C. S. Lewis: A Life

Rating:
Summary: A superficial and uninformative biography
Review: Skip this one. Michael White's biography of C.S. Lewis is riddled with groundless guesswork in place of innovative research or thoughtful interpretation. In describing Lewis's early life,for example, he refers to Lewis's "overactive imagination," and comments that Lewis listened to "pointless, meaningless" sermons when he was taken to church as a boy. On what, exactly, does he base such conclusions? These are the sorts of unverified, opinionated comments that even a freshman English student would be expected to avoid in his research, and they are peppered throughout the book. Further, the prose itself is colorless. One wonders at the sheer lack of vocabulary. The book offers nothing that might flesh out the intellectual context of Lewis's best known works. This biography is a waste of time.