The Reading Life
Page 7
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Selected Literary Essays
(from “Variation in Shakespeare and Others”)
On Hamlet
‘Most certainly an artistic failure.’ All argument is for that conclusion—until you read or see Hamlet again. And when you do, you are left saying that if this is failure, then failure is better than success. We want more of these ‘bad’ plays. From our first childish reading of the ghost scenes down to those golden minutes which we stole from marking examination papers on Hamlet to read a few pages of Hamlet itself, have we ever known the day or the hour when its enchantment failed? . . . It has a taste of its own, an all-pervading relish which we recognize even in its smallest fragments, and which, once tasted, we recur to. When we want that taste, no other book will do instead.
* * *
Selected Literary Essays
(from “Hamlet: The Prince or The Poem?”)
On Leo Tolstoy
The most interesting thing that has happened to me since I last wrote is reading War and Peace. . . . It has completely changed my view of novels.
Hitherto I had always looked on them as rather a dangerous form—I mean dangerous to the health of literature on the whole. I thought that the strong ‘narrative lust’—the passionate itch to ‘see what happened in the end’—which novels aroused, necessarily injured the taste for other, better, but less irresistible, forms of literary pleasure: and that growth of novel reading largely explained the deplorable division of readers into low-brow and high-brow—the low-brow being simply those who had learned to expect from books this ‘narrative lust,’ from the time they began to read, and who had thus destroyed in advance their possible taste for better things. . . .
Tolstoy, in this book, has changed all that.
* * *
Letter to Arthur Greeves, March 29, 1931
Advice for Writing
The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it.
* * *
God in the Dock
(from “Cross-Examination”)
Good Reading
A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling.
* * *
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
(from Chapter 1)
Appendix
Journal Exercises for Reflecting on Your Reading Life
List the ten books that have most shaped who you are today and write down a few sentences per book of how they have shaped you.
Lewis often describes the gift of reading as the opportunity to “see through others’ eyes.” Which books have you read that have revealed to you a very different view of the world from your own? How did these experiences change you?
Which books should you read that would open up other worlds you are not familiar with—allowing that the differences could be cultural, racial, religious, historical, or something else?
Lewis highly values re-reading old books, even books from childhood. Which books have you re-read, and why did you choose to re-read them? Which books have you read more than twice? How have these books affected you?
Write down your earliest childhood memories of books that transported you and created in you a love of books? Have you re-read these titles lately? Were they still magical? How did these early experiences influence you?
List the “old books” you will commit to read as a break from reading all contemporary ones.
What do you think of the genre of books called fairy stories or books of fantasy and magic—of which Lewis had much to say? Which titles have influenced you most and what do you think they have taught you about the “real” world?
Lewis writes movingly about the discovery of his favorite author, George MacDonald. Who would you say is your favorite author, and what role has he or she played in your life?
Lewis emphasizes the importance of reading for pleasure. Which kinds of books do you read solely for this purpose (even if they are guilty pleasures)? Why do you think this type of reading is important?
About the Author
CLIVE STAPLES LEWIS (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and have been transformed into three major motion pictures.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by C. S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
George MacDonald: An Anthology
Mere Christianity
Miracles
The Abolition of Man
The Great Divorce
The Problem of Pain
The Screwtape Letters (with “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”)
The Weight of Glory
The Four Loves
Till We Have Faces
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
Reflections on the Psalms
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Personal Heresy
The World’s Last Night & Other Essays
Poems
The Dark Tower & Other Stories
Of Other Worlds: Essays & Stories
Narrative Poems
Letters of C. S. Lewis
All My Road Before Me
The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis
Present Concerns: Essays by C. S. Lewis
Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics
On Stories: And Other Essays of Literature
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM HARPERCOLLINS
* * *
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Magician’s Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
Copyright
EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM. Copyright © 1961 by Cambridge University Press.
GOD IN THE DOCK. Copyright © 1967 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Published by Eerdmans.
STUDIES IN WORDS. Copyright © 1960 by Cambridge University Press.
Every effort has been made to obtain permissions for pieces quoted or adapted in this work. If any required acknowledgments have been omitted, or any rights overlooked, it is unintentional. Please notify the publishers of any omission, and it will be rectified in future editions.
THE READING LIFE. Copyright © 2019 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-284998-4
Version 09102019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-284997-7
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1C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table, ed. by James Como (1992), xxiii.
2Derek Brewer in Como, 47; Kenneth Tynan in Stephen Scho-field, In Search of C. S. Lewis, 6–7.
1J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘On Fairy-Stories’, Essays Presented to Charles Williams (1947), p. 66 ff.
1The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), the first volume of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings. The other volumes, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, were published in 1955. Tolkien was later to revise the whole work for a hardback second edition (1966).
2‘One Ring to Bind Them’, New Statesman and Nation (18 September 1954).
3‘On Fairy-Stories’ in Essays Presented to Charles Williams (1947).
4‘Prologue’, The Fellowship of the Ring.
5‘Prologue’, The Fellowship of the Ring.
6The Fellowship of the Ring, Bk. I, ch. 2.
7The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 2.
8‘On Fairy-Stories’.
9The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 2.
10The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 4.
11The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 4.
12The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 4.
13The Two Towers, Bk. III, ch. 2.