Two From the Wish List

 

The Light Invisible/ A Mirror of Shalott: The Supernatural Stories of Monsignor Robert H. Benson

Two collections of short stories, each volume's tales linked by a framing device. In The Light Invisible (1906) the stories are told by an elderly priest who recounts instances (many that happened to him) in which many everyday experiences are revealed to have deeper significance when viewed by 'the Light Invisible', supernatural insights granted to the viewer by a supernatural grace. In A Mirror of Shalott (1907), a gathering of priests, in an effort to analyze the purpose and nature of supernatural occurrences, each tell their own best personal tale of such encounters. I got it in the mail yesterday, and have only as yet read most of the first part, but I am finding it quite engaging. Benson, a Catholic priest, has proved to be a very interesting writer; his Lord of the World (1907) is a great mixture of science fiction/dystopian/apocalyptic genres and a very early example of such; it is available for free on Kindle.

A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems, by Joy Davidman; Edited by Don W. King (2015)

And I got this book just today, so I know very little about it (in an intimate sense). I do know that I always enjoyed the little bits of Joy's poetry that I did read and was always interested to see more. Until quite recently (well, the last decade or so) many of her papers had been in the care of her old friend Jean Wakeman, who in the light of her failing health passed them on to Joy's son, Douglas Gresham. Thus many of Davidman's poems are finally published here for the first time. Perhaps the most interesting is the cycle of sonnets (some of them in fact recycled and repurposed) which she presented to C. S. Lewis. They are certainly (if their prominence in the title of the volume is any indication) presented as a major selling point, though they take up only a tiny sliver of the book. But a quick riffle through the pages assures me that there is much more to be seen here. I let Amazon take up the tale:

"Although best known as C. S. Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was a gifted writer herself who produced, among other things, two novels and an award-winning volume of poetry in her short lifetime.

"The first comprehensive collection of Davidman's poetry, A Naked Tree includes the poems that originally appeared in her Letter to a Comrade (1938), forty other published poems, and more than two hundred previously unpublished poems that came to light in a remarkable 2010 discovery.

"Of special interest is Davidman's sequence of forty-five love sonnets to C. S. Lewis, which offer stunning evidence of her spiritual struggles with regard to her feelings for Lewis, her sense of God's working in her lonely life, and her mounting frustration with Lewis for keeping her at arm's length emotionally and physically.

"Readers of these Davidman poems -- arranged chronologically by Don King -- will discover three recurring, overarching themes: God, death, and immortality; politics, including capitalism and communism; and (the most by far) romantic, erotic love. This volume marks Joy Davidman as a figure to be reckoned with in the landscape of twentieth-century American poetry." – Amazon.

Teachers and Loved Ones of CSL

George MacDonald: 365 Readings, Edited and with a Preface by C. S. Lewis.

Really belongs with the George MacDonald books, but has Lewis’s name plastered all over the front. Maybe I’ll move it over with the others. A Collier book.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Daily Readings. Selections. Softcover.

Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald.

“A Book of Strife in the Form of a Diary of an Old Soul.” A book of poems that can be read as a daily devotional (there are verses for each day of the year). In these poems MacDonald struggles, not always so much as to have faith as to find the proper way to work out that faith in life and in his soul. If that sounds sappy, it is, in the old sense of the word: full of sap, full of life. It is a stern fight, a fight not to the death but to the life. It reminds you that MacDonald was not only a writer, but a minister. A book beloved by C. S. Lewis. This copy is getting some age spots.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Poetry. Religion. Softcover.

The Splendid Century, by W.(arren) H.(amilton) Lewis.

“Life in the France of Louis XIV” (that’s the Fourteenth). Dedicated “To My Brother” (that’s C. S. Lewis). It is easy for me to forget sometimes that Warnie was not just Jack Lewis’s amusing and fatter alcoholic brother. He was a scholar in his own right, though he never took a degree; as an enthusiast he wrote a whole series of books on 17^th Century France that were well-received. “Pleasures and palaces are, of course, an enormously entertaining part of this vivid account of France under Louis XIV. More important is the author's exploration of the political, economic, social and artistic forces that developed during the long reign of the Sun-King. It was an age of contradictions and compromises and high taxes and formal manners. And to the day he died Louis XIV ate with his fingers and acted like God. The opening account of Louis XIV's private life and loves sets the pace for this witty, provocative account of a century that, like our own, was a time of transition, dissatisfaction, and progress. This was the age of Moliere, Racine, Corneille...the age of the salons and the graceful correspondents. And also an age that sent thousands of Huguenots to the galleys, the notorious death ships that served as seventeenth-century concentration camps.” – Amazon. His other books on France (which I would like to get – I am not that interested in France, but he is that entertaining a writer) are “The Sunset of the Splendid Century”, “Assault on Olympus”, “Louis XIV: An Informal Portrait”, “The Scandalous Regent”, “Levantine Adventurer”, and “Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon”. Insert of period illustrations; this second-hand copy is a little creased at the spine, and the only copy of Warnie’s works that I’ve ever found ‘in real life’.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: History. 17^th Century France. Softcover.

Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, by Owen Barfield.

“A book by British philosopher Owen Barfield, is concerned with physics, the evolution of consciousness, pre-history, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, the medieval period, the scientific revolution, Christianity, Romanticism, and much else. The book was Barfield's favorite of those he authored, and the one that he most wanted to continue to be read. The book explores approximately three thousand years of history — particularly the history of human consciousness in relation to that which precedes or underlies the world of perception or phenomena. Given the vast field considered by the book, it is concise and brief, about two hundred pages. Barfield describes the growth of human consciousness as an interaction with nature, leading the reader to a fresh understanding of man's history, circumstances, and destiny. Saving the Appearances has in common with some thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin the understanding of idols as appearances having nothing within. "[A] representation, which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate – ought not to be called a representation. It is an idol. Thus the phenomena themselves are idols, when they are imagined as enjoying that independence of human perception which can in fact only pertain to the unrepresented.” – Wikipedia. I found the arguments “interesting, but tough.” Barfield, whom C. S. Lewis called “the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers”, was an Anthroposophist of the Steiner School. Barfield has been called “The Last of the Inklings”, having passed away only in 1997. This second-hand copy is showing its age as well.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Consciousness. Philosophy of Science. Softcover.

History in English Words, by Owen Barfield. Foreword by W. H. Auden.

“This popular book provides a brief, brilliant history of those who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout by current English words—whose derivation from other languages, whose history in use and changes of meaning—record and unlock the larger history. "In our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness" (Owen Barfield). It was Barfield who first advanced the ideas about language, myth, and belief that became identified with the thought and art of the Inklings.” – Goodreads. A fascinating study of how and when certain types of words entered our language, and how they allowed new concepts to enter our minds. You can’t think about something, really, until you have a word for it and define that word. I really must get a copy of “Poetic Diction”, Barfield’s other most famous book.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Language. Meaning. Softcover.

A Barfield Reader: Selections from the Writings of Owen Barfield, Edited and with an Introduction by G. B. Tennyson.

A sampler from Barfield’s works on language and literature, on philosophy and meaning, and from his own fiction. This book is dense, dense in the sense of packed like a fruitcake, and dense in the sense of the daunting blocks of print on each page. I have sampled it and found it too rich for wholesale immediate consumption; I must take it a slice at a time. In the meantime, it is the closest I can get to certain of the man’s works.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Reader. Sampler. Softcover.

The Silver Trumpet, by Owen Barfield.

Edited with an Afterword by Marjorie Lamp Mead. Illustrated by Josephine Spence. I can’t say much for the illustrations, though apparently Barfield chose the artist himself (from his friend’s children). To me, they look like something scratched into a high school notebook. I can’t say I’ve read it: the print is terrible, the size of the book is awkward, and the binding makes it hard to hold open for fear of it cracking. I must try to read it someday, nevertheless. Apparently, Lewis and Tolkien had high opinions of it (at least Tolkien’s children did). “In this delightful fantasy of kings and queens, a magical Silver Trumpet, a jester dwarf, and castle intrigues, English author Owen Barfield has created an enduring tale to captivate the imaginations of all readers. This beautifully illustrated edition of The Silver Trumpet, a story which first appeared in print in 1925, contains a helpful biographical note on Barfield by Marjorie Lamp Mead.” – Goodreads. The first fantasy novel ever published by an Inkling, and Barfield’s only piece of fiction.

Ranking: Essential, I suppose.

File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Softcover.

Smoke on the Mountain, by Joy Davidman. Foreword by C. S. Lewis.

“An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments”. “Lacking belief in the promises and commandments of God, one must fall back on a "man-centred" philosophy--something called humanism or materialism, which accepts this life and its immediate desires as the basis of all conduct. But you can't get a moral law out of materialism. There is no logical reason why a materialist shouldn't poison his nagging wife, if he can get away with it.
The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an irrelevant personal argument. We see that many articulate secularists are well-meaning and law-abiding men; we see them go into righteous indignation over injustice and often devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that "he can't be wrong whose life is in the right"--that their philosophies are just as good guides to action as Christianity. What we don't see is that they are not acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of habit or sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their children will inherit somewhat less of it.” So good I quoted it three times on Power of Babel. A look in turn at each commandment and finding surprising applications for them in modern life, beyond the plainest barest sense (who today covets their neighbor’s ox?). Lewis called Davidman’s intellect “straight, bright, and tempered like a sword”; here I see a demonstration of that.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Religion. Softcover.

Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, Edited by Don W. King.

“Although best known as Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was an accomplished writer in her own right, with several published works to her credit. Out of My Bone tells Davidman's life story in her own words through her numerous letters -- most never published before -- and her autobiographical essay "The Longest Way Round." Gathered and expertly introduced by Don W. King, these letters reveal Davidman's persistent search for truth, her curious, incisive mind ("lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard," Lewis later said), and her arresting, sharply penetrating voice. They chronicle her journey from secular Judaism to atheism to Communism to Christianity and offer insightful glimpses into life -- both literary and everyday -- in the America and England of her time. Davidman also writes about the struggles of her earlier marriage to William Lindsay Gresham and of trying to reconcile her career goals with her life as mother of two sons. Most poignantly, perhaps, these letters expose Davidman's mental, emotional, and spiritual state as she confronted the cancer that eventually took her life at age 45.” – Amazon. Joy Davidman enters the Lewis story as someone whom most people saw as intruding on their image of what they saw him as being: basically, a crusty old bachelor uncle. They didn’t want to think of him as having emotions and needs (especially at his age), or to think of him as being taken advantage of by some predatory woman on the make. But the more one learns of her the more you can see what he saw in her; he was, after all, no fool. Even the suspicious Warnie, smarting after the years of ‘domestic tyranny’ under Mrs. Moore, came to appreciate her. “Incredibly, Dr. Johnson seems to have actually loved his wife.”

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Letters. Biography. Hardback.

Items from the Wish List: C. S. Lewis

 

The Shadow-Lands of C.S. Lewis: The Man Behind the Movie by C. S. Lewis (Author), Peter Kreeft  (Editor)

Christian Studies, Literary Studies.

The Pilgrim's Regress: The Wade Annotated Edition Hardcover – October 12, 2014 by C. S. Lewis (Author), David C. Downing  (Editor, Introduction)

Modeled after John Bunyan's famous Pilgrim's Progress, C. S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress represents a number of firsts for Lewis -- the first book he wrote after his conversion to Christianity, his first book of fiction, and the first book he published under his own name.

This splendid annotated edition, produced in collaboration with the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois, helps readers recover the richness of Lewis's allegory. Often considered obscure and difficult to read, The Pilgrim's Regress nonetheless remains a witty satire on cultural fads, a vivid account of spiritual dangers, and an illuminating tale for generations of pilgrims old and new.

Editor David C. Downing's critical introduction provides needed biographical and cultural context for fully appreciating The Pilgrim's Regress. Downing relies throughout both on his own expertise and on previously unpublished sources from Lewis himself to identify allusions to other authors, translate quotations, and explain humor hidden within Lewis's text. Among the hundreds of annotations are references that draw parallels to Lewis's later works, including Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, and the Chronicles of Narnia. – Amazon.

The Personal Heresy: A Controversy by C. S. Lewis (Author), E.M.W. Tillyard  (Author)

A repackaged edition of the revered author’s set of dueling critical essays with fellow scholar E. M. W. Tillyard in which they debate the role of an author’s biography in the critical appraisal of literature.

C. S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—challenges fellow scholar E. M. W. Tillyard on one of the most intriguing questions involving writers and writing. Is a work of imaginative literature primarily influenced by the author or by the subject matter?

Lewis argues that the author’s own personality and biography has little to no impact on the writing, while Tillyard contends the opposite: that the author’s own imagination and story have an indelible influence on a piece of work. Clever, erudite, and enlightening, their debate may not definitively settle the issue, but it does offer invaluable insight and intellectual delight for all dedicated readers. – Amazon.

A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems by Joy Davidman (Author), Don W. King (Editor)

Displays for the first time the complete work of a neglected poetic genius

Although best known as C. S. Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman was a gifted writer herself who produced, among other things, two novels and an award-winning volume of poetry in her short lifetime.

The first comprehensive collection of Davidman's poetry, A Naked Tree includes the poems that originally appeared in her Letter to a Comrade (1938), forty other published poems, and more than two hundred previously unpublished poems that came to light in a remarkable 2010 discovery.

Of special interest is Davidman's sequence of forty-five love sonnets to C. S. Lewis, which offer stunning evidence of her spiritual struggles with regard to her feelings for Lewis, her sense of God's working in her lonely life, and her mounting frustration with Lewis for keeping her at arm's length emotionally and physically.

Readers of these Davidman poems -- arranged chronologically by Don King -- will discover three recurring, overarching themes: God, death, and immortality; politics, including capitalism and communism; and (the most by far) romantic, erotic love. This volume marks Joy Davidman as a figure to be reckoned with in the landscape of twentieth-century American poetry. – Amazon.

Women and C.S. Lewis: What His Life and Literature Reveal for Today's Culture by Carolyn Curtis (Editor), Mary Pomroy Key (Editor), Alister McGrath DPhil (Contributor)

Sexism in Narnia? Or Screwtape? Or amongst the Inklings? Many critics have labelled C.S. Lewis a sexist, even a misogynist. Did the life and writing of the hugely popular author and professor betray attitudes that today are unacceptable, even deplorable? The younger Lewis was criticized for a mysterious living arrangement with a woman, but his later marriage to an American poet, Joy Davidman, became a celebrated love story. As a writer he, along with J.R.R. Tolkien, formed a legendary literary group, the Inklings - but without women. In this collection of short essays, opinion pieces, and interviews, academics and writers come together to investigate these accusations. They include Alister McGrath, Randy Alcorn, Monika Hilder, Don W. King, Kathy Keller, Colin Duriez, Crystal Hurd, Jeanette Sears, David C. Downing, Malcolm Guite, and Holly Ordway. The resulting work, Women and C.S. Lewis, provides broad and satisfying answers. – Amazon.