The reason for my somewhat protracted absence from the Ink Desk is a visit to Santiago in Chile where I´m teaching a course on Tolkien for the Universidad Gabriela Mistral (UGM).

I arrived here on Wednesday morning, following a gruelling 25-hour journey from South Carolina, via Newark NJ and Toronto, Canada. After the briefest of times to freshen up, I had lunch with two of the UGM professors who have become good friends over the years. We were also joined by a professor of mediaeval history from St. Louis University who is in Chile to give a paper at a mediaevalist conference that UGM is hosting. He is a fellow Englishman, indeed a fellow Essex Man, being born in Chelmsford about thirty miles from my own birthplace in Barking. We were both a long way from home, in one sense, but in another sense were very much at home with the kindred spirits that we have come to know at this fine Catholic university in the heart of the Chilean capital.

I have now taught eight hours of the twenty-hour course, during which we have thus far covered Tolkien´s philosophy of myth, as expounded in his famous essay “On Fairy Stories”, his short story “Leaf by NIggle”, his poem “Mythopoeia” and as exemplified in the Creation myth in The Silmarillion. Today we will be doing The Hobbit and beginning The Lord of the Rings, concluding the course on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Yesterday I had lunch with the President and Dean of the university and, following yesterday´s class, I went out for an evening of conviviality with a priest and three seminarians from Communio e Liberazione. The topics of conversation included Chesterton, distributism, and E. F. Schumacher.

This morning I fnally found the time and energy to work-out in the hotel´s gym and am all set for another exciting day of wining, dining and teaching, though not necessarily in that order!