Reading, Writing, Raisin' Boys: Anyone want to go to Narnia?

Beautiful Oxford England!

C. S. Lewis's home at "the Kilns" is not a museum, but a place where you can sit on the furniture, walk around the back pond, and stand in the little attic room where he would look over his flower garden and write. Students come there to study for months at a time and live in the rooms.
At the time of his writing, Lewis was not well loved in England. He retreated into a world all his own. He loved to sit and smoke, drink tea, and have healthy discussions with his brother, Warnie, and his writing friends, "the Inklings"(Tolkien, Hugo Dyson and other philosophical types). They would work up "a good fog" of smoke and he would dump the ashes into the carpet yuck! He let his house go to the point that restorers had to remove anything fabric! It was Tolkien who convinced him to turn from Atheism and embrace Christianity during their long smoke-hazed, tea guzzling chats. I loved learning that Warnie also converted to Christianity at the same time, but he was out of the country exploring Buddhism. Both wrote each other a letter announcing their decisions, but the letters crossed in the mail!

Looking for the wardrobe...

When he was young, he and his brother began making up stories about other worlds full of talking animals like "the world of Boxen" and the future world of Narnia was born. He had a home with pass-thru closets and built outside stairwell access to the upper room. Walking through his back garden, I expected an armor-clad rat to jump out and poke me with a little sword! For C. S. Lewis, there was little else but world-making, playing scrabble with family in multiple languages, and meeting at the pub. For some, there is no other life but the one you create.