preface and David C. Downing's PLANETS IN PERIL. Anyway, some good stuff, some bad stuff, but it is Lewis, after all. 3 stars. 3 stars because of the fragmentation, one extra because it is, after all, C. S. Lewis. Then again, maybe it isn't Lewis. (Check the stars.)

Rating:
Summary: Informed hobbits. . .
Review: . . .have known for some time that grave questions have been presented about the authorship of "The Dark Tower". Lewis scholars like Kathryn Lindskoog (among others) have painstakingly demonstrated that, in all likelihood, a not insignificant fraud has been perpetrated on the literary world by a small number of persons who outght to have known better.

The legends surrounding the "discovery" of this "unknown manuscript" and its near consignment to the flames of a bonfire after Lewis' death have been proven demonstrably false -- and are continuing to be perpetrated mostly by persons who have a financial gain in the Lewis literary estate.

Hobbits (like myself) who love and revere Mr. Lewis almost as much as our own Master, will want to know the true facts of the matter, and will bypass this volume and purchase instead Mrs. Lindskoog's excellent "literary detection" books on the subject.

This volume should be recognized and rejected for what it is: a blatant attempt for profit at the expense of the good name of one of the finest writers of the 20th century.

For shame to the perpetrators of this hoax.

Rating:
Summary: Frustrating!
Review: Already a fan of Lewis' Space Trilogy, I was pleased to find this book in the mid 70's. It was easy to see where the book was intended to fit (between books one and two) and the plot developed well enough that I often wonder why Lewis abandoned it. The most frustrating times are when, right as you are getting interested in the action, the announcement appears, "The manuscript breaks off here..." Sometimes I wish some skilled writer would be intrepid enough to attempt to finish it, but in my more lucid moments I realize that it is best left just as it is.

The quality of the other short stories is uneven, but gives more insight to Lewis' dry sense of humor, profound imagination, and his "secular side."

This book is a "must read" for fans of C.S. Lewis' writing.

Rating:
Summary: Not your everyday C.S. Lewis
Review: I became a fan of C.S. Lewis in the 3rd grade when our home room teacher read the Chronicles of Narnia to our class. I recently re-read the books as an adult and enjoy them just as much as I did then. I really like Lewis's style of writing and I've read other works by him such as "The Screwtape Letters" and "The Great Divorce."

If you're looking for more stories by Lewis, be them in any form, this is a very interesting volume to have in your library, but it may leave you feeling a bit empty if you're longing for more soul-penetrating stories that teach you about yourself.

"The Dark Tower" is incomplete, but a vivid and highly interesting tale of the use of an imaginary device - a Chronoscope - that lets you view an other time the way you would view a star with a telescope. Lewis himself is in the story as one of a group of friends/scholars who meet to watch the happenings of the Dark Tower in the "Othertime."

The story is intense and riveting and I couldn't put it down, but there are pages missing in the middle of the manuscript supposedly discovered after Lewis's death as a newly discovered, previously unpublished work. The end of the short story is also absent... and there is no indication of how close to the end the reader is to the ending when the story is cut off literally in mid sentence. The positive thing is that the story is so well written, it will keep your mind reeling as to the outcome and fate of the characters involved. I've heard that the claims that this is an actual true work of C.S. Lewis is now being disputed, but if it is not of his hand, it sure reads like his style.

"The Man Born Blind" is an interesting account of a man born blind who gets his sight as an older adult and struggles with visual concepts such as "what is light." It's a very short story and if any of the stories in this volume are to be disputed, this one would be my pick... it doesn't read like Lewis and I think Lewis was far more observant of human nature and of his environment in general to have made some of the assumptions he did in this very short story.

"The Shoddy Lands" is pure Lewis... almost like "The Great Divorce," but in miniature. Very interesting explaination at the end that wasn't exactly what I was reading into it at first... a very good story.

"Ministering Angels" is not at all what you think it's about... but nonetheless an interesting futuristic tale of life on a human-colonized Mars. Also a very short story, but it's amazing how Lewis can depict a character so richly and vividly in just a few lines.

Rating:
Summary: Not your everyday C.S. Lewis
Review: I became a fan of C.S. Lewis in the 3rd grade when our home room teacher read the Chronicles of Narnia to our class. I recently re-read the books as an adult and enjoy them just as much as I did then. I really like Lewis's style of writing and I've read other works by him such as "The Screwtape Letters" and "The Great Divorce."

If you're looking for more stories by Lewis, be them in any form, this is a very interesting volume to have in your library, but it may leave you feeling a bit empty if you're longing for more soul-penetrating stories that teach you about yourself.

"The Dark Tower" is incomplete, but a vivid and highly interesting tale of the use of an imaginary device - a Chronoscope - that lets you view an other time the way you would view a star with a telescope. Lewis himself is in the story as one of a group of friends/scholars who meet to watch the happenings of the Dark Tower in the "Othertime."

The story is intense and riveting and I couldn't put it down, but there are pages missing in the middle of the manuscript supposedly discovered after Lewis's death as a newly discovered, previously unpublished work. The end of the short story is also absent... and there is no indication of how close to the end the reader is to the ending when the story is cut off literally in mid sentence. The positive thing is that the story is so well written, it will keep your mind reeling as to the outcome and fate of the characters involved. I've heard that the claims that this is an actual true work of C.S. Lewis is now being disputed, but if it is not of his hand, it sure reads like his style.

"The Man Born Blind" is an interesting account of a man born blind who gets his sight as an older adult and struggles with visual concepts such as "what is light." It's a very short story and if any of the stories in this volume are to be disputed, this one would be my pick... it doesn't read like Lewis and I think Lewis was far more observant of human nature and of his environment in general to have made some of the assumptions he did in this very short story.

"The Shoddy Lands" is pure Lewis... almost like "The Great Divorce," but in miniature. Very interesting explaination at the end that wasn't exactly what I was reading into it at first... a very good story.

"Ministering Angels" is not at all what you think it's about... but nonetheless an interesting futuristic tale of life on a human-colonized Mars. Also a very short story, but it's amazing how Lewis can depict a character so richly and vividly in just a few lines.

Rating:
Summary: the dark tower
Review: I enjoyed this book alot.While the Dark tower was really outthere it still kept you turning the pages and wanting more. the shoddylands spoke to me the most with its warnings about the shallowness of life with out God

Rating:
Summary: A Good Collection, but not the Best
Review: In science fiction, Lewis is best known for his space trilogy ("Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength"), and in fantasy, for his seven-volume "Narnia Chronicles" series. Less known is that Lewis also wrote a few genre short stories and a pair of unfinished novels.

The stories and the unfinished novels are the subject of this collection. It is worth nothing that all of them are available in other collections of Lewis's. To aid readers, in this review I've listed the works in this collection, with notes indicating other collections they have appeared in.

Table of Contents:

"After Ten Years" (1), (2)

"Forms of Things Unknown" (1), (2), (3)

"Ministering Angels" (1), (2)

"The Dark Tower" (2), (3)

"The Man Born Blind" (2)

"The Shoddy Lands" (1), (2)

Notes:

(1) also published in "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories"

(2) also published in "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces"

(3) Lewis's authorship of these is disputed.

Recommendations:

In general, to anyone interested in Lewis's shorter works, my best advice is to get "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces", which, as of the time of this writing, is available from Amazon UK but not Amazon US. That collection consists of about 130 short works by Lewis. The works in that collection are mostly Christian, but it also include all his short works on science fiction and fantasy.

If you are interested in Lewis's science fiction and fantasy, and your budget or enthusiasm does not run to "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces", then you might well want to get this, and possibly "On Stories, and Other Essays" as well (the essays in that collection generally deal with science fiction and fantasy).

Fans really on a budget who are interested in both the essays and the stories might want to get "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories" instead of this - that includes most of the stories in this collection and most of the essays in "On Stories, and Other Essays".

Rating:
Summary: The unfinished fourth Ransom novel
Review: More well known for the controvesy as to whether 'The Dark Tower' was written by C.S. Lewis, it is nethereless an interesting read, although sadly unfinished. The tale about Ransom and some of his friends, including MacPhee, who observe an alternative universe through a chronoscope. It's highlight is when one of the friends, Scudamour, jumps into the chronoscope and thereby swaps places with his double in that 'othertime'. The novel also contains Christian themes such as self-sacrifice and the problems of addictive sin, i.e. Scudamour wanting to 'sting' his fiancee in 'othertime'. Admittedly not as good as any of the Space Trilogy novels (which is probably why it was not finished), just a glimpse gives us an idea what a completed canonical fourth Ransom novel would have been like. And how different it is to the others.

Rating:
Summary: What appears to be a not very clever forgery. . .
Review: Serious Lewis scholars have known for years that much controversy has surrounded the appearance of these "unfinished stories" with regard to their authenticity. Walter Hooper, Lewis's "alleged" secretary, who unfortunately still maintains the rights to Lewis's literary estate, has proven himself to be an unreliable source, at best. Kathryn Lindskoog, among others, has cast serious doubts on whether anything Hooper says or publishes about Lewis can be considered accurate.

Chalk this one up as "deutero-Lewis" (and badly written at that), and forget it.