Books this year: a book diary

Lewis was a bachelor most of his life, but at the age of 58 he married Joy Davidman, who was at the time dying of cancer. The cancer went into remission, but eventually came back and killed her, four years later. To cope with his grief, he wrote this book. It’s not at all a typical Lewis book;  it’s written in a stream-of-consciousness style, though the “stream” is a horrible river of pain, grief, and doubt, and somehow filtered into Lewis’ inimitably laid-back prose style.

It is, I think, one of the most emotionally forceful of Lewis’ books; it shook me the same way Till We Have Faces always does. And, like that novel, it’s a book I will read over and over (though I’ll refrain from posting on it again).

I have nothing else to say (again, and so soon), other than read it now if you’ve never read it, and if you’ve read it before, read it again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Books Chris has read, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.