Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful book to read and re-read
Review: Sheldon Vanauken's story of his life with wife Jean leaves a lasting impression. Their spiritual journey, often guided by C. S. Lewis, is well told.
Rating:
Summary: Honest to God
Review: Something to give friends who might feel they are too smart and/or sophisticated to be/become Christians. True story of two such people who God, with a little help from C.S. Lewis, converted. Early on in their relationship they vow to let nothing get in the way of their love for each other - not children, not Him. But He uses no less a bastion of intelligent thought than Oxford for the setting of His entrance to their hearts and minds. A must read for all who wish to be born again.
Rating:
Summary: Honest to God
Review: Something to give friends who might feel they are too smart and/or sophisticated to be/become Christians. True story of two such people who God, with a little help from C.S. Lewis, converted. Early on in their relationship they vow to let nothing get in the way of their love for each other - not children, not Him. But He uses no less a bastion of intelligent thought than Oxford for the setting of His entrance to their hearts and minds. A must read for all who wish to be born again.
Rating: 
Summary: spiritual exhibitionism
Review: The excellent reviews I've read here leave little more for me to say. This is a wonderful, touching story of love, loss and ultimate gain that left me as a 20-something young man in a puddle of tears. When I re-read it pushing 40, darned if I didn't cry again!I picked this book up initially because of the connection to C.S. Lewis, but it stands on its own. The letters from Jack are gravy.
Rating:
Summary: I seldom cry reading a book..........
Review: The excellent reviews I've read here leave little more for me to say. This is a wonderful, touching story of love, loss and ultimate gain that left me as a 20-something young man in a puddle of tears. When I re-read it pushing 40, darned if I didn't cry again! I picked this book up initially because of the connection to C.S. Lewis, but it stands on its own. The letters from Jack are gravy.
Rating:
Summary: one of the greatest stories of Love I have ver read
Review: The intense Love that the two in this book portray is awe-inspiring. I long to Know another Soul the way that they have known each other. The Love they share invokes the emotional, physical and spiritual aspect of our lives.
Rating:
Summary: A Severe Mercy Indeed
Review: The love story in this book begins with the author and his beloved probing the depths of intensity and feeling associated with being in love as self-proclaimed pagan worshippers of beauty always do--seeing human love as the ideal in life. It is moving, romantic, beautiful, though really idolatrous in a way. At the time though, the beauty and depth of feeling associated with their love seems to outshine any of the idolatry therein. But then, these self-proclaimed pagans enter into the journey of divine love; a love that far outweighs and outshines their love for one another. Love for God becomes supreme for her, and eventually he ends up there too. It is a lovely and true journey that demonstrates that while love between humans can be extremely wonderful and heart-stoppingly intense, the divine love and longings for connection with God are much moreso. Vanauken's writing style is mostly straightforward yet poetically descriptive, and at times breathtakingly gorgeous. One reason his life story translates so well into a written work is that he and Davy (his wife) viewed their life in an almost literary way. Examining each moment and occurrence, they would find significance in their daily life and point to events as foreshadowing changes to come. This book is one of the best love stories I have ever read, especially in terms of putting human love in the appropriate position of deference to love and obedience to God. I recommend it without reservation.
Rating:
Summary: This is my favorite book of all time!
Review: The love story that you can't put down, I highly recommend "A Severe Mercy". The author's accounting of his love for "Davy" is beautifully written, as is their quest for religious meaning. A truly wonderful book that is timeless in its content.
Rating:
Summary: A heart-wrenching love story
Review: The plotline: guy meets girl, they fall madly in love, marry, determine to never let their love die by insisting on sharing every experience with each other (in person or verbally), they convert from atheism to Christianity while in Oxford, find God invading the boundaries of their marriage, gal falls ill and dies, guy grieves her death, ponders the meaning of their marriage, and many years later writes about these things in "A Severe Mercy". I have yet to speak with someone who did not cry while reading this book. It is a moving story of love and death that manages to avoid the sticky-sweet sentimentalism that merely parodies a true tragedy. While the loss of a loved one is a tragedy, Vanauken shows that this was not the only one. The other was the idolatrization of marriage, what Vanauken and his wife Davy termed "The Shining Barrier". The Shining Barrier was the best of pagan love, the shutting out of anything that could produce the "creeping separateness" that might divide them. What Vanauken and Davy had not counted on was the invasion of their marriage by God. Later, as C.S. Lewis pointed out in a letter, Vanauken was given a "severe mercy" when Davy died. The severe mercy was the removal of the idolotry - The Shining Barrier - from their marriage through Davy's death. Moreover, the severe mercy of Davy's death also prevented Vanauken from watching his "natural" love with Davy die. For as Lewis maintained (and so adroitly demonstrated in his book "The Four Loves"), the natural loves of eros (romance), philia (friendship), and storge (familial affection) - without the support of agape (charity, divine love) - will eventually be transformed and die. So after Davy's death, Lewis wrote of this pagan love in a letter to Vanauken, "One way or another the thing had to die. Perpetual springtime is not allowed. You were not cutting the wood of life according to the grain. There are various possible ways in which it could have died tho' both parties went on living. You have been treated with a severe mercy. You have been brought to see (how true & how very frequent this is!) that you were jealous of God. So from US you have been led back to US AND GOD; it remains to go on to GOD AND US." Readers of this excellent book often take interest in one (or more) of three things: 1)Van and Davy's approach to marriage and intimacy, 2)their intellectual searching and conversion to Christianity, or 3)the grieving process following death of a beloved. This was certainly one of the most emotionally moving books I have ever read and I recommend it unreservedly.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, poignant prose about author's wife dieing.
Review: The story reads like a great piece of fiction in its drama and carefully crafted prose, but is all the more meaningful and profound in that it is a true story of the author's coming to faith through his encounter with renowned author, C.S Lewis. But when his wife soon dies he spends the next years contemplating the meaning of their life together. Actual letters between Vanauken and Lewis are publish. Profound also because Lewis would soon go through his own grief when he looses his wife to cancer.
| 
