RESPONSE TO ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY OF AUGUST 10, 2001

1. "Mrs. Lindskoog has made me her life's work, but I couldn't do my job and ... reply (or even read) all that was coming from her," Hooper said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

A glance at the list of my 22 books shows how silly it is to claim that I've made him my life work.

2. "I found myself in the position of Brer Rabbit trying to argue with the Tar Baby. Just when you imagine you've scored a point with the Tar Baby you find yourself stuck."

It is surprising to see Walter Hooper, a native of the American South, likening himself to the American South's most famous trickster, Brer Rabbit.

3. Hooper said that "neither Mrs. Lindskoog nor any of those who profess to believe that 'The Dark Tower' is a forgery have ever looked at the manuscript."

That is simply not true. People who consider the manuscript a document forgery (created after the story itself was written) have indeed visited the Bodleian and looked at it. One of them, an Oxford resident, did this repeatedly and took measurements. She found that the right-hand margin was extra narrow and straight in this document and therefore required far more hyphenated words than Lewis used in his genuine documents. (Incidentally, when I visited the Bodleian in 1984 I was informed that I could not see that manuscript without Walter Hooper's permission, but I eventually received as a gift a clear photocopy of the entire document, including the backs of the first two pages. That has enabled me to examine the document as often as I please.)

4. [Hooper] notes Lindskoog once appeared to accept its authenticity; in the 1981 version of her book, "C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian," she speculates about "why Lewis gave up on this innovative story and returned to more ordinary space travel instead."

True. I never suspected that there was any Lewis forgery until 1986, when a graduate student notified me that she suspected THE DARK TOWER was not by Lewis and she was using a special computer program to test the authorship. I give her credit for waking me up to the truth.

5. But Lindskoog notes she's also written about other authors, including Dante and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Yes, I have written books and articles on a variety of topics other than C. S. Lewis (especially Dante); but it happens that none are about the author Robert Louis Stevenson. I merely adapted some of his poems.

6. Lindskoog has questioned whether Lewis was the author of books like "Forms of Things Unknown," "A Man Born Blind" and "Christian Reunion," all apparently found in manuscript form after his death.

True, but the first two are short stories, and the third is an essay.

7. James Como, a professor at the City University of New York, said Lindskoog's work is "good gossip, bad journalism, and not at all scholarship." He says it is filled with "red herrings, ad hominem slanders .... smokescreen, and beggings of many questions."

Appropriate invective from a professor of rhetoric and a longtime personal friend of Walter Hooper who seems not to have read anything I've written or what Lewis wrote about me. Jim Como first attacked me in print in 1978, and in 1979 he said I am "devoid of intellect." I always enjoy laughing at colorful things he says about me.

Kathryn Lindskoog

Return to Articles Page
Home
Top of Page