fiona32's Full Review: C. S. Lewis - A Grief Observed
I just read Poseidon's excellent (what else?) review on another of C.S. Lewis' books, and what came to mind was one of the most life-changing books I've read in my 50+ years, - "A Grief Observed", also by C.S. Lewis.
When I saw the movie, "Shadowlands", several years ago, I simply went because Anthony Hopkins is one of my favorite actors. I also respect him for many other aspects of his life.....but that's another Epinion. I certainly did not expect to be moved to the point I was. It was a story that stayed with me for several days, and I spoke of it at work to anyone who would listen. One of my staff members told me I had to read "A Grief Observed". She brought it into work the next day. I've read it at least three times since, and probably bought 5 copies as gifts since then.
It is the true story which the movie "Shadowlands" told - of C.S. Lewis' loss of his wife, Joy Gresham, who died of cancer when they were both in their 60s. They'd only been married for a few short years, and were as in love as any newlyweds hope to be - forever. With lightness and sweetness and respect for what the other represented in their life - And they remained so, to the end.
The book, however, was C.S. Lewis' almost journalistic record of his thoughts and feelings about life, death, and God after Joy died. He writes heart-wrenchingly on what the loss of Joy was doing to his beliefs in a spiritually ordered Universe, with a benign God at the helm. He taught, wrote, lived from his religious convictions. And meeting his wife only served to "reward" him, for that apparently faith-filled existence. "A Grief Observed", is truly that - an observation of a man going through every stage of grief, not in a psycho-babble manner, but feeling the absolute emptiness, meaningless of his life, with her presence no longer lighting his days and nights.
To briefly quote from a professional review, because this line explains the essence of this book better than I ever could:
"A Grief Observed" contains his epigrammatic reflections on that period: 'Your bid--for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity--will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high", Lewis writes. "Nothing will shake a man--or at any rate a man like me---out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notational beliefs. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."
It's difficult to speak of this book without giving a rather telling synopsis of its entirety. But so be it. It is non-fiction, and the end, the loss of his life's love, his wife Joy, (so ironically and aptly named), is what begins this book of anguished doubt and almost suicidal despair. C.S. Lewis reflects on this tragedy with all of the doubts he was living with 24 hours a day - of everything he ever held true in his life. His inner moorings had collapsed, and it is the slow, painfully slow story of his finding some way to make sense of this experience....to give it some meaning.
If you haven't read this book, be forewarned. It's unlike the Narnia Chronicles, or any of Lewis' spiritually uplifting previous works. He finds his own truth as he moves through his grief, and he allows us to observe it. I'm glad I did, many times. If you haven't read "A Grief Observed", I'd strongly recommend it. If you already have, read it again.
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