Biography - education
Northmen and Joy
Wagner meant more to Jack than good music. The epic operas of the Ring cycle introduced him to Norse mythology, the beginning of his lifelong love of 'Northernness'. The music and mythology caused momentary but intense feelings in Jack that he could not describe, and later called 'Joy'. His description of Joy sounds like a desire for another world: "the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing".
Jack realised he had felt Joy a few times before; he experienced it again in the years before his conversion to Christianity. Jack threw himself into studying Norse mythology, hoping to experience Joy again. Reading and writing about his Northern myths kept Jack sustained through his time at Malvern College, which he otherwise found very difficult.
Northernness even helped Jack to find his first close friend, apart from his brother. Arthur Greeves lived near the Lewises but the boys had never spent time together. Then one day towards the end of his time at Malvern Jack was invited to visit Arthur, who was sick in bed. He spotted a copy of Myths of the Norsemen in Arthur's bedroom and soon they were firm friends, writing to each other and exchanging confidences.
Malvern was a shock to Jack. An elite group of older pupils, usually members of sports teams, ruled the roost. They were called Bloods and were hero-worshipped by the younger boys. A Blood could corner a younger boy and make him do odd jobs - tea-making, boot-blacking, cleaning his sports kit or his study. This was called 'fagging' and Jack said it made his life miserable, coming as it did on top of a heavy load of schoolwork.
Jack was upset, too, by rumours of homosexuality between pupils at Malvern, and wrote an exaggerated and disapproving chapter about the college in Surprised by Joy. Warren later said that the school had not been as bad as Jack claimed. The brothers grew distant for a while as a result of that disagreement. Jack had certainly lost his Christian faith at this point too.
The bright spot at Malvern apart from his Norse mythology was an inspirational teacher nicknamed Smugy. Jack portrays Smugy as the essence of courtesy in the midst of a loutish school. He was also much taken with Smugy's melodious method of poetry-reading: he tried to imitate it himself from then on.
Kirkpatrick and college
An examiner had remarked that Jack was the sort of boy who could gain a Classics degree at Oxford. But if Jack was to attend university, he needed a scholarship. Albert decided to send him to a tutor to prepare him for the scholarship examination, and Jack went to stay with his father's friend William Kirkpatrick in Great Bookham in Surrey.
Kirkpatrick was an imposing man who dressed like, and was, a gardener. From him, among other subjects, Jack learned Greek, Latin, a broader appreciation for literature and an exacting method of debate.
His days at Kirkpatrick's were the young Lewis's happiest. They provided the routine he followed for the rest of his life: rise at half past seven for an early walk; breakfast at eight; work from a quarter past nine until lunch at one; freedom during the early afternoon until tea at a quarter past four; work from five until nine, interrupted by dinner at seven. After nine Jack could write independently, often stories or lyric poetry inspired by whatever mythology he was enthralled by at the time.