Barfield Event

So, this past week I learned that Owen Barfield's newly published marchen, THE ROSE ON THE ASH-HEAP (check www.owenbarfield.org for details),* has now been adapted into a play (or at least "dramatisation". Having first been performed at the big Barfield conference at Goethenum, Switzerland last year, it's now scheduled to be presented in London in two months' time -- specifically, Thursday March 25th, 1.30 to 5.30 pm, at St. Ethelburga's in London (78 Bishopsgate, near the Liverpool Street Station). The first half of the event is given over to talks about Barfield and his ideas, the speakers being Owen Barfield (grandson of the author), Gary Lachman (whose work I don't know), and Simon Blaxland de Lange (Barfield's biographer). The second half is the actual performance, which will feature Paulamaria Blaxland de Lange (actress & storyteller) and Liehsja Andrea Blaxland de Lange (harp). I hope they'll tape it for those of us who can't make it to the event.

At any rate, good news that Barfield, the most brilliant of all the Inklings and by far the most underrated, is getting a little well-deserved attention. Here's the link to what looks like a programme for the event:

http://sussexfolktalecentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Owen-Barfield-London-event2.pdf

I'd be v. interested in hearing from anyone who does make it to this event how it went.

--John R.

*I shd point out that although this forms the final section of Barfield's long, unpublished novel ENGLISH PEOPLE, it's entirely unlike the rest of the book, which is a contemporary story set in the 1920s, a novel of ideas written rather in the mode of E. M. Forster.