C.S. Lewis, environmentalist?

An interesting new book from the University Press of Kentucky is titled Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C.S. Lewis, which the publisher calls

the first book dedicated to Lewis's vision of our relationship to nature and the environment. Matthew T. Dickerson and David O'Hara examine The Chronicles of Narnia and the Ransom books, as well as The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, and Lewis's essays and personal correspondence, connecting his writing with that of authors more traditionally associated with environmentalism, such as Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold, and Gary Snyder.

We mentioned Lewis' Ransom trilogy in class Wednesday. The third volume, That Hideous Strength, is a wonder.

Whether any of the texts on our syllabus have an overt or implied environmental stance, and whether such a stance is expected of fantasy, are worth thinking about as we proceed.

(Speaking of The Great Divorce, Kelly Link uses the same title for one of her stories in Magic for Beginners. To what extent that story is in conversation with Lewis is worth thinking about, too.)