A Grief Observed

Rating:
Summary: For Lewis fans and non-Lewis fans alike...
Review: As I have confessed before, I am not a huge fan of CS Lewis. To be more accurate, however, I am not a fan of the Lewis phenomena. Lewis was an admirable man with many gifts. However, I don't think he was the beacon of truth that many have made him out to be. He had an amazing ability to dissect weighty issues with clear-headed thinking, but I have often felt that he didn't understand the depth, complexity and irrationality that creates the tapestry of humanity. That is, until after the loss of his wife Joy and several other disappoinments in his life.

In reading this book, then, I was trying to sharpen my own understanding of his transformation at the end of his life. It was, honestly, very refreshing to read a Lewis who was shaken. Rather than everything being obvious and clear to him, Lewis keeps wrestling with himself at the difficult intersection of faith, emotions and logic. As he would come to one conclusion or resolution during one entry, his next journal entry would inevitably dismiss all he had previously written as he would chastise himself and try to make further sense of things. Thus, for anyone who has been cautious of Lewis for the same reasons as I have, this book will give you the human glimpse of him that perhaps you were waiting for.

However, I think a Lewis fan would appreciate this work as well, though for very different reasons. If one is a Lewis fan, I would guess that one enjoys his intellectual approach to all issues. Rather than ever let himself just grieve or be emotional or ride out the storm, Lewis takes on the grieving process in a similar way as he has taken on all problems - with honesty, scrutiny and expectation that a solution can be found.

On a personal note, I lost three family members in the past year, and learned first hand how long, painful and unexpected the grieving process can be. If you've never gone through it, then you may not understand how it can shake you to the core - even if you think you have a strong faith. Thus, in, around and through all other criticism I may have of Lewis, I do appreciate Lewis' willingness to publish his account which will likely help validate the spiritual journey of many mourners. (For, thanks to the Lewis phenomena, if Lewis went through it, then it's OK to go through.)

Rating:
Summary: A Veritable Gem
Review: I have loved the books by C.S. Lewis for several years now, and I have no disappointment to confess in A Grief Observed. In fact, my feelings are quite the opposite. A Grief Observed has truly helped me, indeed, perhaps not in the sense of the authors original intention. Yet merely in the equalizing grief which every human must succumb to on some level, I have been changed by this book. At times I have wept through it, at others I have sat in chilling reflection. All I can say is read it!! :)

Rating:
Summary: Eye Opening
Review: This book is truly a work of an artist who has a talent for writing beyond my belief. This book is comprised of journal entry style writing and CS Lewis really shines with this work.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book by an excellent author
Review: Everyone has either experienced a tragic loss of life in the family. Perhaps a death in the extended family, or through a friend who might have lost a loved one. For Christians, grief is an especially tough time, taking them through cycles of questions about whether or not God really does love us when such brutally painful events take hold of us.

When author Clive Staples Lewis lost his wife to cancer in the 1960's, he was no different than any of us, finding himself asking the same questions about God's goodness and love that a lot of us have. Since Lewis had already lived a full life, his loss was deepened by the lack of promises of future happiness a younger person might find some small comfort in. Yet in the wee hours when his grief and anguish were the most poignant, Lewis - an author all the way - took to filling blank pads of paper in his house with the thoughts and feelings that his bereavement brought.

Even though I have not personally experienced anything near the kind of grief that this book deals with, I still found this book to be an amazing read. The deepest grief I've ever experienced was the loss of a family pet, yet from that small sampling I can just barely grasp what Lewis went through. Indeed any person not accustomed to grief can begin to understand it by reading the beautiful language that fills the pages of this book.

It is a short book, ringing in with only four chapters, and 76 pages. Yet all of them are filled with the balm of Lewis's reflections and introspection, and all of them are able to help a grieving person, if for nothing else than to know that they're not alone.

For any person who might be undergoing a period of sorrow, I highly recommend this book. It is not a lot of heavy reading, thus possibly making it easier on someone who is already in such pain. The wonderfully poetic, graceful language gives body and soul to the multitude of emotions that wash through a grieving person, especially in dark hours. These emotions, I'm sure, are experienced by everyone, but with the comments and insight of one of Christendom's favorite authors, it makes this work a priceless treasure.

If you, or someone you know is going through a difficult time of loss and heartache, buy this book for them. It is a must-read for anyone in pain.

Rating:
Summary: Penetrating Look at Grief
Review: When it comes to frank discussion of difficult issues, there's often a sense in which no approach will satisfy everyone. Those who offer a polished examination tend to be met with detractors who don't believe the approach was honest or in-depth enough. Those who offer an unpolished but 'brutally honest' approach tend to be met with detractors who think the 'brutal honesty' is questionable in terms of theological or intellectual integrity and could have stood for more sober reflection before being published. Because of this, a mysterious exchange occurs between writer and reader. When writer and reader aren't on the same page in terms of purpose or expectation, a letdown is usually the result. But on those occasions when the writer and reader make an enduring connection based on similar experiences, attitudes, etc, the result is often profound. While such a result can be dangerous since emotional or attitudinal connectivity is not a valid measure of whether the views expressed have a basis in objective truth or not and thus make belief in error all the more easy, the result, when anchored in truth, is formidable.

Why do I say all this? Because I think if someone is coming to this book looking for a presentation on suffering that is airtight in its theology, this might be a disappointment. Lewis was no theologian, he was a layman who had an extra-ordinary desire to probe the things of God from the perspective of a layman. As a result, many of his works, while tremendously engaging and insightful, tend to be at least somewhat loose in their fidelity to Scriptural truths, which shouldn't be surprising since Lewis did not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. Nonetheless, this particular effort is one of the most engaging works on suffering and grief from a Christian perspective and its insights should be taken very seriously.

In this book, Lewis laments the vacuum left in his life by the passing of his wife. Along the way, he ponders out loud about a number of basic issues surrounding the goodness of God, the meaning of life, and the purpose of grief. The early chapters tend to be defined more by a spirit of grief resulting from an unsure anchor. This is the section where many of the particularly engaging musings about God and life are asked and not always answered. In the later chapters, as Lewis has further reflected on the goodness of God and the meaning of grief, his faith anchor becomes more stable, his perspective more secure, and his grief more manageable. This is no accident of course. What we see on these pages is one of the better Christian apologists of the 20th century having the sturdiness of his faith put to the ultimate test, and the result is a very penetrating look at grief from someone not removed from it and analyzing it from a distance, but one who is in the middle of it and is struggling with it personally.

In the end, the reader might well agree with Lewis that the veridicality of the worldview and value system one adopts is most demonstrated when such things literally become matters of life and death personally. Does it merely work on paper and in the abstract, or is it also a source of absolute truth when brought home to roost in our most desperate hour. This is a formidable test for any worldview, and one that few are willing to honestly grapple with. Lewis does so here, and what we see is a man exposed by his grief, unable to hide behind anything else, and trying to make his worldview make sense in the midst of it. Very penetrating, very honest. A work that should be considered by all, but read with theological discernment.

Rating:
Summary: So high a cost...
Review: C.S. Lewis is perhaps best known for children's stories that also delight adults; however, during his lifetime he was best known as an inspirational speaker, not quite in the same line as modern televangelists, but nonetheless a crowd-pleaser who had subtle but strong theology to share.

C.S. Lewis was a confirmed bachelor (not that he was a 'confirmed bachelor', mind you, just that he had become set enough in his ways over time that he no longer held out the prospect of marriage or relationships). Then, into his comfortable existence, a special woman, Joy Davidson, arrived. They fell in love quickly, and had a brief marriage of only a few years, when Joy died of cancer.

This left Lewis inconsolable.

For his mother had also died of cancer, when he was very young.

Cancer, cancer, cancer!

Lewis goes through a dramatic period of grief, from which he never truly recovers (according to the essayist Chad Walsh, who writes a postscript to Lewis' book). He died a few years later, the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

However, Lewis takes the wonderful and dramatic step of writing down his grief to share with others. The fits and starts, the anger, the reconciliation, the pain--all is laid bare for the reader to experience. So high a cost for insight is what true spirituality requires. An awful, awe-ful cost and experience.

'Did you know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past...'

All that was good paled in comparison to the loss. How can anything be good again? This is such an honest human feeling, that even the past is no longer what is was in relation to the new reality of being alone again.

In the end, Lewis reaches a bit of a reconciliation with his feelings, and with God.

'How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back. She said not to me, but to the chaplain, "I am at peace with God." '

Lewis had a comfortable, routine life that was jolted by love, and then devasted by loss. Through all of this, he took pains to recount what he was going through, that it might not be lost, that it might benefit others, that there might be some small part of his love for Joy that would last forever.

I hope it shall.

Rating:
Summary: A Grief Observed
Review: A Grief Observed

One of Lewis' trademark talents is that of brevity - his theological musings as well as his fictional allegories are always succinct. "A Grief Observed" is no exception at a mere 60 or so pages. There have been countless books written on the subject of death, and one might been of the opinion that everything that needs to be said has been said already, even before Lewis wrote this particular book. Yet few are indeed so equally human and contain such divine insight as this. Since his own admittedly reluctant conversion to Christianity, Lewis' faith was, in the eyes of his adoring fans and indeed to himself in many respects, tantamount to the Rock of Gibraltar. One could even accuse Lewis of naïve arrogance at times, as though he had God "sussed out". Yet at the death of his wife (though that word today is too empty to describe her relationship to him) Lewis' world came crashing down around him - his "deck of cards" faith, as he puts it, had been destroyed. It would be very easy for his detractors to say that his faith was false all along and that the volumes of Christian apologetics he wrote were authored on the basis of guesswork instead of divine knowledge. It is doubtful that Lewis would argue with these points - they are hinted at by Lewis both in his lowest and highest moments in the book. And yet that is not quite the whole truth of the situation. This is made clear over the course of "A Grief Observed". Lewis emerges from his tragedy with his faith not only intact but also wholly reborn. Rather than the stereotypical Christian view that so many non-Christians and Christians take, the "family reunion in Heaven" (which he rejects are pure fantasy), Lewis accepts (much to his anguish) that God is God, that death is death, and that his wife is indeed in a state of eternal bliss. This reviewer will not spoil how Lewis came to these conclusions, but will say that for those who may doubt the sincerity of his claims there is indeed a "Ring of Truth" to be heard in his findings. This is a book about one man's struggle to come to terms with the reality of death and what it means for us all. It is heartbreaking and yet imparts a sense of supreme joy that is to be found. Highly recommended reading for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Grief Observed
Review: This is a mournful book, but it ends in hope. On the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis went through a time of confusion and penned these expressions of grief in assorted notebooks throughout his house, later collecting them into a book published under another name. In this book he reveals his doubts and worries and despairs and self-reprimands, yet interlaced throughout he maintains (tenuously at times) his hope in God, and comes out more faithful than ever.

This book is not a theological or literary treasure like Lewis' other works. This book is a tale of grief. We find in Scripture and all of literature the theme of grief and mourning over the loss of loved ones. Lewis here expresses his own experience with this grief, and seeks to encourage readers with his thoughts.

Rating:
Summary: A Widower's Journal
Review: CS Lewis began writing this journal one month after his wife died of cancer. He was distraught, shocked, and confused, especially about the meaning of life. The journal rambles from one throught to another, reflecting his daze and despair.

As a widow, I can identify with his varied reactions to death; however I found the book rather difficult to read. It is only 72 pages long, but each sentence needs to be reread, and slowly, in order to follow Lewis' thought processes. He finds no answers to his questions (mainly: How could God take his beloved away from him?); he simply asks them.

For me, this was not a particularly helpful or insiteful book on grief, merely one person's thoughts on the subject. I am sure however, that admirers of CS Lewis would find it of interest.

Rating:
Summary: Intellectual and Spiritual Insight into Grief
Review: After C. S. Lewis lost his wife, Helen Joy Davidman, he took up a journal. These writings make up A Grief Observed. Lewis refers to his lost beloved as H. in his journal. The title aptly describes this work. It is not about grief in general but about the grief of a specific man at a specific time for a specific loss. The foreword by Madeleine L'Engle makes good observation of the practical application of the book in examining grief and helping others in part to cope. The introduction by Douglas H. Gresham, a son of Joy Davidman, paints an intimate picture of who Lewis and Davidman were. From this, one gets the sense this book is going to be about something real. In the work, Lewis's true colors show through. He is an intellectual individual moving through the grieving process and trying to understand his own thoughts and experience. He displays himself with unabashed openness and honesty (perhaps because he thought these scribblings would never become public). One understands that he is experiencing real loss and pain. Lewis asks "Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?" Lewis confronts his faith which may be a "house of cards" while trying to hold onto the proper memory of H. so that she is never really gone. Both of these seem to be the central themes of the book. In Lewis's examination of his faith and God, he stumbles upon several points of insight into the both of them. For his own part, nearer the beginning of the book, Lewis says "You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you." As Lewis putts along his journey of grief, he comes to the point where he begins to see all this in the grand scheme of things for what it is and begins to go on to the next step in his life. For his experience, as for many of the rest of us, "Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape."

I do not know if this book would be of much consolation, understanding, or catharsis for anyone who is experiencing loss because I did not read it in a period of grief. Looking back, I can see where I would identify with Lewis and if having read it before grieving, it would perhaps have been of benefit. It is amazing what truth can be uncovered when an individual is knocked to the bottom and is brutally honest with him- or herself and the world. A Grief Observed is what it is, and it contains deep spiritual wisdom. The book is short and an excellent read.