Preface
Preface
C.S. Lewis is one of the best-known writers of the twentieth century. Big-budget films of his Narnia novels have brought his books to a new, worldwide audience. Yet Lewis was famous long before the films came along. In his day, he was celebrated as one of the world’s experts on English literature. His lectures at Oxford and Cambridge were packed out with eager students, who hung on his every word.
Lewis is now remembered mainly for two things. First, he is revered as the author of the seven novels which make up the Chronicles of Narnia. These books – especially their showcase opener, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – have become classics of English literature. The Narnia books bring home the power of well-told stories to captivate the imagination and open up some of the biggest questions of human existence – such as how we become good people and how we discover the meaning of life. They draw us into a rich, imaginative world, which helps us to think through the big questions of meaning and value in our own.
The second thing for which Lewis is now remembered is his Christian writing. Lewis was an angry atheist in his youth. He served in the British army during the First World War, and gave up on religion because of the suffering and destruction he saw around him. However, over a period of years he reconsidered his position and gradually came to the view that belief in God was the most satisfying way of looking at things. Lewis explained his change of heart in a series of best-selling books, most notably Mere Christianity.
Although Lewis is best known as a writer, we must never forget that his life was complex, difficult and occasionally tragic. His mother died of cancer before Lewis was ten years old. He fought on the battlefields of France during the First World War and was seriously wounded in combat. He married late in life, only to suffer tragedy as his wife slowly lost her long fight against cancer. Lewis is a rare example of someone who had to think about life’s great questions because they were forced on him by his own experiences. Lewis is no armchair philosopher. His ideas were forged in the heat of suffering and despair.
So why this book? How can C.S. Lewis – who is best known for his Narnia novels – help us to think about the meaning of life? The idea for this book came while I was talking to a group of students in Oxford about Lewis. I wanted to explore some themes in his writings – such as his rich and rewarding idea of ‘Joy’. The students, however, had very different ideas. They wanted to learn from Lewis, not learn about him. Lewis was a big name, a role model. They wanted to know what Lewis thought about the big questions of life. This, they told me, would help them sort themselves out. It sounded like a good idea. So we began to look at what Lewis had to say about the meaning of life. And this approach worked.
We all want to learn from people who have shown themselves to be thoughtful and helpful in dealing with the big questions of life. That’s why so many of us turn to close friends or trusted colleagues and ask if we can have some time with them to get their advice. ‘Let’s have lunch!’ is not a suggestion that we just eat food; it’s a request to spend time together, to get to know people better and talk things through. We want to listen to those who have been through difficult situations like the ones we’re now facing, and learn how they coped with them. We want them to tell us how they made sense of things so that we can do the same.
That’s why so many people try to find ‘mentors’ – older and wiser people who can pass on their wisdom and help us by their example and encouragement. Or ‘critical friends’ – people who are on our side but are still willing to say difficult things to help us move on. Or ‘life coaches’ – people who help us achieve our goals. These are people we trust and respect, who can walk alongside us and help us move on in life and get more out of it. They are not just knowledgeable. They are something more important than that. They are wise.
It’s like that party game people sometimes play, in which they’re asked to name three people they would like to have lunch with. Who would the guests be? And why? What would the people hope to talk about? I’d like to have lunch with C.S. Lewis – and so would most of the people I know! It would be wonderful to sit down and discuss the greatest questions of life with him over some food and drink. After all, as Lewis himself pointed out, there are few greater pleasures than sharing food, drink and companionship. See this book as my invitation to you, my reader, to sit down with Lewis and me in some quiet place to think about some of the persistent questions and dilemmas every human being faces in this life.
Lewis is one of a very small group of people who both learned from life’s challenges and was able to pass his wisdom on, elegantly and effectively. That’s why the sales of Lewis’s books today are greater than at any point during his lifetime. He is clearly someone whom many regard as helpful, informative and reflective. So why not see him as a mentor, coach or critical friend? Lewis’s writings show that he was more than willing to act in these roles to his friends. His vast correspondence, for example, regularly provided advice and wisdom to both close friends and relative strangers. His Screwtape Letters (1942) is one of the most original works of spiritual direction ever written.
This work is a series of imagined conversations with Lewis. We could think of them as lunches at a local Oxford pub. Or perhaps as tutorials, in which some of the great questions of life are opened up for discussion and debate. What would Lewis say to someone trying to cope with grief ? Or someone wondering how best to explain the Christian faith to an atheist friend? Or someone wanting to be a better person, or worried that his or her faith might be something make-believe, invented to cope with the harshness of life? Thanks to Lewis’s own writings and the huge literature about Lewis, we know the sorts of things that he would say to people asking those questions. And that’s what this book is all about: letting Lewis help us as we wrestle with questions and try to become better people. Of course, as we’ll find out, Lewis has some questions of his own that we must consider as well.
Anyone who has seen the film Shadowlands might wonder if having lunch with Lewis – however imaginary! – would be much fun. Anthony Hopkins portrays Lewis as a solemn, pompous and rather tedious person who would probably bore his lunch companions to death. Happily, the real C.S. Lewis was nothing like that. His friends – such as George Sayer – fondly remember Lewis as a witty person with a ‘glorious sense of humour’ and a ‘rather boyish sense of fun’. He was a ‘joy to meet’ and a ‘wonderful companion’. Lunch with Lewis would have been a treat. He would have dispensed wisdom with laughter and good humour.
Lewis’s ideas are often wise and worth listening to, but that doesn’t mean we must agree with everything he says. I once had to attend a course on management at Oxford University. At the time, I held a senior position in the university which had managerial responsibilities. The course was intended to help me and other colleagues deal with these challenges more effectively. I remember one of those lectures vividly. It was about choosing friends who would help us make the best decisions. ‘Don’t surround yourself with clones of yourself,’ we were told. ‘Talk to people you really respect – even if they disagree with you.’ Such people may not agree with you on everything, but they will present you with options that you know you have to take seriously. Your final decisions will be much better, because you will have been forced to think about possibilities you might not agree with but which might turn out to be right.
That’s the spirit in which this book was conceived and written. Lewis will be our conversation partner. That doesn’t mean he is right about everything. It just means he is someone really worth listening to. Lewis is a profoundly interesting and worthwhile person whom we know we have to take seriously, even if we end up disagreeing with him.
Lewis died in 1963. So how can we listen to him? One way might be to invent some imaginary dialogue, putting words into Lewis’s mouth. But that’s not fair, either to Lewis or to my readers. It’s far better to provide accurate summaries of Lewis’s ideas, spiced up with some of his better phrases and quotes, to draw readers into his way of thinking. We will explore his ideas, see how they might work and figure out how we might use them.
Let’s pretend that we plan to meet Lewis regularly to talk about things. We will use a pattern suggested by the structure of academic terms at both of Lewis’s universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Each university has three teaching terms of eight weeks. Lewis’s working life was organised around these eight-week blocks of time. So let’s pretend we are going to meet Lewis once a week during one of these terms. We might meet in one of Lewis’s favourite watering holes in Oxford – such as The Eagle and Child or its close neighbour The Lamb and Flag. Or we might be more adventurous, following the walks that Lewis so loved along the river through Port Meadow to village pubs – such as The Perch at Binsey or The Trout at Wolvercote. And as we walk, we can talk about some of life’s big questions.
Each of these eight conversations brings together more or less the same elements. We will learn part of Lewis’s story, allowing us to understand how a particular question or concern became important to him. (For a more complete look at Lewis’s life, see ‘Introducing Lewis’ on pages 185–94.) Then we’ll look at how he responded to the question or concern. What did he do? What did he think? Sometimes we’ll listen to Lewis’s own words; sometimes I will paraphrase him or draw out his meaning using analogies or ideas that he didn’t himself use but which help us to see what he’s getting at. Finally, we’ll work out how we might be able to use what we’ve learned for our benefit. How might his advice affect the way we think, or the way we live?
It always helps to have a major thinker like Lewis introduced by someone who knows his writings and ideas really well and can help you make sense of them. I’ve been reading Lewis for the last forty years and have come to appreciate his wisdom at many levels, as well as working out how best to explain and apply his ideas. But in the end, you need to read Lewis himself. Lewis has an elegant, winsome and engaging style that virtually none of his commentators – and certainly not I! – can imitate.
You could see this work as a preface to reading Lewis, just as Lewis once wrote a superb preface to the reading of John Milton’s classic Paradise Lost. For this reason, the Further Reading section (pages 175–83) makes very specific suggestions about which of Lewis’s writings you might like to read if you want to follow through on the themes found in this book, as well as other works that might help you take things further. The editions used are noted at the end of this work. I’ll also provide you with details of some books about Lewis that will help you get more out of reading him.
So where shall we start? There’s little doubt where Lewis would like us to begin – with his discovery of Christianity, which quickly became the moral and intellectual compass of his world. So let’s begin by asking Lewis about the meaning of life.
Alister McGrath
London, September 2013