I imagine that Lewis did not mind. He had something better to think about.

Lost and Found in the Cosmos: 

Lovecraft, Lewis & the Problem of Alien Worlds

by C.R.Wiley

Recently some astronomers discovered two earth-sized planets orbiting Kepler-20, a star roughly 1,000 light years away. Congratulations to them; their detective work was nearly as awe-inspiring as the news. A flurry of articles followed the find, speculating on the nature of these worlds, along with a little speculation on whether or not we will ever get to them for some firsthand research. Almost immediately another flurry followed, speculating on the significance of the find for our world. Predictably, the religious were informed that they must readjust their doctrines to make room for extraterrestrial life, the writers apparently unaware that the religious have always believed in extraterrestrial life.

The whole thing reminded me of a similar phenomenon that occurred some hundred years ago, when earlier astronomers announced similar findings. The worlds they discovered were not so far away, but they were no less alien. Interest was so pervasive that even literary types took up the subject. Two writers to do so were H. P. Lovecraft and C. S. Lewis.

The two men, in many ways, were opposites. Lovecraft was a recluse from an old New England family, deeply insecure, an autodidact keenly aware of the gaps in his education. Lewis was a boisterous and gregarious man, classically educated in English boarding schools, a public intellectual justly celebrated in his own time.

Yet both had experienced childhood loss, Lewis losing his mother at age ten and Lovecraft his father to mental illness at age three and ultimately to death when he was almost eight. As children, both were sensitive boys with rich imaginative lives. Both, amazingly, married Jewish admirers and later lost those wives, Lewis famously losing Joy Davidman to cancer and Lovecraft losing Sonia Greene due to his incapacity to provide for a wife when doing so was both a cultural expectation and a practical necessity. And they were contemporaries, sharing the same cultural moment; Lovecraft was born in 1890 and Lewis in 1898. Finally, of course, both were pioneers of the fantastic, writing fantasy, science fiction, and in the case of Lovecraft, horror.

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For those who do believe, the story ends quite differently. Lewis also died unnoticed. Someone even more famous than he died on the same day. That day was November 22, 1963—the day John F. Kennedy was shot.

But I imagine that Lewis did not mind. He had something better to think about. I share his faith, and I believe he saw the person that inspired Aslan and inspired these words: “There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”


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