So it's just speculation, and largely based upon the fact that they both have these academic clubs, but do you think these stories might be relatable? Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are both mentioned in NCP. Maybe there was going to be a link. After all, they all read each other's stories.
What a comprehensive first post,
Afalstein. Welcome to TTF.
Yes, I think there is a deliberate link between the two works.
Tolkien never finished his, which began as the
Notion Club Papers. Some echoes remain in
Lord of the Rings, such as
Faramir’s recurring dream of the overwhelming wave of green water, which Ramer has in
Notion Club Papers. (Tolkien had the dream all his life: CJRT describes his impression of his father’s dream in footnote 45 to Part One, p 217 in my hardcopy of
Sauron Defeated.) He also puts the phrase “What a lumber-room!” into the mouth of Lowdham in describing Ramer’s dreams, a phrase strikingly similar to one
Gandalf uses to describe the cluttered memory of
Barliman Butterbur.
Lewis finished his part of the deal. Tolkien seems to have been miffed by his reference to “Numinor and the True West” in
That Hideous Strength. Dr. Elwin Ransom is a character that appears in both Lewis’s and Tolkien’s work, at least in the first version of
Notion Club Papers. How many other shared characters there are, I cannot say: I am not fond of Lewis’s fiction, and so I do not read it, though I enjoy his nonfiction immensely. (
Screwtape Letters scared the hmmm out of me! I suppose that counts as fiction.)
I have read
Notion Club Papers once or twice. Like
Beleg and
Aulë, I did not care for it. I strongly prefer
The Drowning of Anadûnê, which is Part 3 of
Sauron Defeated.