I just learned that Tolkein and Lewis first met on May 11, 1926 my birthday–albeit not 1926. Alan Jacobs in his book on Lewis, The Narnian, writes of Lewis’ first impression of Tolkein in this way,
“…the two young dons talked for the first time. In his diary entry…Lewis contrives to condescend to a man who, though just six years his senior, had achieved far more and whose career seemed at that time far more promising: ‘He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap…. No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.’”
In spite of the posturing, this is for me, a merry meeting which brought together two for whom and whose work I hold dear. And to discover their meeting happened on my birthday, provides a picture for me to better understand my fragmented and sundered self. Because of these two, I so enjoy the merry wedding of language and story–of epic and symbol. These twins: Tolkein and Lewis, are my Castor and Polux–the rider of Rohan and the boxing apologist.
Backward Mutters 