C.S. Lewis' Advice on Writing

I've been working on a final paper, and part of that process has included browsing through some of Lewis' letters.  Here is one I found addressed to "a schoolgirl in America" on December 14th, 1959.

1. Turn off the Radio [or for us, Facebook, TV, Twitter, Pandora, Cell Phones.  Wow it certainly got more complicated, didn't it?]
2. Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines
3. Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye.  You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.  If it does not sound nice, try again.
4. Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.  (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about...)
5. Take great pains to be clear.  Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn't, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding.  In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know- the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn't the same in his.
6. When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away.  Put it in a drawer.  It may come in useful later.  Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.
7. Don't use a typewriter.  The nose will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training. [I wonder what Lewis would say about computers.]
8. Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of very word you use

Just thought I would share!

Thinking about Paper Topics

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves) 

 

This quote, coming from The Four Loves, has been one of my favorites for years.  Having now read The Four Loves, I am grateful for the context that gives.  

I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to this topic of suffering and love.  This last summer I spent three months living with a Tibetan Buddhist family in Dharamsala, India.  While I was there I had a lot of opportunities to study Buddhism and Eastern religious philosophy.  Buddha taught that all life leads to suffering so long as you are attached to anything-whether that be your own individual identity, possessions, or personal relationships you feel attachment towards beyond just a general sense of the word "love."  This was the most difficult aspect of the religion for me to swallow.  To me, it feels like a way to cheat the importance of experiencing life.  The joy along with the often inevitable pain.

In this sense, I agree with Lewis.  I believe that to love and be hurt by that love is much better than to not love at all.  As I first started thinking about different paper ideas, the topic of Christian marriage tended to pop up, but this aspect of it seems to be a little more engaging.  Even though it is the end of the semester, and I am busy working on finals and my thesis, I want to make this paper a good representation of all that I learned throughout the semester. 

 

 

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A Grief Observed is one of my favorite works by C.S. Lewis. I feel like Lewis’ honesty is what makes it so meaningful. Death and coping with grief is no easy challenge in this life, yet, it is a part of it. Watching my best friend lose her younger brother last December, being with her at the hospital, I remember feeling so completely helpless to ease her pain. I could just be there—be there and let her know that I was there for her. I ended up buying her this book before I had even read it because I thought it would be spiritually uplifting. I didn’t realize until reading it for the first time this week that it is a lot more than that.

What I find most refreshing about this grief observed is that it does not pretend that religion is a magical pill that will alleviate all of our pain in this life. Lewis highlights this well when he says “talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand” (25). The Atonement of Jesus Christ is a miraculous healer, but it does not work overnight. I like to think that time and Jesus heal all, but that does not necessarily mean we have perfect enough perspective to not be devastated by death. It should help, but it will not make it easy.

And yet, I think that is okay, especially within my own religious tradition as a Latter-day Saint. As Lewis says later in this book, perhaps this is a part of life and learning to become better, though doubts might creep in. But if we look to the Bible we see that Jesus wept for Lazarus even though He knew He could raise him from the dead. In the Pearl of Great Price we see God crying over the wickedness of his creations. Even watching President Hinckley and how he dealt with his own wife’s death was heart wrenching because his sense of deep loss was so apparent.

It is okay to weep. It is okay to mourn for what was and seems lost. It is okay to question at times. It is okay to doubt sometimes as well. The important part is that we work through those doubts and try to remain close to God throughout the process, even if it might feel like the last thing we want to do at the moment.


View all my reviews

Midterm Time

This week was our midterm examination in my C.S. Lewis class.  It was  nice to review some of the books that I read at the beginning of the semester and link them all to each other, and so for that I was grateful for the opportunity, though testing always freaks me out.  The test consisted of free response answers to a few different prompt options, but there was one question that we all had to respond to.  I thought it would be the question at the bottom of the extensive study guide:

"the single insight of Lewis that has had the greatest impact on you; how Lewis' presentation was effective in reaching you; the results (present and potential) of this insight."

But it wasn't.  Still, I think it would be beneficial for me to write here what that response was for me:

It is hard to pick just one teaching of Lewis that has impacted me the most, but I would have to say a lucky bet would be that it would come out of Mere Christianity.  It actually leaked into a few other works as well.  What struck me the most from Lewis this semester was that those times when I don't feel like I quite fit in this world are feelings that are not only normal, but natural, because we are not meant for this world.  Lewis says that we are never given desires that were never meant to satisfy, and if they are not satisfied in this life, then they are in the next.  God would not instill in us that kind of momentum for no reason.

A main quote that supports this idea is found in Mere Christianity in the section called "Hope."  Lewis says that "most people...know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be hand in this world.  There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise...some subjects that excite us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy" (135).  Many people, and myself included, have spent their lives doing some of the things he suggests, "trotting from woman to woman, continent to continent, from hobby to hobby, always thinking that the latest is 'the Real Thing' at last," but find it did not quite quench that fire, leaving us "always disappointed" (136).

How many times have I looked at world travel and relationships as the answer to this inner longing I feel, finding that I am disappointed?  I have lost count.  I have always likened my life to the poem "The Name" by Don Marquis.  He describes this feeling well- "my heart has followed all of my days something I cannot name." I have always felt this inner void, this craving for something more, something bigger than me and life and words, wondering if there was just something wrong with me.

Lewis goes on to say that if we find in ourselves"a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation" is that we were "made for another world" (136-137).  This is the best answer I have ever had on the subject.  I feel like "following something that has no name" has been a lifelong question for me, and even a sense of frustration, but here Lewis has offered me an answer.

(Photo credit goes to Gurumustuk Singh)

Miracles by C.S. Lewis

Miracles by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hate to say that this was not my favorite C.S. Lewis book so far. Without a class discussion, I’m not sure I could have waded through half of the arguments Lewis brings up. It was intended for those who are skeptical of miracles, and that subject was definitely one that I have wondered about.

I am a Latter-day Saint, and I believe in miracles. But I have always been under the impression that God would use natural laws to govern those miracles, and they are miraculous because we do not understand them. In that sense, I never thought that God could break laws that he was bound to (but then again, he is God), but that leads me to one of Lewis’ main points:

He begins with the argument against the naturalist. He believes that in order to really be Christian we have to be supernaturalists, believing that there is more to nature, or our current reality—that there is a God in charge of it all.

Lewis argues that miracles do not discredit the law of nature because nature still works after the miracle occurs. We assume laws are all known, but there could be something higher that interferes. Just because there is interference though does not mean that the laws are not true. It just adds data, as Lewis said. The Virgin Mary was a good example he gives. The miracle was Mary getting pregnant, but after that nature took over. Her body acted just how it would have otherwise, and she gave birth in the way of nature. God and nature work together.

Along with that point, Lewis makes another stab at those who believe that modern day thinkers are somehow smarter than people from “the olden days.” Miracles are just as believable today as they were a thousand years ago, the difference is most people simply disregard them. Joseph might not have had a professorship at Oxford, but he knew that in order to have a kid you had to have intercourse beforehand. The miracle was no more believable then than it is today, so what is different?

Now there are certainly some differences of opinion between LDS doctrine and Lewis, but I thought his general argument for why miracles are more than magical, absurdities was beneficial. He argues that miracles are not just fathomable, but they are essential. I love how he can logically argue for the supernatural. It is not a supplement to faith, but it does make a nice companion.


View all my reviews

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think my feelings on The Screwtape Letters can be summed up in the one word my professor used to describe it.

“Gotcha.”

This work was an absolute delight to read. As we discussed it in class it became apparent that at almost any point along the way someone was having an “ah ha” moment. It is such a complex look at human nature when you have to translate everything (and not some things) into the opposite, making it kind of a difficult read. However, I think this was the perspective Lewis had to take if he wanted to point out our flaws without coming across self righteous and preachy. Instead it is a sneakier approach that helps us laugh through it as we find our own secret, less-than perfect selves painted on the pages. Without this satiric approach it would have been much harder to bring down our natural defenses.

At the same time though, I am not so surprised when C.S. Lewis later said that he could not have extended this book, as requested, because it put him in a “spiritual cramp.” Fun as this book is, the author did not enjoy writing it. I think that is an interesting undertone to help us recognize some of the serious lessons that come out of a pretty hysterical read.

I think one of my biggest “gotcha” passage was in letter IV when Screwtape is instructing his devil in training nephew, Wormwood, about how he can manipulate prayer to their advantage. Screwtape says that Coleridge is pegged for having this particular kind of prayer they are looking for—the kind where you pray “without moving lips and bended knees” with a “sense of supplication” because it has a striking “resemblance to the prayer of silence as practiced by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy’s service.” I have been all to prone to these kinds of prayers. I don’t know why I am always surprised that I fall asleep half way through them or start thinking about what I ate for breakfast or who knows what by the end, but I could see why this would be the sort of prayer a devil would encourage.

Another “ah ha” moment for me came from letter XV when it talks about the importance of living in the present since it is the point “at which time touches eternity.” A devil would say it is important to get us away from the importance of the present and to get them to live in the past, but the past is “of limited value” since it has “a determinate nature and…resembles eternity.” Instead, Screwtape argues that it is “far better” to make us live in the future, which “inflames hope and fear,” remains unknown, seems unreal sometimes, and can seem “the thing least like eternity.” Screwtape does not want his nephew (or us) to be confused by this though. “The Enemy” (or God) would like us to think of the future,” just so much as it is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity,” etc.

Of course, this book is flooded with memorable quotes, but here are just a few of my favorites:
“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (Letter IIX).

“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one” (Letter IX).

“Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts” (Letter XII).

“Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us…Nothing is naturally on our side” (Letter XXII).

And because it is always fun to still have some unsorted through thoughts, a question I would like to raise: Why does Lewis seem to paint falling in love as an ambiguous source for good or evil in Letter XVIII?

Maybe I will find out as I learn more about his life experiences and thoughts in his other works, hopefully becoming a better “hairless biped” along the way.


View all my reviews

You Have to Start Somewhere

So it starts—but that is only half of the story.  

The truth is that my interest in C.S. Lewis began a little over year ago—an interest that kindled to flame, and at some point I decided I needed to take a class on the man to discover more.  

That is why I am here.

I cannot think of anyone in my life that really ever directed me to Lewis or recommended his books, but somewhere along the line I knew I always wanted to read him.  Finally at the age of 20 I started and finished reading The Chronicles of Narnia and a favorite, Mere Christianity, and what can I say?  I am hooked.  Now, there are many different kinds of books.  Some that make you laugh at life for the entertainment value, some that make you want to shoot your brain out (cough—Hemingway anyone?), and then there are those that get you to ask those important life questions—books that inspire and leave you slightly changed having read it.  C.S. Lewis seems to write the latter kind.

It is early in the semester to say, but I am very excited for this course.  We have already read the essay, “The Trouble with ‘X’” in class.   As with my other experiences with Lewis, after finishing this essay I felt like I wanted to be better, realizing that I too am an “X” personality (those difficult people in our lives) and should recognize that and love other ‘X’s” more in the end.   This is just a brief introduction to a class that will have me read over 12 works, so I anticipate lots of growth!

Now there are four expected outcome I hope to achieve by the end as outlined by my Professor, Brother Young:

1. Know a lot about CS Lewis, his writings, and his ideas

2. Become more capable in understanding general written works and expressing my understanding in speech in writing 

3.  Become more capable in the research process

4.  Last, but not least, get a sense of the ethical and spiritual implications of Lewis' work and ideas and hopefully become more Christlike in my response to real people, situations, and events--all the while strengthening my faith in the restored Gospel.

In addition to these course objectives I want to use this blog to track my personal, spiritual, and academic journey as I discover more about Lewis and the person I want to become.  I feel that blogging is an important medium for this type of activity because it is something I can easily access and allows me to share my learning experiences with others who might also be interested in what I am learning.  I have had a lot of experience with academic blogging, but the nature of this one is likely going to be more personal.  This could be a challenge, I’ll admit, but I still firmly believe that I should publish this for public readership.   I think it will also allow me to be more open to discussion about my own faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  

(Photo credit goes to NNDB)