Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith by David C. Downing ISBN: 0-8308-2311-5 Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Biography with Sparkle
Comment: C.S. Lewis was a complex man, and it would be easy for a biographer to bog down in the details. However, David Downing deftly weaves together an engaging and fast-moving story that follows various threads in Lewis's life, his writings, the major intellectual trends of the early 20th century, and Lewis's gradually unfolding Christian belief. Downing draws from Lewis's well-known writings, but also from letters and unpublished works to create a complex and intriging portrait. I found the book to be intellectually and spiritually nourishing. All in all a good story and a good read.
Rating: 3
Summary: There and back again--CS Lewis's spiritual journey
Comment: I'm not quite sure how to classify this book. It's not exactly a biography, because it does not attempt a thorough inspection of CS Lewis's life. It's not literary criticism, because it mentions most of Lewis's works only in passing. I suppose this book is rather an examination of the various steps of CS Lewis's departure from, avoidance of, and eventual return to Christianity. In this book, Downing explores and evaluates all the stages of Lewis's philosophical and religious thought-from materialism to idealism to pantheism to Christianity, with brief stops along the way to consider spiritualism and theosophy.
Lewis's time away from Christianity was a very interesting time in his life. He toyed with many systems of belief, and struggled to come to grips with reality as he found system after system of philosophy to be flawed. Downing does a good job of exploring the influences that aided Lewis's development-his teachers, mentors, and books he read all played an important part in this. For that, at least, there is merit in this book, and Downing also uncovers a few (but they are few) details which Lewis himself leaves out in his autobiography, 'Surprised by Joy.'
Anyone who has read 'Surprised by Joy,' however, will find that this book is basically just a rewording of what Lewis himself said in that work. There is little in this book which cannot be gleaned from Lewis's own sketch of his early life, and Lewis's work has the added advantage of being both better written and written from his own point of view. This book provides a decent summary of Lewis's autobiography, but little more.
For the most part, Downing's insights are helpful, if not unique. The narrative is sometimes confused, with Downing jumping (for example) from a period of doubt in Lewis's life to a scene from The Chronicles of Narnia or other of Lewis's fiction which illustrates what he later came to believe on the subject. And the greatest flaw of this book comes in the last two pages of chapter 8, when Downing attempts to describe Lewis's spiritual experience while riding to a zoo with his brother. Lewis describes that something happened (though he admits he doesn't know what) on that ride, and that he believed in Christ as the son of God when he arrived at the zoo, but hadn't when he had set out for the zoo. Downing, in analyzing this experience, waxes psychological and attempts to get inside Lewis's head. The result is a flowery blurb of supposed thoughts which Lewis had, told mostly in the first person (as if Downing had access to a level of Lewis's conscious which even he, Lewis, did not have) and reeking of an attempt at literary prowess rather than narrative fidelity. Those two pages alone ruined the entire book for me.
Despite these flaws, however, this book deserves three stars for its interesting look at Lewis's Journey to Faith (as the subtitle implies). As I said, there is nothing new or groundbreaking here, and longtime fans of Lewis will find little which is unique, but this book is nevertheless merits a quick perusal.
Rating: 5
Summary: Intellectual Biography of The Highest Order
Comment: David Downing has achieved something quite remarkable with this book: He has succeeded in making a thoroughly researched, philosophically-heavy, intellectual biography an engrossing read.
This is by no means a CS Lewis biography. It is, rather, a biography of Lewis' mind before, during and immediately after his conversion to a belief in Christ. Downing explores several avenues of Lewis' philosophical quest, none more so than his unceasing pursuit of "Joy." This pursuit leads Lewis, and the reader, through all stages of Lewis' intellectual and religious development--from atheistic materialism to the occult to philosophical Idealism to pantheism and finally to Christ. Along the way, the reader is introduced to many of Lewis' spiritual, philosophical and intellectual mentors.
This could have easily (almost predictably) become a dry, excruciatingly dull narrative with all the readability of a poorly-written freshman philosophy text. Instead, it is a true page-turner as Downing relates Lewis' intellectual pursuit of the aforementioned concepts. One-by-one the philosophical challengers to Christianity are discovered, honestly scrutinized, shown be intellectually wanting, and ultimately rejected.
Don't be put off by the centrality of philosophical discussion in this book. It is an easy read and it is actually quite fun to see how Lewis used his monumental intellect to punch irreparable holes in philosophical concepts considered sacrosanct by preening, self-important atheistic egotists. Though an atheist during his teens and twenties, Lewis never stopped pursuing iron-clad intellectual arguments which would quench his thirst for "Joy." His intellectual honesty never allowed him to be satisfied with answers which rested on shaky philosophical ground. And part of his restless pursuit of "Joy" was his search for a firm and unassailable theoretical foundation on which he could build a consistent belief system.
Bravo to Mr. Downing for writing this marvelous book. Perhaps no other work allows us to peer more deeply into the mind of this magnificent intellect.
 |
Title: The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Armand M. Nicholi Jr. ISBN: 074324785X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 07 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Armand M. Nicholi Jr. ISBN: 0743202376 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
 |
Title: Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis ISBN: 0156870118 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 23 March, 1966 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis ISBN: 0156329301 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 29 September, 1971 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0060652942 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 20 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
