Name: A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War
ISBN: 9780718021764

Joseph Loconte

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How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

A bit repetitive and it didn’t explore the lives or friendship of Lewis and Tolkien as much as I would have liked.

Chip Snyder

Katharina Hoffmann

I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I actually did.
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What it says on the cover:
How JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis discovered faith, friendship and heroism in the cataclysm of 1914-1918

Basically the book can be divided into 5 parts.
In the first part, the writer talks about WW1 in general and what role religion and the church played in it. In the second part, he writes about Tolkien's role in the war, his letters to his father and his experiences. In the third part he does the same for Lewis. 
In the fourth part he talks about their friendship at Oxford and Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In the last part the author discusses the role of Christianity and belief in the authors' works LOTR and Narnia.
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Now it feels like what this book did was trying to convert the reader to the Christian belief. The author used a lot of quotes, letters and text passages to prove how important belief and faith was to both authors and how heavily incorporated it is in their respective works. The last parts felt like a thesis or like an English essay interpretation, always trying to PROVE a certain point.
What it did rather well was illuminating Tolkien's and Lewis's WW1 involvements. If you're not too familiar with their biography, you'll learn a great deal about their lives and about WW1!
Too bad this book was rather one-sided and didn't really focus on the authors' friendship, but rather on how faithful they were or turned out to be (Lewis was an atheist until he met Tolkien).

Simon Elliott Stegall

At times this book achieves real insight into the lives and works of these two great writers: but only rarely. Mostly a redundant ramble that reads more like a college freshman book report than a serious literary/historical study. Best part about this book is that it's short.

Jeremy Anderberg

This book has been sitting on my shelf forever, and it seemed that our book club’s reading of The Hobbit was the perfect time to finally dig in. I’ve read The Hobbit at least twice in the last 5 years or so, so I didn’t re-read it this time, and went with the book about Tolkien instead.

Much has been written about the epic friendship between CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien; this book is probably my favorite of the bunch. While Loconte gives some broader context, it’s pretty tightly focused on each author’s experience during WWI and how those battlefield memories played out in their respective works.

For each man, their writing was a chance to fight back against the cynicism of the age. The Great War understandably gave artists a dim view of humanity and a dreary pessimism about the future. While neither Tolkien or Lewis were pro-war, they realized its inevitably in our world and praised the courage of ordinary men in battle. No matter how average or even unwilling, any person could do great things when called into action.

While I enjoyed the discussion of Lewis’ Narnia series, Loconte really hit his stride in analyzing Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Between the desolate and literally war-torn landscapes, the hero hobbits (who are modeled after average English soldiers), and the frank discussion of the necessity of war, it’s clear that LOTR could even be categorized as a WWI novel. Even for the greats, one’s past experiences greatly affect your creative output.

Loconte’s book is slim but impactful, and is required reading for any fan of Lewis and Tolkien. I know the next time I read LOTR (hopefully in 2020) will be fundamentally different than the first few times.

Emily S

I am a CS Lewis super-fan, and also loved the Hobbit and the LOTR books. So content wise, it was right up my alley. Just don’t think it was executed as well as it could have been. Read a lot like a graduate thesis. If there’s another book on the same topic, that might be worth a look into.

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918

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