J·R·R·托爾金對他的朋友C·S·劉易斯深信不疑，甚至提名劉易斯角逐諾貝爾文學獎。
劉易斯去世後，托爾金寫道，他欠劉易斯一份「無法償還的恩情」。他說，這份恩情中最珍貴的，是路易斯多年來對他寫作的「莫大鼓勵」。
「很長一段時間裡，他是我唯一的讀者，」托爾金解釋道，「只有他讓我意識到，我的『作品』可以不僅僅是個人愛好。如果沒有他的興趣和永不滿足的渴望，我永遠無法完成《魔戒》。我們彼此都欠對方一份厚情，這份情誼，以及由此而生的深厚情，一直延續至今。」
路易斯也用類似的語言談到托爾金和他們的朋友圈：
“我對他們的恩情無法估量，”他寫道，“世間還有什麼樂趣能比得上與一群基督徒朋友圍坐在溫暖的爐火旁呢？”
他們的友誼孕育出了史上最受喜愛的書籍，包括《魔戒》和《納尼亞傳奇》。
這些關於哈比人、獅子、衣櫥和遊歷國王的世界，在全球銷量已達數億冊。這提醒我們，有時，在每位偉大作家的背後，都有一位朋友在世人沉睡時默默地為他/她點燃創作的火焰。
J. R. R. Tolkien believed in his friend C. S. Lewis so much that he nominated Lewis for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
When Lewis died, Tolkien wrote about “the unpayable debt” he owed him. The greatest of those debts, he said, was Lewis’s “sheer encouragement” over many years to keep writing.
“He was for long my only audience,” Tolkien explained. “Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more, I should never have brought The Lord of the Rings to a conclusion. We owed each a great debt to the other, and that tie, with the deep affection that it begot, remained.”
Lewis spoke in similar terms about Tolkien and their circle of friends:
“What I owe them is incalculable,” he wrote. “Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?”
Their friendship helped give birth to some of the most beloved books ever written, including The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Together, those worlds of hobbits, lions, wardrobes, and wandering kings have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. A reminder that sometimes, behind every great writer, there is a friend feeding the fire while the rest of the world sleeps.
J·R·R·托爾金和C·S·劉易斯之間近40年的友誼是文學史上最深刻的合作之一。他們的友誼始於1926年牛津大學的教職員會議，建立在第一次世界大戰帶來的共同創傷和對神話的共同熱愛之上。最終，在他們的鼓勵下，《魔戒》和《納尼亞傳奇》應運而生。
The nearly 40-year friendship between J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis is one of literary history’s most profound partnerships. Sparked in 1926 at an Oxford faculty meeting, their bond was built on shared trauma from World War I and a mutual love for mythology. Ultimately, their encouragement birthed The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- Christian Conversion: Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, while Lewis spent years as an atheist. Through late-night walks and debates, Tolkien helped Lewis recognize Christianity as the "true myth," leading to Lewis's famous conversion in the early 1930s.
- The Inklings: They formed an informal literary critique group known as the Inklings, which met in Lewis's Oxford rooms and local pubs to read drafts of their ongoing projects to one another.
- The 1935 Wager: To combat the lack of books they actually enjoyed reading, the pair made a coin-flip wager to write their own. Lewis flipped to write a space-travel series (resulting in his Space Trilogy), while Tolkien began writing a time-travel story that eventually evolved into Middle-earth lore. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
------
