Monthly Archives: June 2017

C.S. Lewis’ Amazing Connections with Canada: A Canada Day Friday Feature Visit to the Vault

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

Tomorrow is Canada Day here in the Great White North. Canada Day is, unsurprisingly, celebrated in Canada, and by the millions of Canadians hidden secretly among the peoples of the world, waiting until the signal to rise up and overthrow … Continue reading →

When Sam Gamgee Wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

As far as I know, no one named Puddleglum or any Pevensie has ever written to C.S. Lewis. Has anyone named Ged or Arha ever written to Ursula K. Le Guin, if there is anyone with those names? Among the various Potter … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Arha, C.S. Lewis, Ged, Harry Potter, Humphrey Carpenter, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Patrick Rothfuss, Puddleglum, Samwise Gamgee, Ursula K. Le Guin | 13 Comments

The House that Sharpe Built: “The Slip” by Mark Sampson

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

In some ways, it is all the fault of a lapel pin. That’s when it all began to fall apart for Dr. Philip Sharpe, Professor of philosophy at Canada’s most prestigious university and the author of a number of hit … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | 2 Comments

Between Mars and Malacandra, Fantasy and Real Life (A Friday Feature Visit to the Vault)

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

This is a post from 5 years ago that I still quite like. What interested Lewis about planets as a literary backdrop was not their physical properties but their mythical properties—both how they worked in classical and medieval mythology, and how … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Friday, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged C.S. Lewis, literature, Mars rover, myth, Of Other Worlds, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, science, Science Fiction, The Discarded Image, writing | 15 Comments

On Food Insecurity, Systems Mapping, Beren and Lúthien, and Other Obviously Connected Things (An Update)

Posted on June 22, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

I have had one of those unusual weeks where my research with the government of Prince Edward Island has taken over. I have been in Lean Six Sigma training, which is a fairly heavy duty process management system. Our team … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged A Severe Mercy, Beren and Lúthien, design thinking, food, food insecurity, Lean Six Sigma, Mark Sampson, Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Patrick Rothfuss, policy development, poverty, Prince Edward Island, public policy, research, The Name of the Wind, The Tale of Beren and Lúthien | 4 Comments

Please Vote: “The Outlaw In My Lineage” by Nicolas Dickieson

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

The other day I took my family for a walk around my land. It is just a handful of acres now, a field farmed for soybean or alfalfa. It once was part of a much larger 100-acre plot that was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Canada, farming, Heritage Fair, History, Nicolas, Prince Edward Island | 5 Comments

20 Years to 8 Children in Narnia with Author Jared Lobdell

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

I encountered Jared Lobdell’s work because he was one of the few critics to make C.S. Lewis’ WWII-era science fiction–what I call the Ransom Cycle–a study of its own. His 2004 book, The Scientifiction Novels of C.S. Lewis: Space and … Continue reading →

Posted in Fictional Worlds, Guest Blogs | Tagged books, C.S. Lewis, fantasy, Jared Lobdell, Joe Christopher, literature, Madeleine L'Engle, Narnia, publishing, Ransom Trilogy, Science Fiction, That Hideous Strength, The Dark Tower, The Man Who Was Thursday, writing | 9 Comments

2017 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists and A Review of “The Chapel of the Thorn” by Charles Williams

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

The Mythopoeic Award shortlist is out (see here). I’m not often at the same table as the cool kids on the newest and hottest fantasy lit–I’m just now reading Patrick Rothfuss, and wondering what I have done with my life … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged A Grief Observed, Arthuriana, Beowulf, Bodleian Library, Chapel of the Thorn, Charles Williams, fantasy, Gladstone's Library, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Atwood, Marion E. Wade Center, Mythopoeic Award, narrative poetry, Patrick Rothfuss, Poetry, religion, Science Fiction, Shakespeare | 14 Comments

The Deeper Meaning of “The Great Divorce” (Feature Friday)

Posted on June 9, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

It’s difficult to know why, but this post has remained among the most popular for the last few months. For the past few years I have been trying to encourage a recovery of The Great Divorce. It is a great work, … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Friday, Original Research | Tagged C.S. Lewis, controversy, Dante, Galatians 2:20, George MacDonald, heaven, hell, Love Wins, Narnia, Rob Bell, self-death, The Great Divorce, The Last Battle, The Problem of Pain, theology | 36 Comments

Five Words We Should Banish from our Vocabulary, Or Preventing Verbicide with C.S. Lewis

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

As a voracious reader and great lover of language, C.S. Lewis was concerned about “verbicide,” what he called the “murder of words.” As Lewis describes in Studies in Words (7-8), verbicide happens in a number of ways: Inflation of a Word’s Value: “Inflation is … Continue reading →