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Author: A.N. Wilson

ISBN: 9780393028133
Pages: 334
Description: I would recommend this biography as to anyone who wants to know more about C.S. Lewis. Because of the nature of much of Lewis’ writing (in favor of Christianity), many biographers have recast Lewis into an image favored by the biographer’s own religious beliefs, so an American fundamentalist biographer ignores Lewis’ smoking and drinking, and a British Anglican glosses over the fact that the two women who were Lewis’ “life partners” were neither acceptable partners by the standards of Lewis’ own Church, the Church of England. Wilson tries, and I think, succeeds admirably, in painting a portrait of Lewis the man, one based on a careful reading of the author’s work, of letters, manuscripts, and other artifacts, and of interviews with many who knew Lewis personally.

The Lewis that emerges is one worth knowing. The flawed man, deeply hurt by the loss of his mother in early childhood, the man who lived, except for the horrors of the trenches in World War I, a life that many of us could lead, one of domestic chores, reading, writing, teaching, grading papers, is all the more estimable because of what accomplished facing what to many of us are barriers for writing and “getting important things done.”

For those interested in Lewis’ criticism, Lewis’ readability, the ‘learning worn lightly,’ as Wilson puts it, is what gives the critic’s work “life” long after its approach has grown unfashionable. It is the fact that Lewis approaches literature AS A READER, and, through his work,’ speaks to us as fellow readers, and someone with whom he wants to share his enthusiasm. Lewis the critic never reminds us how smart he is or makes us, the reader, feel foolish. It’s more of a conversation, a ‘Have you read this’ or ‘Have you thought of that’ that we respond to. Lessons from Lewis the critic are valuable to those of us who love reading and to anyone who teachers, not just because of their content, but because of what they show us about the essential nature of teaching–we want to share what we love with others.

For those interested in Lewis’ non fiction religious writings, the flawed man is all the more approachable–someone who says, “Yeah, I’m kind of screwed up to, but I hold on to my faith and this is why it helps me through the day.” Lewis is not a moralist–he is not one of those prigs who tell others how they should lead their own lives. Rather, he is a fellow sufferer, showing that Chritian virtues are not grand themes to be contemplated on Sunday mornings but rather are meaningful, or not, in how we take out the trash, treat our children, or approach the people with whom we work. Lewis is about faith lived, not faith preached.

For those interested in Lewis’ fiction, particularly Narnia, there is much of value to learn–about where the stories come from, about Lewis’ own faith in children and in childhood, and about why he wrote so much for children. There is also a deft exploration of some of the religious themes of Narnia and of his ‘Space Trilogy’, one that never gets bogged down in minutiae but still gives the reader food for thought. The criticisms are thoughtful, fair, and not uniformly laudatory. I found myself both understanding the great appeal Azlan had to me when I was a young reader and had no idea what ‘allegory’ was or that the book was full of Christian symbolism. But the book still spoke to me in some deep way; Wilson helps explore this. Similarly, I have always found That Hideous Strenght, the last novel in the ‘Space Trilogy,’ unreadable. Wilson explores why the book fails on many levels but still helps the reader understand the many good eleements that are present.

The book also, in an afterward, explores the appeal of the book and film ‘Shadowlands,’ noting, as Lewis would, that, although many of the ‘facts’ are changed, the story still captures some of the essential ‘heart truths’ that the book contains.

This book is extrememly well done; it helps the reader understand Lewis the real person and it enables a fuller understanding of the author’s work. My reasons for not giving a ‘five star rating,’ for not considering it in, say, the same class as ‘Jackson Benson’s ‘The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer’ (regardless of one’s opinion of Steinbeck, Benson’s biorgraphy of him remains a titanic achievement of literary biography) are perhaps unfair. Becuase if the distance from which Wilson writes, the author was not able to interview many of the people who knew the author personally. Particularly missing are JRR Tolkien and “Warnie,” the author’s brother. This is not something the biographer can be blamed for, since he took up the topic of Lewis’ life after these two men died. But both Tolkien and Warnie lived ten years after Lewis’ death, and one finds oneself wishing that a biographer of Benson’s caliber, perhaps an older version of Wilson himself, who in early adolescence when Lewis died, would have set her or himself the task of a definitive Lewis biography. Instead, the field was taken up by religious hagiographers or conspiracy theorists such as the author of ‘The C.S. Lewis Hoax,’ and so the chance of a truly definitive biography about Lewis ever being written probably passed in the time between Lewis’ death and the time Wilson took up the pen to write about him.

This is as close to a definitive biography of Lewis as will ever be written, probably.

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