They had much in common. Both were educated at Oxford. Both were prominent British writers in the middle of the 20th century, known both for their scholarly works and their popular works. Both were significant Christian apologists. Both could argue their positions with a brutal combination of wit, intellectual acuteness and dogged determination. Both had secrets. She had an illegitimate son raised by someone else. He lived for much of his life with a cranky older woman, the mother of an army buddy, and her daughter.
Their friendship was relatively brief — from the time she sent him a fan letter in 1942 until her death in 1957 — and they met in person only a handful of times, Dorothy and Jack found in each other someone with whom they could communicate as equals and someone who always understood what they were saying. They didn't always agree, and Dalfonzo offers examples, but they didn't seem to take the other's criticism too seriously. Argument was something each was good at and enjoyed. Dalfonzo tells us that unlike so many correspondents, Dorothy and Jack liked to cover serious subjects early in their letters, then turn to lighter, more personal matters.
The author views their relationship as a model for friendships between men and women. There is no suggestion that the two were ever attracted to each other in a romantic or sexual way. The friendship with Sayers, however, may have made Lewis more open to Joy Davidman, whom he later married. She was a similar kind of woman: outspoken, witty and his intellectual equal.
Each of the two friends influenced the other's writing, as Dalfonzo shows us. And each greatly appreciated the other's writing. That is except for Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Lewis made it no secret that he did not like mysteries, not even hers.
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