Books in Brief: Clive Staples Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life, by William Griffin (Harper & Row, 544 pp., $24.95)

William Griffin’s method here is to serve up quotations (perhaps two-thirds of the book and almost always from Lewis himself) in snippets that range from a page orsotoas little as a few lines, with almost no transitions. These entries are arranged chronologically, with each “chapter” corresponding to a year from Lewis’s life. In the preface we are told (both coyly and presumptuously, as though this were a new genre) that these bits are supposed to flicker by at first, like images on celluloid, until gradually they “move smartly,” and a richly textured, nearly complete, picture of Lewis emerges. Actually, the first third of the book flows more than it flickers, and there is a real chance of a figure “emerging”—perhaps the very next year. For one three-year stretch, around 1940, Lewis and his life do assume a shape. But it fades, and “next year” never arrives. This book was more assembled than written. Even so, motifs and figures occasionally do surface. There are Walter Adams, of the Cowley Fathers, the great spiritual advisor’s own spiritual advisor, and Alec Ross, the very professional and good-humored man who, along with Walter Hooper, nursed Lewis at home during his final illness; the evacuated children who stayed with the Lewises during the blitz, and Father Peter Bide, first Lewis’s pupil and later his wife’s faith healer; there are deep and enduring friendships with women, and there is more of Mrs. Moore, Lewis’s “adopted mother,” than we have had previously. These attractions (largely deriving from the many quotations of previously unpublished matter) are substantially mitigated by serious gaps, misreadings, and a dubious editorial practice. For example, one of Lewis’s best works, The Abolition of Man, is not even mentioned. Griffin does describe the Riddell Lectures, which would become the book, but his summary is exactly wrong. Whereas Griffin has Lewis claiming that values are subjective and emotions objective, Lewis, throughout his adult life, held the opposite. The so-called “Great War” between Lewis and his “other self,” Owen Barfield, which went on for some ten years before Lewis’s conversion and greatly influenced him for the rest of his life, is barely mentioned. When Lewis is gravely ill, his dear brother (and dearest friend), Warren, whom we know to be an alcoholic, is gone from the book. But was he, in fact, away—as we are told was the case on other occasions? Much more troubling is the dubious editorial practice. Griffin’s notes run to thirty pages, but many of these citations are cryptic; the most maddening is “confidential interview, November 1982” as a reference for a remark in which Lewis mentions a “boy’s ass.” (Only Charles Williams and Lewis were present, and both were long dead by 1982.) Worse yet is the lack of citation. Nothing not buttressed by quotation is ever cited. Griffin simply adopts wholesale from other works, as when he describes “Fern-seed and Elephants” by expanding upon Walter Hooper’s footnote in the book by that title. Sometimes, when a scene is described and a quotation is included, the quotation is cited, inviting the reader to infer that the scene is in the source, that it actually happened. But that is not always so. When describing Lewis’s delivery of the sermon “Transposition,” Griffin has Lewis falter, weep, and require assistance in order to conclude. There is no reference, and I cannot locate a source. Finally, there is Griffin’s intrusive, euphuistic style. Occasionally he resorts to sheer nonsense, as in a sentence like “That he traduced scientists, Lewis claimed was inaccurate; what he seduced was scientism,” or his use of fulsome to describe Lewis’s mention of “dominical authority.” 1988 will bring the 25th anniversary of Lewis’s death and, surely, some good books by and about him. Save up, and wait.

JC

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James Como

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Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life, by William Griffin (Harper & Row, 544 pp., $24.95)

William Griffin’s method here is to serve up quotations (perhaps two-thirds of the book and almost always from Lewis himself) in snippets that range from a page orsotoas little as a few lines, with almost no transitions. These entries are arranged chronologically, with each “chapter” corresponding to a year from Lewis’s life. In the preface we are told (both coyly and presumptuously, as though this were a new genre) that these bits are supposed to flicker by at first, like images on celluloid, until gradually they “move smartly,” and a richly textured, nearly complete, picture of Lewis emerges. Actually, the first third of the book flows more than it flickers, and there is a real chance of a figure “emerging”—perhaps the very next year. For one three-year stretch, around 1940, Lewis and his life do assume a shape. But it fades, and “next year” never arrives. This book was more assembled than written. Even so, motifs and figures occasionally do surface. There are Walter Adams, of the Cowley Fathers, the great spiritual advisor’s own spiritual advisor, and Alec Ross, the very professional and good-humored man who, along with Walter Hooper, nursed Lewis at home during his final illness; the evacuated children who stayed with the Lewises during the blitz, and Father Peter Bide, first Lewis’s pupil and later his wife’s faith healer; there are deep and enduring friendships with women, and there is more of Mrs. Moore, Lewis’s “adopted mother,” than we have had previously. These attractions (largely deriving from the many quotations of previously unpublished matter) are substantially mitigated by serious gaps, misreadings, and a dubious editorial practice. For example, one of Lewis’s best works, The Abolition of Man, is not even mentioned. Griffin does describe the Riddell Lectures, which would become the book, but his summary is exactly wrong. Whereas Griffin has Lewis claiming that values are subjective and emotions objective, Lewis, throughout his adult life, held the opposite. The so-called “Great War” between Lewis and his “other self,” Owen Barfield, which went on for some ten years before Lewis’s conversion and greatly influenced him for the rest of his life, is barely mentioned. When Lewis is gravely ill, his dear brother (and dearest friend), Warren, whom we know to be an alcoholic, is gone from the book. But was he, in fact, away—as we are told was the case on other occasions? Much more troubling is the dubious editorial practice. Griffin’s notes run to thirty pages, but many of these citations are cryptic; the most maddening is “confidential interview, November 1982” as a reference for a remark in which Lewis mentions a “boy’s ass.” (Only Charles Williams and Lewis were present, and both were long dead by 1982.) Worse yet is the lack of citation. Nothing not buttressed by quotation is ever cited. Griffin simply adopts wholesale from other works, as when he describes “Fern-seed and Elephants” by expanding upon Walter Hooper’s footnote in the book by that title. Sometimes, when a scene is described and a quotation is included, the quotation is cited, inviting the reader to infer that the scene is in the source, that it actually happened. But that is not always so. When describing Lewis’s delivery of the sermon “Transposition,” Griffin has Lewis falter, weep, and require assistance in order to conclude. There is no reference, and I cannot locate a source. Finally, there is Griffin’s intrusive, euphuistic style. Occasionally he resorts to sheer nonsense, as in a sentence like “That he traduced scientists, Lewis claimed was inaccurate; what he seduced was scientism,” or his use of fulsome to describe Lewis’s mention of “dominical authority.” 1988 will bring the 25th anniversary of Lewis’s death and, surely, some good books by and about him. Save up, and wait.