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A review by lizshayne
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
challenging
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
It's not that I have too many feelings about Lewis's work, it's that I have two and they basically just flip back and forth between "How dare you?" (impressed) and "How dare you?" (derogatory)
I have to sit with them again, especially because his stuff works on a wide range of registers:
1) He thinks this is about being a Christian, but it's actually about being a human
2) He thinks this is about being a Christian, but it's actually about having a relationship with religion and God
3) He thinks this is about being a human, but it's actually about being a 20th century don.
4) He thinks this is about being a Christian and he is absolutely correct and it's uninteresting to me.
"Learning in Wartime" is, for obvious reasons, running in circles in my head and there are bits of it that I hate (his cavalier attitude towards death in the face of eternal redemption because, well, Christianity) and then there are bits about the fundamentally precedent-ed nature of our times. We have always studied despite the world around us.
Also the idea that things may be “A duty worth dying, yes, but not a duty worth living for.”
Also “Whether or not we ought to put aside everything else—either before religion or the way—we don’t. And if we refuse good things, they will be replaced with bad things.”
Distinguishing between the person who hides and the person who knows they are where they are supposed to be.
And then there's Transposition and the idea that ineffable experiences are translated like a symphony to a piano piece because we are pianos. I can't figure out what the there THERE is. I wonder if it's another version of the story of "On Fairy Stories".
I'm not going to talk about the bit on the importance of inequality but I also do not intend to forget it. Damnit, Lewis.
There's an article somewhere about reading Tolkien, L'Engel, and Lewis at a formative age and how that shapes one's sense of good and evil. I just may have to write it first.
I have to sit with them again, especially because his stuff works on a wide range of registers:
1) He thinks this is about being a Christian, but it's actually about being a human
2) He thinks this is about being a Christian, but it's actually about having a relationship with religion and God
3) He thinks this is about being a human, but it's actually about being a 20th century don.
4) He thinks this is about being a Christian and he is absolutely correct and it's uninteresting to me.
"Learning in Wartime" is, for obvious reasons, running in circles in my head and there are bits of it that I hate (his cavalier attitude towards death in the face of eternal redemption because, well, Christianity) and then there are bits about the fundamentally precedent-ed nature of our times. We have always studied despite the world around us.
Also the idea that things may be “A duty worth dying, yes, but not a duty worth living for.”
Also “Whether or not we ought to put aside everything else—either before religion or the way—we don’t. And if we refuse good things, they will be replaced with bad things.”
Distinguishing between the person who hides and the person who knows they are where they are supposed to be.
And then there's Transposition and the idea that ineffable experiences are translated like a symphony to a piano piece because we are pianos. I can't figure out what the there THERE is. I wonder if it's another version of the story of "On Fairy Stories".
I'm not going to talk about the bit on the importance of inequality but I also do not intend to forget it. Damnit, Lewis.
There's an article somewhere about reading Tolkien, L'Engel, and Lewis at a formative age and how that shapes one's sense of good and evil. I just may have to write it first.