Reading Many Books: C.S. Lewis' Legacy of Intellectual Piety

C.S. Lewis' Legacy of Intellectual Piety

Recently I dusted off my copy of C.S. Lewis' book "An Experiment in Criticism". For many years I have loved Lewis, beginning no doubt in late adolescents when I discovered the Chronicles of Naria (being the product of a Fundamentalist home there certainly was no exposure to Lewis at an earlier age). From there, I began to grab his other fictional writings and finally (years later) made the transition to his truly good stuff. But even when I was fully engulfed in Lewis-mania, I viewed "An Experiment in Criticism" as a horribly dry and lifeless book. Of course, at that time I hadn't read it but the title certainly wasn't very appealing.

Oddly enough, higher education does change a man. Subjects like "Hermeneutics" and "Literary Criticism" began to arrest my attention. So at some point I began to rethink my earlier pre-judgment on Lewis' "Experiment" and decided to give it a try.

It was simply amazing. Below is one quote among many of my favorites. The tone seems harsh and unloving to our "unliterary" friends, but if you know Lewis I think you will understand he is not looking down on them (at least I hope this to be the case). With that said, I probably would have written this paragraph a little differently. Yet as always, Lewis conveys a message in a way I never could, and it is a message that touches my very soul. He writes:

“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog.”"Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality….But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself….Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” (C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism," pp.140-141)

Why do I read the great spiritual writers of the past (not just Puritans by the way, and not just within the Calvinistic tradition)? Because I then can see the world through their eyes. I can appreciate their point of view. Even more importantly, I can manage to free myself (a little anyway) from the prison called "self" (more on this in a coming post). But most importantly, I can approach God through their eyes. God is too precious and too important to only see with my own eyes. I must learn to appreciate Him as other faithful men and women have. Through their view of the Savior I have come to see His beauty and magnificence through a wider lense.

...pick up and read, my friend. Pick up and read.