From: bf455@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: C.S. Lewis (was Re: ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE)
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:08:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.1992Apr15.120821.21334
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)




In a previous article, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) says:
>
>There were three C S Lewis's. Lewis the First was a Fellow of Magdalen and
>Tutor in English from the mid-20's to the mid-50's. During this reign he
>wrote his book, the one all academics write, *The Allegory of Love*, which
>looks at Romantic Love in the Middle Ages. A harmless enough book, but if 
>you have a serious interest in this sort of thing, then much better read 
>the scholarly *Eros & Agape* from his Oxford contemporary, the learned 
>Jesuit and Master of Campion Hall, Martin D'Arcy. Lewis the Second is the 
>Lewis who suffered a conversion not to a religion but to that worn-out,
>middle-class social club, the Church of England. It is difficult to explain
>the CofE to an American audience, but I don't really have to, since Bernard
>Shaw did the whole thing so well many, many years ago. This Lewis II gave
>us *The Screwtape Letters*, which purports to be an ironic treatment of the
>theme of Salvation. Salvation, of course, according to the CofE. Morality
>= Good Behavior. Lewis III was the one who came to believe in his own
>nonsense, and for the sons and daughters of the Mr & Mrs Christopher Robins
>that were by now floating around he produced *The Chronicles of Narnia*,
>the most sickly-sweet and morally offensive series of Children's Books it
>has ever been my misfortune to come across. By this time Oxford had had
>enough of the joke, and Lewis III skipped across to Cambridge where he
>trod once again the academic path as Professor of Medieval & Renaissance
>English (they do not know the ae ligature in Cambridge).
>
>Ugh.



Ah.  I see.  You don't like Lewis.

Clever of me to notice, no?

Well, I'm a Christian, an Episcopalian actually, so a lot of what you hate
so vehemently doesn't bother me.  On the other hand, I'm also a feminist,
so other parts bother me immensely.  A lot of what he wrote about marriage
seemed reasonable until I was married!  Then I found out what balderdash it
was. 

The first thing I read by C.S.  Lewis was _Mere Christianity_.  I was
fifteen, and I remember laughing aloud with delight.  It was my first
introduction to that clarity of language that I came later to think of as
"Oh, this guy must be English." I think it comes from reading papers aloud
to dons. 


Then I read and enjoyed _Out of the Silent Planet_.  I still like that.  I
like the planet and the beings who live there.  I find the quiet and
believable tone of the whole book congenial.  And the funny parts make me
laugh.  _Perelandra_ is really a horror story, and I don't like horror. 
And it takes place on a planet full of heat, sunshine, and color, and I
like coolness, cloud, and line.  And I dislike the lady intensely; possibly
an unfallen human was beyond Lewis's ability to depict.  On the other
hand,_That Hideous Strength_ has got a lot of bad parts, but a lot of yummy
munchies for rereading, too.  And it's a marvelous picture of the kind of
mind that wants to be "in", where things are "happening." Lewis apparently
knew this state from inside. 

This is getting too long.  I like the Narnian stories, especially _The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader_.  Lewis wasn't Tolkien, but he wasn't really
aiming at the same density.  As for the allegorical part (I dislike that
use of the word, but I guess I get your meaning), for me it works as it was
intended, as a baptism of the imagination.  Aslan singing the world into
being, for example, is very good. 

Morality -is- good behavior.  There are other kinds of goodness, but
_Screwtape_ is about good behavior in everyday life.  I can't understand
the point of view that such things don't matter.  It's not as if most of us
are faced with huge crises all the time, after all.  Why should we not take
pains with our own little lives? 

Anyway, over the years, I've gotten a lot of pleasure and a lot of help
from C.S.  Lewis.  I'm grateful for both.  Dare I suggest that the person
who has a gut reaction against a writer might not be the best judge of that
writer?

Of course, those are the ones it's fun to lay into.

Bonita Kale