The Spirit World

I had not read a single word of Marcel Proust’s expansive multi-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past (or if you prefer—as I do–the title In Search of Lost Time) when I picked up and read Alain de Botton’s book How Proust Can Change Your Life. I was unwilling to commit the time required to read Proust’s novel until I knew it would be worth the effort. De Botton’s short book introduced me to the central ideas expressed in Proust’s much longer work. One of the key ideas had to do with the activity of travel. I will explain.

Last week I told you that I traveled to Oxford. While there I wanted to immerse myself in the pub culture of England. That I did. Traveling to Oxford gave me an opportunity to do something that—since reading de Botton and Proust—I rarely do anymore: to visit sites where famous people spent their time.

I won’t try to argue here that J. R. R. Tolkein has much to do with Marcel Proust aside from the one similarity that each has written an extremely well known multivolume novel. Most people are familiar with Tolkien from reading his two most well know books: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Another author that I grew to love by first reading his “space trilogy” then discovering his Chronicles of Narnia was C.S. Lewis. Both Tolkien and Lewis were Oxford professors. Both men knew each other, were friends, and drank many pints of beer together in the pubs of Oxford.

The Oxford pub most associated with Tolkien and Lewis is called the Eagle and Child (or more familiarly as “the Bird and Baby”). This is the pub where on Tuesday mornings Tolkien and Lewis would meet with the other members of their writing group called the Inklings. From the sources available to me I can only conclude that the Eagle and Child was a social hangout for the Inklings and a meeting place for Tolkien and Lewis for years. The actual business of reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings probably was confined to the Thursday evening meetings of the Inklings at Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College.

The interior of the Eagle and Child isn’t the same as when Tolkien and Lewis were there. According to a guide book I picked up, the pub’s interior had gone through two renovations since the days of the Inklings. Today the pub has been restored to be more like it was back in the old days.

When you walk in there is a short hallway that lead to the center of the pub where the bar is. Off the hallway are two small rooms where six or seven people can sit comfortably and drink beer in relative privacy. Past the bar there is another larger room and then another longer hallway in the rear leading to the pub’s no-smoking area. Tolkien liked these small rooms. The Inklings would take over one of the rooms on Tuesday mornings. During the first renovation of their “Bird and Baby” the rooms where removed to make an open format pub. After that Tolkien didn’t like the place so much anymore and went less frequently (but it’s possible that more than just a change in architecture was behind his lack of enthusiasm).

I went to the Eagle and Child several times during the week drinking pints of Adnams Broadside and Brakspear Bitter. I sat in the different rooms and tried to imagine the literary heros of my youth sitting in that same space drinking their own pints of cask conditioned ale, but I could not feel (let alone see) any ghosts in this Oxford tavern.

I suppose I was looking for that experience that many literary travelers want - that mysterious connection with the person behind the books they love. And perhaps it would have worked if I had traveled to Oxford ten years ago. As I drained the last few drops of the Adnams Broadside I remembered what Alain de Botton had written of Proust’s critique of travel. Proust discovered that travel in itself doesn’t resurrect the ghosts of the past, only the careful exploration of memory and the contemplation of what’s around you.

Even though I didn’t find any ghosts in Oxford, I found the beer delicious—an ideal companion while I reviewed my own memories of a being a boy and the joy of exploring Middle-Earth from the comfort of my couch at home.