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bones_jackson's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
4.0
Se os militantes do Twitter lessem a parte que ele diz que não se pode falar mal de algo que você não gosta por que o seu julgamento está automaticamente afetado pelos teus sentimentos o mundo seria um lugar muito melhor
natwebb's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed this. I think I might enjoy it more when i’m more widely read as I didn’t know many authors/books he was talking about. An excellent deep dive into what he read though! An I really loved his short essay on education.
ffictionist's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting and deep, sometimes so deep some references can go over your head, if you haven't read all the books/authors mentioned by Lewis.
felipebarnabe's review against another edition
3.0
Tem alguns excelentes ensaios, mas a maior parte é de textos não muito interessantes.
davehershey's review against another edition
4.0
This is an absolutely brilliant series of essays on reading stories. I'd put this alongside Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism as good reading for anyone who wants to think about reading. Lewis also frequently cites his friend Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories which is found in The Tolkien Reader. Speaking of Tolkien, one of the benefits of this book is it includes Lewis' reviews of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (as well as essays on Dorothy Sayers and George Orwell).
A few themes come up throughout these essays. One is that good readers read good books more than once. Lewis would argue that you haven't fully received a book upon the first reading. He also would seem to say that you ought not criticize others for reading things you find to be poor writing. But he is not saying there is no standard, as if all writing is the same. Books quickly forgotten, or read once for a mere experience and tossed aside, are not good books in the way those that you keep coming back to over and over.
Lewis also makes a great point about fantasy and children stories. In his day, such books were seen as for children. Adults reading them might be looked down upon. Lewis argues this is actually a childish attitude, since it is only children who yearn to be adults. Adults can still enjoy those fantastic stories. Growing does not mean negating our youth but adding to it, so Lewis says we can enjoy fantasy stories AND Tolstoy. As someone who was embarrassed to be seen reading Star Wars or Narnia books in my teen years and who still sometimes feels like reading fantasy is for kids, I resonate with this. I love the fantasy stories of Lewis, Tolkien, Jordan and am currently immersed in Sanderson's Cosmere. I also love Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Its who I am, and I am gratified to see Lewis would affirm me in that...though I hope I have time someday to reread some of these!
In one of the last essays, On Criticism, Lewis discusses how to critique books, though his words would apply to movies too. One thing he says, which I want to mention here because I see it, is when people try to analyze the author to explain why something is bad. He mentions how some reviewers said an essay of his was bad because it was "rushed". Lewis agreed it was bad, but said he spent more time on it than any other! The fact is, critics don't know the process of the creator so to say something is "rushed" or "hastily prepared" is to not critique the work but to create an excuse out of thin air. This is something to keep in mind as we criticize art.
Finally, perhaps more than other Lewis essay collections (The Weight of Glory, God in the Dock) this one had a few essays I basically skipped. I don't know who "Haggard" (or Hagrid? I don't remember!) is so I didn't care much about what Lewis was saying there. This is only 2-3 essays in the collection, so the book is still worth a read.
A few quotes:
"It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment of what are called 'children's books'. I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty" (20).
"An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books only once" (23).
"We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savor the beauties" (24).
"But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up...I now enjoy Tolstoy and Jane Austen and Trollope as well as fairy tales and I call that growth: if I had had to lose the fairy tales in order to acuire the novelists, I would not say that I had grown but only that I had changed. A tree grows because it adds rings: a train doesn't grow by leaving one station behind and puffing on to the next" (50)
"It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing" (57).
A few themes come up throughout these essays. One is that good readers read good books more than once. Lewis would argue that you haven't fully received a book upon the first reading. He also would seem to say that you ought not criticize others for reading things you find to be poor writing. But he is not saying there is no standard, as if all writing is the same. Books quickly forgotten, or read once for a mere experience and tossed aside, are not good books in the way those that you keep coming back to over and over.
Lewis also makes a great point about fantasy and children stories. In his day, such books were seen as for children. Adults reading them might be looked down upon. Lewis argues this is actually a childish attitude, since it is only children who yearn to be adults. Adults can still enjoy those fantastic stories. Growing does not mean negating our youth but adding to it, so Lewis says we can enjoy fantasy stories AND Tolstoy. As someone who was embarrassed to be seen reading Star Wars or Narnia books in my teen years and who still sometimes feels like reading fantasy is for kids, I resonate with this. I love the fantasy stories of Lewis, Tolkien, Jordan and am currently immersed in Sanderson's Cosmere. I also love Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Its who I am, and I am gratified to see Lewis would affirm me in that...though I hope I have time someday to reread some of these!
In one of the last essays, On Criticism, Lewis discusses how to critique books, though his words would apply to movies too. One thing he says, which I want to mention here because I see it, is when people try to analyze the author to explain why something is bad. He mentions how some reviewers said an essay of his was bad because it was "rushed". Lewis agreed it was bad, but said he spent more time on it than any other! The fact is, critics don't know the process of the creator so to say something is "rushed" or "hastily prepared" is to not critique the work but to create an excuse out of thin air. This is something to keep in mind as we criticize art.
Finally, perhaps more than other Lewis essay collections (The Weight of Glory, God in the Dock) this one had a few essays I basically skipped. I don't know who "Haggard" (or Hagrid? I don't remember!) is so I didn't care much about what Lewis was saying there. This is only 2-3 essays in the collection, so the book is still worth a read.
A few quotes:
"It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment of what are called 'children's books'. I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty" (20).
"An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books only once" (23).
"We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savor the beauties" (24).
"But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up...I now enjoy Tolstoy and Jane Austen and Trollope as well as fairy tales and I call that growth: if I had had to lose the fairy tales in order to acuire the novelists, I would not say that I had grown but only that I had changed. A tree grows because it adds rings: a train doesn't grow by leaving one station behind and puffing on to the next" (50)
"It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing" (57).
geneticginger's review against another edition
4.0
Great book detailing Lewis's views on many literary things.