C.S. Lewis, the whip lover
Posted by Abel on 22 Jun 2007 at 09:53 am | Tagged as: Startles
According to The New Yorker, C.S. Lewis faced the traditional boarding school experiences of his generation and class. At one establishment, the snobbish headmaster “raced down the length of a room with his cane to beat a lower-middle-class boy, enraged by his social pretensions”.
It had a certain effect: in letters, Lewis apparently -
named the women he’d like to spank, and for a time signed his private letters “Philomastix”—“whip-lover.”
Anyone noticed any hints of his interests in the Narnia books?
-------Now you can buy a book of the best entries from "The Spanking Writers".
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You know, I’ve — yes, it’s true — never gotten around to reading the Narnia books. But I have read several of his theological/philosophical books, _A Grief Observed_ being my favorite.
And this was a brilliant article about Lewis in the _New Yorker_. I particularly liked the emphasis on the role of imagination for Lewis. I remember at the time (early 2006) wanting to write about how imagination is just about the most core aspect of me, whether it be faith or kink or academia or whatever. I never have managed to get around to writing that but, you know, it was just one of those times when you read something that resonates and helps you articulate a very fundamental part of yourself.
And finding out that Lewis was a spankophile — a philomastix, even — was just icing on the cake.
Mmmm…I could go for a bit of philomastia (?) at the moment…
Oh and my beloved, A., had a best friend who went to Malvern. It was slightly less grim when he was there. But it sounds like only slightly.
I’m not even going to start to play with words derived from philomastia, as it’d get far to rude, far too quickly!
Lovely to hear from you, Natty, even if I am *shocked* at the shortcoming in your childhood reading list. (Makes me depressed that there must be weirdos out there who’ve read about the damned Potter boy, and not about Narnia).
BTW is this the article:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/21/051121crat_atlarge
I expect there will be people out there who would consider me a weirdo because I’ve read all about Narnia (and will be re-reading all seven books looking for hints of spanking interest) but I’ve managed to completely avoid the damned Potter boy apart from to know of his existence and to watch the clip Haron posted on here.
Sarah: How brave of you! Now I can admit to having read the Narnia series with my little boy too, but we haven’t even opened Harry Potter. So now there are two of us…..
Three
That is the article indeed!
I think I never got around to the Narnia books because I was far more into history, having read the Little House books when I was 9 or so. Despite a brief tangent into the Black Stallion books when I was 11, just about everything I read after Laura Ingalls Wilder was set in the past, thanks, in part, to my budding spankophilia.
Regarding the boy Potter, I’ve read the first two books. But I think I’ll have to get audiobooks of the rest of the lot to catch up.
Oh, look, somebody’s just slipped in a note made out of cut-out newsprint:
“Stop dissing Harry Potter, or this whole thread will miraculously disappear.”
Oh dear, I think they mean it!
*shifty eyes*
Oh look. Another cutting has appeared.
Anyone caught deleting comments from this thread will be spanked VERY soundly.
No, but I read his theological writings. A life-long bachelor, he said something about women having to be subjects to their husband, if i recall correctly.
Watched an interview with Lewis’ stepson last night. Extraordinary man who lived a number of years in Australia - farming in Tasmania and Perth. Had nothing but the highest praise for Lewis, ‘Jack’ to him, and said that he was deeply in love with his mother until her death from cancer, and that he went on caring for him until his death. No suggestion of kink whatsoever, but said that by way of example he had learned to examine everything, not just to accept - to look into things, not just at things. Make of that what you will.