A Grief Observed
●ISBN13: 9780060652388
●Condition: New
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Product Description
C.S. Lewis joined the human race when his wife, Joy Gresham, died of cancer. Lewis, the Oxford don whose Christian apologetics make it seem like he's got an answer for everything, experienced crushing doubt for the first time after his wife's tragic death. A Grief Observed contains his epigrammatic reflections on that period: "Your bid--for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity--will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high," Lewis writes. "Nothing will shake a man--or at any rate a man like me--out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is the book that inspired the film Shadowlands, but it is more wrenching, more revelatory, and more real than the movie. It is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings. --Michael Joseph Gross
★★★★★ Beautiful
This book simply ripped my heart out when I read it. I cried like a baby. He's so honest about how he feels about God when his wife of 3 years passes away. Lewis is a genius in his other writings, but here, we see a man hurting. We see what grief does to the human soul and the questions that come with it.
★★★★☆ C.S. Lewis's notes (... about a very personal grief)
(¤ thank you for reading this review and for your vote ¤)
INTRO:
"In April 1956, C.S. Lewis, a confirmed bachelor, married Joy Davidman [known as H. in the book], an American poet with two small children. After four brief, intensely happy years, Lewis found himself alone again, and inconsolable. To defend himself against the loss of belief in God, Lewis wrote this journal, an eloquent statement of rediscovered faith. In it he freely confesses his doubts, his rage, and his awareness of human frailty. In it he finds again the way back to life" writes publisher on the back-cover.
I read this book while mourning my grandmother, and I did not find the book as comforting as I thought it would be. I wished so much to give this read a 5 stars like the majority of reviewers, but I cannot, for the following reasons: a) the jacket over-promises (of "comforting thousands" and "will be a comfort and inspiration to anyone who has ever lost a loved one"), b) archaic and difficult language, c) short bursts of argumentation without much fill-in explanations and randomness of thought (no clear pattern). Allow me to explain the "+"es and "-"es of these reasons in the context of the book with examples, as found under CONTENT.
Also, C.S. Lewis's notes on grieving (the 4 chapters that make up "A Grief Observed") provided me with some good meat for thought, for my soul, and some great QUOTES (see CONCLUSION section).
AUTHOR:
Most people are familiar with who C.S. Lewis is (a short wikipedia search will provide most info necessary).
EDITION:
Bantman Books, 14th printing in 1988, with an afterword by Chad Walsh. This edition contains the 4 chapters of C.S. Lewis's grieving notes (pgs.1-89) followed by "another book" - "Afterword by Chad Walsh" (pgs.93-151) where Chad (an American professor of English and poet) gives us a very upclose & personal biography of C.S. Lewis as a close friend.
CONTENT:
"The notes have been about myself, about H. [Joy Davidman Lewis], and about God." confesses C.S. Lewis pg.71 - chapter IV. The book is broken into 4 title-less chapters (probably the areas where C.S. Lewis took breaks). He starts the book with the line "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear" and goes on discussing his emotions and thoughts and also fears (is God a bad one, a "Cosmic Sadist" - pg.43,45; do the departed also mourn; normalcy sets in again in one's life).
a) overpromises -
The four chapters provided me with a picture into C.S. Lewis's mind and emotions. Some of these I could related to, but others were a bit convoluted, distant, or confusing. I believe that each one of us GRIEVES personally and we also draw strength from our community. Being CONSOLED, finding your way through your BEREAVEMENT is a very personal process. Many of us will probably never ask the questions or bring up the arguments found in this book, but nevertheless, they help in having a broader picture on GRIEF.
b) language -
C.S. Lewis is the Cambridge professor who wrote the textbook for Middle Ages Literature, so as such be expected to find lots of "vacuity" when the text "geometrizes" your vocabulary and "vivisects" your word knowledge. C.S. Lewis also makes some use of mythological figures and contemporary personalities in his analogies (Amazon, Penthesileia, Camilla, Queen Victoria). Also, one should be up on their Bible knowledge (Solomon, St.Paul, Stephen the fist martyr, and Lazarus). Knowledge of Latin is esential to understand the last sentence of the book (pg.89) - "Poi si torno all eterna fontana" - a quote from Dante's Paradise and means "then she turned back to the Eternal Fountain." But if you feel that you are caught in "culs de sac" (pg.55) you are not alone. Some annotations by the publishers would have been helpful.
c) argumentation and randomness of thought -
Again, these are the notes of a great literary mind, but that does not mean that they follow logically or have been organized for easy digestion. Even C.S. Lewis admits, after a retrospective reflection "Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense?" and "these notes the senseless writhings of a man" (pg.38 - chapter II). Make no mistake about it, C.S. Lewis will take you on a very interesting journey where he analyzes various thoughts, feelings, moods, emotions, and doubts. Sometimes his arugment is pure madness if not simply blasphamous ("We set Christ against it. But how if He were mistaken? .... " paragraph in chapter II, my pg. 34). Some arguments are very terse, others long-winded and with some tangents. They all reflect the mind, spirit, and soul of a grieving person.
CONCLUSION:
Bottom line is, this book is no easy thing to read, let alone understand everything read. Although it must be said, it is a great book to have discussed in a reading club, or for anyone grieving a loved one.
The wONDERFUL QUOTES alone are worth the price:
Chapter I
"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." (pg.1)
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." (pg.11)
"You can't share someone else's weakness, or fear or pain." (pg. 13)
"nature never plays exactly the same tune twice." (pg.16)
Chapter II
"The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant - in a word, real." (pg.20)
"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death." (pg.25)
"the past is the past and that is what time means, and time itself is one more name for death, and Heaven itself is a state where 'the former things have passed away' " (pg.28)
"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand." (pg.28)
"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?" (pg.38)
"It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on." (pg.38)
"Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness." (pg.39)
Chapter III
"Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours of it with no let-up for a moment." (pg.47)
"My love for H. [Joy Davidman Lewis] was of much the same quality as my faith in God" (pg.48)
"You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can't, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately" (pg.53)
"passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them" (pg.64)
"the less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her" (pg.66)
"For in grief nothing 'stays put' " (pg.67)
Chapter IV
"Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape." (pg.69)
"If you are approaching Him [God] not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him [God] at all." (pg.79)
"this is one of the miracles of love; it gives- to both, .. a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." (pg.84)
"God. His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another. .. He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees." (pg.84)
"We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least." (pg.89, 3rd last paragraph).
(¤ thank you for reading this review and for your vote ¤)
INTRO:
"In April 1956, C.S. Lewis, a confirmed bachelor, married Joy Davidman [known as H. in the book], an American poet with two small children. After four brief, intensely happy years, Lewis found himself alone again, and inconsolable. To defend himself against the loss of belief in God, Lewis wrote this journal, an eloquent statement of rediscovered faith. In it he freely confesses his doubts, his rage, and his awareness of human frailty. In it he finds again the way back to life" writes publisher on the back-cover.
I read this book while mourning my grandmother, and I did not find the book as comforting as I thought it would be. I wished so much to give this read a 5 stars like the majority of reviewers, but I cannot, for the following reasons: a) the jacket over-promises (of "comforting thousands" and "will be a comfort and inspiration to anyone who has ever lost a loved one"), b) archaic and difficult language, c) short bursts of argumentation without much fill-in explanations and randomness of thought (no clear pattern). Allow me to explain the "+"es and "-"es of these reasons in the context of the book with examples, as found under CONTENT.
Also, C.S. Lewis's notes on grieving (the 4 chapters that make up "A Grief Observed") provided me with some good meat for thought, for my soul, and some great QUOTES (see CONCLUSION section).
AUTHOR:
Most people are familiar with who C.S. Lewis is (a short wikipedia search will provide most info necessary).
EDITION:
Bantman Books, 14th printing in 1988, with an afterword by Chad Walsh. This edition contains the 4 chapters of C.S. Lewis's grieving notes (pgs.1-89) followed by "another book" - "Afterword by Chad Walsh" (pgs.93-151) where Chad (an American professor of English and poet) gives us a very upclose & personal biography of C.S. Lewis as a close friend.
CONTENT:
"The notes have been about myself, about H. [Joy Davidman Lewis], and about God." confesses C.S. Lewis pg.71 - chapter IV. The book is broken into 4 title-less chapters (probably the areas where C.S. Lewis took breaks). He starts the book with the line "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear" and goes on discussing his emotions and thoughts and also fears (is God a bad one, a "Cosmic Sadist" - pg.43,45; do the departed also mourn; normalcy sets in again in one's life).
a) overpromises -
The four chapters provided me with a picture into C.S. Lewis's mind and emotions. Some of these I could related to, but others were a bit convoluted, distant, or confusing. I believe that each one of us GRIEVES personally and we also draw strength from our community. Being CONSOLED, finding your way through your BEREAVEMENT is a very personal process. Many of us will probably never ask the questions or bring up the arguments found in this book, but nevertheless, they help in having a broader picture on GRIEF.
b) language -
C.S. Lewis is the Cambridge professor who wrote the textbook for Middle Ages Literature, so as such be expected to find lots of "vacuity" when the text "geometrizes" your vocabulary and "vivisects" your word knowledge. C.S. Lewis also makes some use of mythological figures and contemporary personalities in his analogies (Amazon, Penthesileia, Camilla, Queen Victoria). Also, one should be up on their Bible knowledge (Solomon, St.Paul, Stephen the fist martyr, and Lazarus). Knowledge of Latin is esential to understand the last sentence of the book (pg.89) - "Poi si torno all eterna fontana" - a quote from Dante's Paradise and means "then she turned back to the Eternal Fountain." But if you feel that you are caught in "culs de sac" (pg.55) you are not alone. Some annotations by the publishers would have been helpful.
c) argumentation and randomness of thought -
Again, these are the notes of a great literary mind, but that does not mean that they follow logically or have been organized for easy digestion. Even C.S. Lewis admits, after a retrospective reflection "Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense?" and "these notes the senseless writhings of a man" (pg.38 - chapter II). Make no mistake about it, C.S. Lewis will take you on a very interesting journey where he analyzes various thoughts, feelings, moods, emotions, and doubts. Sometimes his arugment is pure madness if not simply blasphamous ("We set Christ against it. But how if He were mistaken? .... " paragraph in chapter II, my pg. 34). Some arguments are very terse, others long-winded and with some tangents. They all reflect the mind, spirit, and soul of a grieving person.
CONCLUSION:
Bottom line is, this book is no easy thing to read, let alone understand everything read. Although it must be said, it is a great book to have discussed in a reading club, or for anyone grieving a loved one.
The wONDERFUL QUOTES alone are worth the price:
Chapter I
"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." (pg.1)
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." (pg.11)
"You can't share someone else's weakness, or fear or pain." (pg. 13)
"nature never plays exactly the same tune twice." (pg.16)
Chapter II
"The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant - in a word, real." (pg.20)
"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death." (pg.25)
"the past is the past and that is what time means, and time itself is one more name for death, and Heaven itself is a state where 'the former things have passed away' " (pg.28)
"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand." (pg.28)
"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?" (pg.38)
"It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on." (pg.38)
"Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness." (pg.39)
Chapter III
"Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours of it with no let-up for a moment." (pg.47)
"My love for H. [Joy Davidman Lewis] was of much the same quality as my faith in God" (pg.48)
"You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can't, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately" (pg.53)
"passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them" (pg.64)
"the less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her" (pg.66)
"For in grief nothing 'stays put' " (pg.67)
Chapter IV
"Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape." (pg.69)
"If you are approaching Him [God] not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him [God] at all." (pg.79)
"this is one of the miracles of love; it gives- to both, .. a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." (pg.84)
"God. His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another. .. He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees." (pg.84)
"We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least." (pg.89, 3rd last paragraph).
(¤ thank you for reading this review and for your vote ¤)
★★★★★ Bought as a gift.
I purchased this as a gift for someone who was grieving the loss of a relationship. He seemed pleased with it.
★★★★★ Staring Me Right in the Face
I swear, I was supposed to read this when my Grandma died. Unfortunately, my best buddy Kenny, (we all called him Skink) on June 26, 2010, beat her to it, very unexpectedly. Not that it was ever a competition. And thank God it wasn't a suicide either. Like many athletes, he had an enlarged heart, and without warning, it killed him instantly.
So you read my first sentence, and you see that this was to be reserved for Grandma. Yep. I actually planned it out. I wanted to find this book, I found it at a Christian book store, and left it on my bookshelf, unblemished, waiting for the day that I got the news. But June 26, 2010, I got other news. My best friend ever, was found with his hands in his lap, and head tilted to the side. His car had been fixed earlier that day. His plans were to go back to camp. He'd ridden home with another friend in the best spirits possible that very day. They'd eaten lunch together. He'd joked around with the little baby in the car. And then it was all over. God had other plans for him.
One reviewer said that we're probably not all going to have the same thoughts as C.S. Lewis on how to grieve, and how to get through it. I'm certainly not going to write a book about my experience this time around or the next. But whether I like it or not, Lewis hits this one on the head, because he experienced grief just like any of us. How do you talk to God in a time like this? How are we going to go through life? It might actually feel like a torture, and you might not come to your senses at first. You'll probably feel numb, and wonder over and over and over again if you'll ever feel normal again. Will we ever get over this?
C.S. Lewis experienced loss in his life. I'm not even sure if I really REVIEWED this book the way people think it should be reviewed. But I really don't care. What I do care about is that I miss my buddy. I'll always remember my best buddy, and I can't wait to see him once again! I think about him in lots and lots of things I do these days. That's how I'm getting back on my feet, slowly but surely. And with God's grace, I'm taking one step back at a time.
This can either mean something to somebody, or they don't have to read it at all. My choice was to read it, and it was as human as ever. And, not being C.S. Lewis, I don't suppose it was all supposed to make sense to me. Will I ever understand why God took my buddy? Nope. It's not for me to understand, except that God has His plans for Kenny up in Heaven. And God still has His plans for me on Earth until He calls me home. So while I'll never see Kenny down here again, I'm always going to have the memories that only him and I had throughout the years of being best buddies. Nobody can take that away! Can't wait to see you again, brother!! You were always the best!!
So you read my first sentence, and you see that this was to be reserved for Grandma. Yep. I actually planned it out. I wanted to find this book, I found it at a Christian book store, and left it on my bookshelf, unblemished, waiting for the day that I got the news. But June 26, 2010, I got other news. My best friend ever, was found with his hands in his lap, and head tilted to the side. His car had been fixed earlier that day. His plans were to go back to camp. He'd ridden home with another friend in the best spirits possible that very day. They'd eaten lunch together. He'd joked around with the little baby in the car. And then it was all over. God had other plans for him.
One reviewer said that we're probably not all going to have the same thoughts as C.S. Lewis on how to grieve, and how to get through it. I'm certainly not going to write a book about my experience this time around or the next. But whether I like it or not, Lewis hits this one on the head, because he experienced grief just like any of us. How do you talk to God in a time like this? How are we going to go through life? It might actually feel like a torture, and you might not come to your senses at first. You'll probably feel numb, and wonder over and over and over again if you'll ever feel normal again. Will we ever get over this?
C.S. Lewis experienced loss in his life. I'm not even sure if I really REVIEWED this book the way people think it should be reviewed. But I really don't care. What I do care about is that I miss my buddy. I'll always remember my best buddy, and I can't wait to see him once again! I think about him in lots and lots of things I do these days. That's how I'm getting back on my feet, slowly but surely. And with God's grace, I'm taking one step back at a time.
This can either mean something to somebody, or they don't have to read it at all. My choice was to read it, and it was as human as ever. And, not being C.S. Lewis, I don't suppose it was all supposed to make sense to me. Will I ever understand why God took my buddy? Nope. It's not for me to understand, except that God has His plans for Kenny up in Heaven. And God still has His plans for me on Earth until He calls me home. So while I'll never see Kenny down here again, I'm always going to have the memories that only him and I had throughout the years of being best buddies. Nobody can take that away! Can't wait to see you again, brother!! You were always the best!!
★★★★☆ Interesting Glimpse at Lewis the person
First of all, I should note that I read an older edition of the book without the forward.
Some reviewers have noted that the book helped them through grief while others felt otherwise. I will leave those opinions to be discussed by those who have had more experience with them and will consentrate on the book's revelation of Lewis as a person.
"A Grief Observed" is at times a powerful and emotional look into C.S. Lewis's grief after the loss of his wife to cancer. Lewis had seen suffering before, he had lived through the Western Front in WWI, but Gresham's death may have been the greatest blow of his life. His journal captures some of his reconsiderations of faith, inner sorrow, and finally a return to faith. Overall a concise and interesting personal story of dealing with grief.
Some reviewers have noted that the book helped them through grief while others felt otherwise. I will leave those opinions to be discussed by those who have had more experience with them and will consentrate on the book's revelation of Lewis as a person.
"A Grief Observed" is at times a powerful and emotional look into C.S. Lewis's grief after the loss of his wife to cancer. Lewis had seen suffering before, he had lived through the Western Front in WWI, but Gresham's death may have been the greatest blow of his life. His journal captures some of his reconsiderations of faith, inner sorrow, and finally a return to faith. Overall a concise and interesting personal story of dealing with grief.
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