Surprised By Joy.

Book Review.

Lewis, C.S. Surprised By Joy. Geoffrey Bles, 1955.
Twenty-eigth impression, 1991.


Comment. Henry.
This autobiography was first published eight years before the author’s death. I found the part of his childhood the most interesting. The family environment didn’t seem to be conducive to the development of a man of Lewis’ literary stature. By today’s standards such a childhood would have produced significant problems in adolescence and early adulthood (I would think), i.e. living away from home in what seems to be difficult circumstances for a young child is a recipe for trouble.
I would compare my experience of reading this autobiography to a person viewing a complex piece of technological machinery with only an elementary understanding of what the machine is capable of doing.

Lewis was born in 1898, three years after his only brother. Besides his parents, good food and a large garden he speaks of two childhood blessings, his brother and their nurse Lizzie Endicott. His childhood dreams were a great source of fear. (That’s normal.) He had an insatiable love for books of which there were many in his home. He did not have any ability to make things but he could write. His was a world of his imagination.

Lewis’ introduction to school ( Belsen) with headmaster Oldie was a disaster ( concentration camp). At church he “heard the doctrines of Christianity taught by men who believed them”. (33) In school Lewis learned about hope, hope that would bring an end to bad things. Life focused on holidays and home even when those times did not include a relationship with his father.

Life had a positive change when Lewis moved to a new school, Campbell College. By age thirteen he and his brother were off to Wyvern. Several significant things happened here. Lewis became an ‘apostate’. He experienced what he called his own personal Renaissance. Life was difficult and Lewis experienced a severe debilitating tiredness.

He tells of an alarming change that took place in him. “I had become a Prig, a High-Brow.” (86) His relationships with his brother and father were not good while at Wyvern.

From 1914-1916 Lewis was at Bookham under the tutorship of Mr. Kirkpatrick (the Great Knock). These were glorious years. Arthur, a Christian, became a significant friend. From him he learned about “Homeliness- the rooted quality which attaches them to all our simple experiences, weather, food, etc.” (123)

Lewis describes his brief experience in the war. In 1922 while doing his fourth year at Oxford he began his relationship with Nevill Coghill, a Christian. Other Christian writers were having an increasing impact on him. Lewis describes his conversion as a series of moves (chess) ending in a ‘checkmate’ of absolute surrender. It began as an embrace of Theism which led to Christianity. His was not a ‘typical’ conversion.