A Mind That Grasped Both Heaven and Hell

NY Times ^ | 11/22/03 | JOSEPH LOCONTE

[Quix]

THANKS.
MUCH APPRECIATED.

MUCH AGREE.

[maxwell]

BUMP for good article.

[maxwell]

I always thought Eustace and Jill was a barely masked love story. Perhaps a little reflective of Lewis' life and marriage.

Huh?!

[whipitgood]

Anyone who claims to be a christian should read and understand "Mere Christianity"

[Hebrews 11:6]

Thanks!

[maxwell]

Til We Have Faces and The Pilgrim's Regress are some more good ones. It's been years since I read either of 'em; didn't understand the former when I read it-- too raw or something, but I think I am ready to read it again soon.

Also enjoyed The Dark Tower and other unfinished stories or whatever that compendium of his unfinished work is. Loved his notes on an idea for a story about Agamemnon and Helen of Troy, twenty years after her mug launched the Trojan War. Will warn ya though, it's very disappointing to get to the end of the few pages he had scribbled, and figure out that that's all there is...

[MissAmericanPie]

Than you so much for giving me the wonderful gift of these quotes. I think I'll ask for one of his books for Christmas.

Everyones walk is so different, amazingly so. Almost like each believer is a thread in a beautiful tapestry being woven by His hand.

[lavrenti]

Huh? Well, here goes.

1) Eustace's spiritual development.

2) Jill and Eustace feel isolated, but empathic.

3) Slowly develops in the course of two novels.

4) Eustace's reaction to Jill tossed into the tent with Tash.

5) Remember, they're teenagers--and Jack was, well, English...

[lavrenti]

I ought to post the story some time about those nights coming up from near Ground Zero to my daughter still awake at midnight, clutching her doll in darkness.

Reading those books to her changed my life, too.

[Intolerant in NJ]

The film Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger is an insightful (though a little slow) recounting of Lewis's surprise - to him - romance and marriage to an American writer. Hopkins portrays well his reticence and wariness in becoming involved, and the film captures touchingly the irony of Lewis lecturing about the ennobling power of suffering until he has to face the terminal illness of his wife and finds in real life nothing noble in the experience. Eventually Lewis resolves his pain by ackowledging that after a lifetime of running from love he finally had opened himself to it. He finds solace in something his wife had told him when they were confronting her illness: "the pain now is part of the happiness then - that's the bargain" - a sentiment I'm finding more and more meaningful as I grow older.....

[beckett]

"If you take your stand on the 'prevalent' view, how long do you suppose it will prevail? . . . All you can really say about my taste is that it is old-fashioned; yours will soon be the same." C.S. Lewis

[Tribune7]

great quotes, thanks

[Right_in_Virginia]

Thanks for posting. Great quotes.

[iconoclast]

...I've heard one of his stepsons say that Lewis faithfully attended church services...but often had the habit of sitting in a certain pew by which his view of the pulpit was obscured.

How frustrated would he be in one of these horrid modern day round churches that have been foisted upon us?

[Joe Republc]

Same here. Mere Christianity led me back to a deeper faith. I've read most of Lewis' material, and highly recommend it.

-- Joe

[Joe Republc]

I finally got around to listening to the audio verion of "Between Heaven and Hell," by Peter Kreeft.

A theoretical discussion between Lewis, Huxley, and Kennedy just after their death. Lewis defends Christianity, Kennedy secular humanism, and Huxley the current new age / relativism / eastern mysticim.

Kreeft is a Christian, and although the arguments on both sides are deep, I do suspect the dialogue is slanted towards Christianity. Not that I minded much, though ;)

Anyway, another recommend read (or listen in the car.)

-- Joe

[iconoclast]

One of my favorites has always been The Great Divorce, his (as always) super-imaginative fable/vision of damned souls, heaven, and hell.

[Valin]

modern day round churches

?

[the invisib1e hand]

that picture is now my background wallpaper. thx.

[the invisib1e hand]

Scared? Of Rome? I guess you'll find this a zinger....

“I have written this book for those who share my love for Lewis, regardless of whether they share my love for the Catholic Church,” says Pearce, who converted to Catholicism in 1989, and adds that, Lewis’ role in that conversion “was not insignificant.”