Hooper

The message <3caktv4lc0bmj9kr7urposqffvt7pskan4 DeleteThis @4ax.com>
from m DeleteThis @mooreeffoc.com contains these words:

 > David, if you have looked into this deeply, do you know what exactly
 > Hooper wrote that is being interpreted as a claim about the length of
 > his whatever with Lewis? His exact words? Printed when and where?

I haven't looked in it all that deeply, I'm just impressed (but not
overwhelmed) by Lindskoog's arguments, and troubled by some things I
have come across elsewhere.

The case developed by Lindskoog is on several levels. For example,

1) That his friendship with Lewis, formalised into his appointment as
secretary almost on Lewis's deathbed (Hooper acknowledges this on p.117
of the Companion, in a quote that I don't think is entirely flattering
to Hooper), was misrperesented: for example, the implication that he
lived at The Kilns for a significant period during Lewis's lifetime is.
she says, disputed by several people close to Lewis;

2) That he was less than straghtforward about, e.g., a collection of
Lewis juvenilia which he did not make accessible until after Warnie's
death, and has obrtained Lewis material unethically and handled it
without due regard to the commonwealth of Lewis scholarship;

3) That in promoting The Dark Tower he knowingly promoted a forgery.

It is the first of these that I have most sympathy with. For example, I
have in front of me the 1970 US edition of God in the Dock. The
publisher's blurb on the back cover calls Hooper 'a long-time friend and
for some years personal secretary of C. S. Lewis' - which he manifestly
was not. Now even had that been written without his approval (and with
over 50 books published in various countries with my name on them in one
capacity or other, I can recall only one or two cases where I have not
been given sight of the blurb before printing, and many occasions when
I actually contributed the copy for it) - even if it appeared without
his knowledge, it seems to me that he should have taken every
opportunity to repudiate it. And he didn't, so far as I know.

I do not think it was villainy, but vanity, that allowed him to let the
misrepresentation stand. After all, he was in dispute with Lancelyn
Green and Clyde Kilby at various times and there was a distinct sense of
a battle for the mantle going on. Green repudiated, post-publication,
Hooper's contribution to the last chapter of their 1974 biography, for
example. (I happen to have the covering letter that Collins sent to
reviewers of the 1974 volume, and it's interesting that it describes
Green as CSL's 'friend for many years' but Hooper as 'for a while his
secretary and the editor of his many posthumous works'.) A little
woolliness existed in public perception of the length of the friendship
between Hooper and Lewis. According to the admittedly notoriously
unreliable A N Wilson (whom Lindskoog does a methodical job of
dismantling) it was a woolliness he liked to perpetuate.

I don't personally know whether Hooper *categorically stated* that he
was secretary for longer than a few months in Lewis's final year.
Lindskoog assembles a quantity of implications (such as his preface to
the collected poetry), and of references to personal exchanges and
moments of companionship between Hooper and Lews which do seem to add up
to a picture of a much longer, closer and more intimate relationship
than could have existed.

As I said in an earlier post, I don't regard it as a heinous sin if it
is as I suggest above. But it would make me somewhat cautious and, as I
said to Corinth, I wouldn't make the unchallenged veracity of Hooper a
yardstick for my opinions. But as I also said, Hooper's contribution to
Lewis studies has been immense and I think we should maybe move on from
the controversy.

On 2) above I'm content to say that I think Lindskoog's case as
presented by her in Light in the Shadowlands (1994 edition) deserves
much closer attention and respect than her critics have given it.

On 3) I am uncertain.

On one hand,.for example, Lindskoog comments that 'Lewis' in The Dark
Tower says that there were a certain number present in a room then goes
on immediately to describe a different number. But in the Allegory of
Love he introduces his topics and then seems to have forgotten that he
planned to focus on some of them. It happens and we must live with it.
I'm attracted by the view that all good writers are capapble of a false
start that can be disastrously bad (some of them, unfortunately, go on
to publish it ...)

On the other hand, I am uneasy about the Dark Tower itself, and very
uneasy that many who told Lindskoog that the case has been proven in
favour of Lewis behyond doubt by objective scientific tests have not
deemed it necessary to show those test results to Kathryn. As I said in
my earlier post - where's the body?

Finally I should declare two vested interests:

a) Walter Hooper wrote a very generous review of The Inklings Handbook
which I co-authored, and I'm grateful to him!

b) A colleague who has been prominent in Lewis studies for decades
assures me that he has information from Hooper which he is not at
liberty to share, which casts serious doubts on Lindskoog's case. I
realise that my colleague is also gulity of failing to produce the body,
but my respect for his integrity means that I must accept that if I did
have sight of this information, it might convince me in favour of Lewis.
It's possible, but it remains only a hypothetical possibility.

Hope this helps some.















--
Best wishes,

David
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