Books in Brief

Light on C. S. Lewis, edited by Jocelyn Gibb (Harcourt, $3.95). Of the essays—or character studies— that make up this book, four (I should say) are of primary importance for an understanding of C. S. Lewis, and all the rest, with one exception, are at the very least enlightening. The one exception— and it should be at once disposed of—is the piece by Stella Gibbons (herself an admirable writer) on Lewis’ fiction. It is difficult to see why she was asked to contribute, not only because she alone of the contributors was personally unacquainted with Lewis, but also because she seems intent on emphasizing either the wrong things (Lewis’ picture of Father Christmas in the first of the Narnian books), or the right things (Lewis’ medievalism or his Englishness) in the wrong way (“tea, the embodiment of cosiness”)—to put it briefly, the experiment of including an “outsider” is not justified by the result.

“Who’s afraid of the big bad bear . . . the big bad bear . . . the big bad bear . . .”

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Light on C. S. Lewis, edited by Jocelyn Gibb (Harcourt, $3.95). Of the essays—or character studies— that make up this book, four (I should say) are of primary importance for an understanding of C. S. Lewis, and all the rest, with one exception, are at the very least enlightening. The one exception— and it should be at once disposed of—is the piece by Stella Gibbons (herself an admirable writer) on Lewis’ fiction. It is difficult to see why she was asked to contribute, not only because she alone of the contributors was personally unacquainted with Lewis, but also because she seems intent on emphasizing either the wrong things (Lewis’ picture of Father Christmas in the first of the Narnian books), or the right things (Lewis’ medievalism or his Englishness) in the wrong way (“tea, the embodiment of cosiness”)—to put it briefly, the experiment of including an “outsider” is not justified by the result.

“Who’s afraid of the big bad bear . . . the big bad bear . . . the big bad bear . . .”