This book, the autobiographical coming-of-spiritual-age story of that darling of 20th century Christianity, Clive Staples Lewis, is so deeply thought-provoking and insightful and wise that I actually have very little to say about it. I acquired it second-hand almost immediately after a stunned encounter with the fact that he was an atheist for much of his life. Surely, I thought, any mind as piercing as his sojourning from godlessness to joy in Christ would be worth reading. It was.
What can I say? C.S. Lewis has a unique ability to describe combinations of feeling, thought, circumstance and motive to penetrate with alarming clarity the truth of what is going on in a person or an idea - and he is well able to apply this skill to the evolution of his own mindset. His overall journey can broadly be described as tasting "joy" early in life and commencing searches in art, philosophy, science and history to find clues as to where it might come from and how he might reliably attain its source (SPOILER ALERT: God). He explores how his conception of a worldview grows and changes, based on aesthetic taste, satisfactory narratives, his character's reaction to places in which he finds himself and people who challenge him, and (though these are surprisingly not as central as I expected) intellectual truths to which he assented.
Exploratory reading of a huge assortment of books (especially myth and legend, the grandeur of which grounded his inkling of a more meaningful universal story than atheism provides) and formal education (from the violent aristocracies of Wyvern boarding school to the relentless logic of a tutor referred to as "the Knock") are the two main currents of growth and development in his coming-to-faith. A host of other places and people and circumstances are significant in the tale too, but I would rather not list them nor summarise them. From World War One to an aging father to frequent lengthy trips to and from Northern Ireland to tutoring at Oxford; Lewis's life, even the abridged aspects presented in this book, are far too wondrously individualistically interesting to do justice* even in his own words, let alone mine, which here are far fewer, less well-chosen, and read by almost nobody.
It's very easy reading, which is just as well, because I was breezing through it during the days surrounding my last exam (I am, as of Thursday, free, thank goodness, at least until tomorrow when lectures start again, but hurrah nonetheless). It's insightful and challenging and I would recommend anyone read it; christians will find it an excellent source of pearls regarding wisdom, truth and goodness and one's acquisition of those things in coming to know God; non-christians will be entertained by his lucid cheery writing style and perhaps provoked to reflection by some of the ideas Lewis encounters in books or observes floating about his own worldview.
* Biographies always irk me slightly in that regard. They have value in that aspects of a life can be accentuated to shed light on a particular purpose or meaning, but the sheer inadequacy of reducing something as marvellous as human experience to words on pages is such that most endeavours to do so come across as superficial and sad. Autobiographies are slightly better, as at least it's the mind describing its own history. Truly though, if you want to make a point about something extrinsic, write non-fiction, and if you want to expose something of the untellable beauty of humankind, figure out fiction or poetry that manages. Sometimes I don't mind though, as with this book. The arc is so well-articulated and the points made so important and embedded in the biographical details themselves, that this is the first proper "autobiography" I've been able to engage with happily.**
** Except the political diaries of Chris Mullin and Tony Benn, but those are more of a direct continuous insight into the working life of leftist politicians, which is cool. Come to think of it, a huge amount of fiction I love is semi-autobiographical, and many essays, journalism pieces, and memoirs that I've enjoyed definitely are, not to mention well-worded anecdotes, or even much of the Bible... there appear to be blurred lines here. I'll have a think and come up with a better definition of what kind of biographical works I dislike next time I read one.
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