Charles Williams and CS Lewis share a smoke during an Inklings meeting
Charles Williams was clearly many things to many people, and the recent biography by Grevel Lindop has made clearer and more explicit the nasty and exploitative side of his charecter.
Yet the same man was regarded as an extraordinary, inspiring, sustaining spiritual leader and teacher, an almost saintly figure for his spiritual knowledge and wisdom, by CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, TS Eliot, Dorothy L Sayers and others of similar depth and substance - who knew Williams well over a long period.
How can we make sense of this?
I think there are two assumptions necessary. The first is that Charles Williams was essentially a conversationalist; that he was at his best and gave his best in person and in conversation.
The second is that - precisely because he lived so deeply in human interaction - Williams had chameleon attributes, taking on the 'colour' of his social context to an extreme degree...
Read the rest at The Notion Club Papers blog
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