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Keen observations on FRIENDSHIP found in Joseph Loconte’s The War for Middle-Earth, JRR Tolkien & CS Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945 (Nelson, 2025; pp. 221-222).

“Although much has been written about their friendship, not enough attention has been given to how the catastrophe of another world war drew Tolkien and Lewis together in ways that no other set of circumstances could have achieved. This singular fact frames Lewis's exploration of friendship in The Four Loves, in what must rank as one of the most moving and insightful reflections on this neglected dimension of human life ever written.

Friendship, Lewis insisted, must be about something, and deep friendships must be about something of real significance. "You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress," he explains. "Better to fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him." Lewis's discourse on friendship is deeply autobiographical. When he speaks of individuals drawn together because of a common vision, he of course is describing his friendship with Tolkien, Williams, Barfield, Warnie, and the other Inklings:

Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk... and an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life – natural life – has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it? [CSL, Four Loves, p. 105]

[illustration by Grant Hudson]