quoththegirl 's review for:

The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis

4.0

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We’re reading Pilgrim’s Regress by C.S. Lewis this week for our philosophy group. I’ve read Pilgrim’s Progress, of course, but wasn’t terribly impressed; I know it’s a classic, but something about that book just rubs me the wrong way. I was baffled by the passage in Little Women where the girls talk about loving to read it because it was such an adventure story. I wondered if maybe I was reading the wrong book, since Pilgrim’s Progress invariably puts me into a coma, and this coming from the girl who usually enjoys some pretty dry reading. I’m not a tremendous fan of allegory, which is part of the problem, but I also found it unhelpful in terms of Christian instruction. Pilgrim’s Regress, on the other hand, is both fascinating and useful so far—unsurprisingly, since it’s Lewis. The story is allegorical and told in much the same way as Pilgrim’s Progress, but it is a generalized account of Lewis’s own progress in Christianity. His preface to my edition apologizes for the individualized journey, which he thought was more typical of other Christians’ struggles. He says that he realized much later that his was an unusual process, but to me it still seems extremely relatable. More on this later, I suspect.

Update: On Monday we’re discussing the second half of Pilgrim’s Regress, which I enjoyed reading and admired even more than the first. I found Superbia to be the most genuinely disturbing character in the book; that’s quite a visual, there (and one which I will not spoil for those of you who haven’t read it). A lot of Lewis’s points make me squirm; he holds a mirror up to me and makes me look at myself more honestly. He’s enjoyable medicine, though, and I love reading his works.