Lovers of
great literature will revel in
Surprised by Joy, the biography of a man who was led
to salvation by his reading diet. The progression of “great books” in Lewis’ life
worked on him like drops of water on a stone. Eventually their Christian themes
made a groove in his heart that he could no longer ignore.
The “joy” he writes of is not happiness as the world
defines it, but the pang of inconsolable longing (p. 62) This longing for joy
led Lewis to finally embrace theism and, soon afterwards, Christianity.
Interestingly, once he became a Christian, he no long sought after those stabs
of joy as before. He still had moments of intense feelings (“tastes of
heaven”), but he no longer idolized those experiences. He took them as moments
of grace pointing to an eternal reality yet to be experienced.
The book recounts his miserable days as a school boy,
his difficult relationship with his father, his first friendships, and the heart
change brought about by books.
In his penultimate chapter called “Checkmate”,
he writes: All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have
been as blind as a bat not to have seen, long before, the ludicrous
contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader.
George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course, it was a
pity he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite
of it. Chesterton had more sense than all the other moderns put together;
bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I
felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and
Milton by a strange coincidence, had it too. Even among ancient authors the
same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil)
were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those
writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy
ought to have been complete – Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire –
all seemed a little thin… It wasn’t that I didn’t like them. They were all
entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were
too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books.
One of my favorite books of 2023.
Blessings,
1 comment:
Hi,
You write "Interestingly, once he became a Christian, he no long sought after those stabs of joy as before", and yet Lewis does write that "Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again." (that's p. 20 of my Fontana Books 1974 edition) So one might wonder why he "no longer sought after the experience". I have half a mind though that it simply didn't occur much later in his life. I think he tells the reader that waiting for the feeling to reoccur and so almost wanting it too much to do so, was a killer of joy ("The surest way of spoiling a pleasure was to start examining your satisfaction", p.175). He does also mention (the line after the afore-mentioned passage) the fact that "Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief." So, well, perhaps he wasn't so keen about it after all!
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