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A Reframing of Lewis’ Surprised By Joy

Author: Devin Brown

For the C.S. Lewis Fellowship Life & Writings course (which I ended up not finishing this year, but intend to pick up again) we delve into the man, C.S. Lewis himself, starting with his life and then his writings. The program is not about an academic standpoint, but an application standpoint, to help fellows learn from Lewis’ writings and apply his message to the discipleship of heart and mind. As such, we kick-off by reading Devin Brown’s A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis, which is more of a commentary on what Lewis already revealed in Surprised By Joy (his own autobiography) and some of his later letters.

A Life Observed could more accurately be titled “a collection of Lewis’ writings with Brown’s observations and asides appended.” This is both a point in favor and a point against the proclaimed biography. If you’ve already read Surprised By Joy, you’ll note that this is really just a condensed version, with most of Lewis’ own quoted words from said autobiography being used to build the narrative structure. Brown mostly just ties the quotes together and gives a few asides that explicate Lewis’ point without having to quote entire chapters. But really, it’s little more than a running commentary on an abridged version of Surprised By Joy. That’s great if you’ve studied Surprised by Joy and want some interpretations (and to skip the endless talk about the beauty of Wagner, which is defiantly an acquired taste!). This is also great if you’ve never read Surprised by Joy and just want to get to the salient points fast and have a more condensed look into the pertinent aspects of Lewis’ shared life summed up. If, however, you are looking to go beyond what few spartan details Lewis himself has provided about his life, you’re in the wrong place.

John S. Murray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After reading A Life Observed I still felt that Lewis was hidden. He has revealed what he wanted to, but there is a large wall around the man’s personal life that Brown cannot surmount. We get a few extra details that Lewis doesn’t provide himself: a teeny, tiny look into his marriage to a scandalous “divorcee” and an aside about a friend’s acerbic mother with whom he lived and cared for over many tedious years, but it’s just a slight glimpse. I wanted more.

For example, I’ve always been curious about Lewis’ and Joy’s relationship and how he dealt with the public scandal of it. That’s flashed by here, though, and mostly, we just get Surprised By Joy again, shortened, with a narrator who gives us cliff notes like summaries, and occasionally brings in a new bit from a letter Lewis wrote.

We also get to hear about Lewis’ death and how Warny, his brother, helped him, but again, it’s a very brief flash of a life, and none of it ever feels personal.

The only personal element we get is what Lewis already shared about his conversion, and Brown’s contribution to this is to highlight those moments and get us there more quickly. That’s a good thing, as Surprised by Joy can ramble a bit, especially as Lewis waxes philosophical about “Northernness” and the pagan mythology that called to his proud, atheist’s heart. As such, this is a good biography, and a good place to learn about Lewis, but there is nothing new here – no new insights or revelations, just another way to tell an old, but still impacting story.

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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