50 Books in 50 Years: Book #2

Book #2: C.S. Lewis: A Biography, by A.N. Wilson.

This is a carefully researched, very detailed biography of Lewis. Wilson spends a great deal of time on each of Lewis's major books, as well as on the day-to-day events of his life. He takes a very even-handed approach, giving full credit for Lewis's great scholarly talents and literary ability without trying to hide the man's many character flaws. Lewis was intellectually pugnacious, something of a bully; he made enemies easily; and his wise admonitions about the sins of pride and self-centeredness didn't seem to have much effect on his own behavior. He often comes across as rather churlish. Wilson seems a bit sheepish about having to report this, but he doesn't flinch from it.

This has greatly offended many Lewis's most devoted admirers. Some of this anger is evident in the customer reviews at Amazon: it's especially pronounced among the reviewers who didn't bother to read the book before reviewing it.

One of Wilson's greatest sins, in the eyes of Lewis's fans, is to explode what Wilson calls the cult of the Perpetual Virginity of C.S. Lewis. Apparently a few devotees are convinced that over the course of his sixty-odd years, Lewis never once had sexual relations, not even with his wife Joy. That this bit of pious dogma is contradicted by some quite frank textual evidence in Lewis's writings doesn't seem to bother its adherents. I suppose that it won't do much good to point out that this is a standard that doesn't apply to many literal saints (Augustine comes to mind immediately, but there are many other examples). Indeed, assuming lifelong virginity (contrary to the available evidence) is a standard usually reserved to Jesus and Mary; applying it to Lewis is not just ridiculous but borderline blasphemous.

One remarkable story casts some light on Lewis's intellectual predilections. He had invited a colleague (and fellow Christian), Helen Gardner, to dinner at his home.

Conversation at the table turned on the interesting question of whom, after death, those present should most look forward to meeting. ...'Oh, I have no difficulty in deciding,' said Lewis. 'I want to meet Adam.' H went on to explain why, very much in the terms outlined in A Preface to 'Paradise Lost', where he wrote:

Adam was, from the first, a man in knowledge as well as in stature. He alone of all men 'had been in Eden, in the garden of God, he had walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.' ...He was ... accustomed to converse with God 'face to face'.

Be that as it may, Adam is not likely, if she has anything to do with it, to converse with Helen Gardner. She ventured to say so. Even, she told Lewis, if there really were, historically, someone whom we could name as 'the first man,' he would be a Neanderthal ape-like figure, whose conversation she could not conceive of finding interesting.

A stony silence fell on the dinner table. Then Lewis said gruffly, 'I see we have a Darwinian in our midst.'

Helen Gardner was never invited again.

This attitude seems more apt to an American Bible college graduate than an Oxford don, but Lewis's life was full of surprises.

And not just Lewis's life. It's well known that Lewis was a close friend of the fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien (long a colleague at Oxford). Wilson comes up with a quotation from Tolkien's collected letters that's a real eye-opener, not to mention jaw-dropper:

Lewis always took the line that Communism and Fascism were equally evil, and this was something which Tolkien and [poet Roy] Campbell could not understand. 'Nothing is a greater tribute to Red Propaganda,' Tolkien wrote, 'than the fact that Lewis (who knows they are in all other subjects liars and traducers) believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him ... But Hatred of our Church is after all the only real foundation of the C of E.'

I knew Tolkien was a Catholic, and a conservative, but I hadn't quite put it together that he was — gack — a Catholic Conservative. It's not entirely clear when this letter was written (I haven't been able to consult the original source yet), but its placement in the book suggests some time in the early 1940s, which is still more disheartening. I would have hoped that the brutal experience of fighting the Nazis might have cast their Spanish ideological allies in a more appropriate light.

I shouldn't give the impression that this biography is simply an attempt to smear Lewis and his circle. Wilson is never less than fair-minded, and his careful research, clear writing, and sympathy for his subject make the book well worth seeking out.

[Update: Tolkien's letter discussing Franco was written on 6 October 1944. It can be found in the 1981 volume of his letters.]