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Oxford As A Fantasy Hotspot · Mythmakers

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  Welcome to MythMakers.
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  MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and creatives brought to you by the Oxford
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  Centre for Fantasy.
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  My name is Julia Golding, a writer and director of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
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  In today's episode, we're going to be looking at why is Oxford, a city in the centre
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  of England, a fantasy hotspot.
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  It's very hard to deny the truth of this because if you just look at the writers who have
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  come out of the city, it's like a role call of some of the most famous.
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  You have Lewis Carroll, who is obviously the creator of Alice in Wonderland and Alice
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  through the Looking Glass, and he did that back in the Victorian era.
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  Just on the list, and my personal favourite is J. R. R. Tolkien, the creator of the Lord
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  of the Rings and the Hobbit, and the whole myth of Middle-Earth.
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  And famously he was very good friends with C. S. Lewis, the creator of Nania.
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  And if you just think of those two writers, Lord of the Rings and Nania, right there you've
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  got two of the mainstays of the fantasy genre, one obviously for the big-scale epic and
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  C. S. Lewis leading the way in children's fantasy for so many years.
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  But the story didn't stop with them.
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  In more recent times, Diana Win Jones was living in the city, and PD James, more well-known
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  for her crime writing, wrote a fascinating sci-fi fantasy book called Children of Men set
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  right on my very doorstep here in Oxford.
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  And Debra Harkness very recently, in the discovery of witches, has used Oxford as the starting
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  point for her story, finding inspiration in a place that she visited.
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  And of course, I can't leave out Philip Pullman, who is still living and working in the city,
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  and his stories are very much rooted here, and it's great fun to see Oxford being reimagined
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  by this wonderful contemporary writer.
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  And in my own way, I've also used Oxford as an inspiration for my fantasy stories, but
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  more about that later.
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  Anyway, what about Oxford?
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  What is the reason why it has become this magnet that produces and draws to it so many
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  fantasy writers?
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  Well, looking at the window, I can tell you that undoubtedly we are helped by beautiful
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  surroundings.
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  You've probably seen pictures, their colleges are a great range of architectural styles,
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  but many of them look like little castles, of honey stone walls and gargoyles and chapels,
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  and it's actually a bit like living in Hogwarts, except not by a Scottish lock.
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  But not all colleges are like that, obviously.
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  There are more contemporary ones, and there are some strange buildings like Keyball College
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  to Google that and have a look, because if you also have a look at Tolkien's view of
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  what the Tower of Baradou might look like, there is a strange similarity to the base
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  of Keyball College.
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  It's this amazing Victorian red brick extravaganza.
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  And along with the 1,000 years of a university in this city set between two rivers, there
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  is that great depth of history and culture.
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  Round every corner, down every street you'll come across buildings and places that feature
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  in history or have their own special tales.
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  Very near where I live, there are two streets, for example.
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  One is called North Parade and the other is called South Parade.
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  You may be expecting to imagine where those are on the map, but in fact North Parade is
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  south of South Parade, and this is because during the English Civil War, the parliamentary
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  troops, the southernmost limit where they paraded, was north of the King's troops and the northern
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  most limit where they paraded is in North Parade.
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  So this bizarre story has ended up with two streets that seem muddled up, but yet there
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  is a logic to why they are there.
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  So you can go shopping by your croissant and have a coffee and think about the soldiers
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  of the 17th century who are ready to fight to the death for the principles of Parliament
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  or King.
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  So I find all that absolutely fascinating and food for thought.
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  And these kind of ideas feed into how a fantasy writer comes up with their own stories because
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  all of us are drawing on real events and real history as a source for inspiration.
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  I think Margaret Ackwood says that nothing she puts in any of her books and she's the
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  author of the Handmaiden's Tale, nothing that she ever writes in her speculative fiction
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  has not existed somewhere at some point in the world.
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  Which I find absolutely fascinating.
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  But in addition to the buildings and the history surrounded by the actual physical architecture
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  of Oxford, it's also a place which is very close to countryside.
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  J.R.R. Tolkien only had to walk out of his front door for a few minutes to be in the
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  Willow Meeds of the Charwell River, which is one of those beautiful, slow-moving, gentle
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  rivers surrounded by meadows and wildflowers.
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  That this part of the world is very blessed with.
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  And as for C.S. Lewis down on a shot over hill, he only had to have a short stroll to be
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  lost in a wood.
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  And there's also a pond at the end of his gardener always makes me think a little bit of the
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  wood between the worlds in the Narnia stories.
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  So you can see where these visual prompts come just in the daily life of the authors.
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  But it's not just about bricks and mortar and trees and flowers.
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  I think that the other part of what makes Oxford this hotspot is of course the university.
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  It's because as well that it's a peculiar place and the only sort of similar place I think
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  is probably over in Cambridge.
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  It's because ideas mix here, rather than have a department of English and a department
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  of history and a department of physics, which do exist, the real mixing point is actually
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  in the colleges.
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  They're like little independent fiefdoms, little kingdoms.
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  So at the high table of each college, the professor of poetry might be sitting next to
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  the professor of quantum physics or a medic or a geologist.
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  And that means that the conversation is wide ranging and interdisciplinary.
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  So when you look at someone like Philip Pullman, when he's talking about dust and drawing
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  on sort of physics and scientific ideas, no doubt that's because living here, he's
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  been hearing local people talking about these ideas at the cutting edge of science.
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  And what then happened is lots of little circles form of people who share the same interests,
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  sort of really, you know, specialist groups that wouldn't thrive elsewhere or in very
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  few places around the world.
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  And that's how the Inklings met, which was the group that both C.S. Lewis and Tolkien
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  belong to.
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  Originally, that group had like a prior sort of expression in a group called the coal
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  biters, which Tolkien set up in order to read Icelandic sagas.
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  He had like a campaign to make the old Norse stories, sort of central part of the English
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  literature syllabus.
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  And C.S. Lewis came along to this and, you know, the rest of his history in a sense in
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  that they became friends.
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  And eventually, when that coal-biter group disbanded, they set up, or it wasn't really formal,
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  but they started and got into the habit of meeting together and find a place to share
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  their work.
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  So they had two kinds of meetings on the whole.
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  They would have famously a sort of meeting down the pub where they would just discuss
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  stuff.
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  And that would happen at many of the pubs around Oxford, but in particular the eagle and
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  child, which is known as the burden baby.
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  That is not very far away from where I'm talking to you on a wide street called St.
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  Giles right in the heart of Oxford.
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  But also for the more sort of intimate sharing of work, they were in the habit of meeting
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  in C.S. Lewis's rooms in Mordlin College, which is the other side of Oxford.
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  And Mordlin is arguably the most beautiful college in Oxford.
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  I have to admit I'm a bit biased because I am a graduate of that college.
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  But if I tell you it has a deer park, are you sold?
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  You can look out the window and see the college herd of deer.
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  And it has beautiful, beautiful buildings.
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  Anyway, C.S. Lewis had a room in what is called the new building, though that also is very
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  old.
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  And they would gather and sit down of an evening once a week, and C.S. Lewis, after a
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  while, would say, right, has anybody got anything they want to read?
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  And off they would go.
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  And it was meant to be robust discussion, but also to build people up and encourage them
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  to write.
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  And I think one of the success stories coming out of that is probably less well known.
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  That is C.S. Lewis's brother, Warney, who had a professional life outside of academia.
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  But because he came along to this group and they encouraged people to write, he actually
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  went on to research and write some very well-regarded books on French history, which I doubt very
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  much he would have been encouraged to write without those people around him.
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  Of course, of course, I know I'm biased.
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  Of course I am.
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  But Oxford isn't the only place to nurture groups of writers.
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  At the very same time as the Inklings, and probably more famous in the sort of classic literary
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  world, as opposed to fantasy writing, is the Bloomsbury set, who lived in and around
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  a few squares in the heart of London near the British Museum, most famous of those who
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  you undoubtedly have heard of is Virginia Woolf.
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  But that set didn't meet in the same way as the Inklings.
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  I think it was Lucerneet.
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  It wasn't set up as a writer-support group.
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  It was more of a label given to their writing afterwards by people seeing similarities
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  or saw that the exchange of ideas amongst a group of friends.
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  So it's hard to think of a place other than Oxford, but do tell me if I've got this
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  wrong, which is so influential in the formation of what we now think of as fantasy.
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  And that really lies back in the Inklings group.
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  Obviously, before the Inklings you've got Lewis Carroll, the writer of Alice in Wonderland,
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  but he in many ways, though being extremely influential, he was also a bit of a one-off.
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  And it took a while before fantasy hit the stride that it has now.
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  And I think the origins are more readily found in the Inklings world than in the Lewis
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  Carroll world.
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  Having said all that when I was thinking about this, I would allow that you could say that
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  Hollywood itself and the Disney studios, wherever they're based, around America and outcropings
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  elsewhere, they do have a claim to be a home of a certain kind
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  of fantasy.
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  But I think that's another kind of discussion as to how much is original, how much original
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  writing is coming out of those places.
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  I think more now than ever before, but screenwriting is a different skill and well worth looking
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  at in its own right.
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  Okay, so if I was going to come up with the top five reasons why Oxford is the hotspot,
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  I think at the top of the list would definitely be the possibility here of a fellowship of
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  like-minded people.
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  C.S. Lewis told Charles Williams, another notable Inkling who actually did most of his writing
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  in London where he was a publisher before moving to Oxford during the Second World War.
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  He was evacuated out here with his publishing house.
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  Anyway, he said that to come to the Inklings and to belong to the Inklings, all you needed
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  was a tendency to write and Christianity.
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  That was enough to make the group gel and feel a safe space to share their stories and poetry.
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  I think also you probably had to be a man because it was very much that kind of time, that
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  kind of world, all the Inklings were of that gender.
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  But that was the norm in the academic circles of those days.
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  So they probably didn't even question the fact that they were all men sitting in a room.
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  Anyway, I'm interested in this idea of a safe space because I think that was key to how
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  they functioned.
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  And as the Inklings expert Diana Pavlak-Gliar in her book Band of Snatch points out, the
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  Inklings lasted as long as that packed to keep it a safe space lasted.
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  Once somebody dismissed or rubbish the work of another without actually really admitting
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  that it had any value, the group folded.
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  And ironically, that was a gentleman called Hugo Dyson, who dismissed Tolkien's now world
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  famous masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings.
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  And it was a bit like, you know, Tolkien retreated and no longer felt, well, you wouldn't
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  widget, you didn't want to offer in front of a hostile audience something that you felt
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  so passionately about.
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  And once that compact was broken, the group kind of folded.
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  But it did last for an impressively long length of time when you think about it.
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  These were all busy people doing academic jobs, but yet they had this commitment for meeting
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  together for almost 20 years.
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  And I think fantasy in particular does need a place where it feels accepted and allowed
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  to flourish because fantasy, you're showing, yeah, it's like showing the inner workings
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  of your mind, your wilder thoughts, all writing betrays the nature of the author, if you're
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  being honest, but, you know, are you going to feel comfortable admitting to that to somebody
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  who you know is going to crush it and say, you know, rubbish, don't tell me anymore about
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  elves, I've had enough.
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  Anyway, what would you find in Oxford if you came here today?
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  Well, there aren't so many professional gents, pipe smoking gents as in Tolkien's day, but
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  there are a few.
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  You still see them.
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  The university regularly tops the international chance as a best place to study with extremely
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  clever people tackling cutting edge issues like COVID vaccine research, treatment of COVID,
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  quantum computing, cancer research, but it also has a strong arts tradition with wonderful
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  writers in many fields such as English literature and history.
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  How do I know this?
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  Well, because living here, I have the great privilege of meeting people like this all over the
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  place.
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  It is really an extraordinary place once you're sort of part of the community.
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  You can't go to a dinner party or stand at the school gate or go to a church meeting
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  or whatever your place that you hang out, the tennis club or whatever, without finding
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  out something wonderful and new once you get into conversation.
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  And I'm really not joking about the school gate.
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  I have a vivid recollection of when I'm standing at the primary school gate with one of my
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  children, so this is a few years ago now, talking with a mum who turned out to be a very,
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  she's a German lady, a very eminent mathematician, now a professor, winner of all sorts of prizes.
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  And she happened to mention that she was researching into how knots behave in dimensions
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  beyond four.
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  And I was absolutely fascinated.
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  Apparently it's easier to undo them once you go into all these dimensions.
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  This makes my brain sort of act like that, not twisting in on itself.
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  And of course I drag it down to my simplistic understanding of what that might mean.
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  But my mind was challenged and expanded and when I went on to write a fantasy series
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  for children setting Oxford called Young Knights of the Round Table, which is published
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  by Oxford University Press.
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  One of the key ideas was how these multiple worlds work like these multiple mathematical
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  dimensions.
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  So yeah, it's a place where if you keep your ears open, it's always going to be challenging
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  you and giving you fuel for your imagination.
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  And I've realised that I haven't even started on the Bodleian Library.
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  That's the name of the University Library.
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  This place crops up in so many stories because obviously writers are book lovers and the
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  idea of a library that goes down under your feet in the centre of Oxford underneath
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  all those colleges.
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  And it also holds a copy of every book published in the UK as well as many others and priceless
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  archives, including many of Tolkien's papers, by the way, but isn't that bewitching?
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  And it's not surprising that Deborah Harkness, when she started her novel, A Discovery of
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  Witches, actually begins there in one of the oldest parts of the library, it has an old
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  building which is very, very old.
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  And the Duke Humphries Library, which sidebar was the model for the Hogwarts Library.
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  You know, one of the chain books and Hermione is shelving the books and they float back
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  on the shelf.
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  That is very much the Duke Humphries Library.
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  She uses that place as sort of a key location to start off her story.
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  So I've got to add very impressive libraries to the mix of what inspires fantasy.
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  So where has that led us?
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  It's led us through fellowship of people interested in similar things, but also those chance meetings
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  of those who know something very different from you, but that feeds into what you're thinking.
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  There's the environment, both buildings and countryside.
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  There are the libraries.
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  And I think that all adds up to the fifth element, which is less quantifiable.
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  It's the can-do feeling.
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  You can hear makeup your own myths.
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  It's ready to receive more.
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  It's ready to have them in book form so that they can go down into the depths of the
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  Bodleian and join those other stories, which are already filed down there.
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  Alice can rub shoulders with Lyra, Bilbo can sit next to Aslan.
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  The white witch can cozy up with Diana from the discovery of witches.
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  So that's my little analysis of what makes Oxford a hotspot.
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  It'd be very interesting to hear your views.
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  If any of you have been here, perhaps you can tell me from a visitor's perspective what
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  you think is inspiring.
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  And I hope to see many of you come here and visit the Oxford Centre for Fantasy as
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  well at some point in the future.
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  And in every episode, I thought it'd be fun to have a section where we have a best place
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  to go in a fantasy world for something.
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  And today I've picked on libraries because I've been talking so much about libraries.
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  What do you think is the best library in fantasy fiction?
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  Well, I've been thinking about this and I came up with a couple.
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  I mean, obviously there is the library in Gondor, in Minnes Tirith, where Gandalf finds
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  the all-important manuscript telling him about the origin of the ring.
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  But maybe that's a bit too predictable.
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  I actually started thinking about this and decided that the one that really sticks in my mind
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  is the one in Garth, Nick's, Apostle and Trilogy in the book Lerial, which has this amazing
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  library which I just felt I could walk around inside.
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  Why not let me know about your favourite?
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  And in the next episode we'll be looking at some lesser-known facts about Tolkien and
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  C.S. Lewis and how they lived here in Oxford.
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  If you have any ideas for things that you would like us to talk about on Mythmakers, do let
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  us know.
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  That's all for this episode and we look forward to talking again next time.