Volume 37, Number 6 · April 12, 1990
The Trials of C.S. Lewis
By J.M. Cameron
C.S. Lewis: A Biography
by A.N. Wilson
Norton, 334 pp., $22.50
It has been suggested that if our civilization were to fall to pieces, leaving only fragments of our literary culture, archaeologists would have to conclude that there may have been two Bertrand Russells, one the brilliant author of Principia Mathematica, the lectures on logical atomism, and other logical and philosophical works, and one a popular writer on sexuality, education, politics, and so on. It seems at first one might have a similar fantasy about C.S. Lewis. There is the most learned, the most incisive historical critic of medieval and Renaissance literature of his generation, the author of The Allegory of Love, A Preface to 'Paradise Lost,' The Discarded Image; then there is the author of Out of the Silent Planet and its (inferior) sequels and of the allegorical fantasies set in the mythical kingdom of Narnia; and then we have the popular theologian who had and has, among evangelicals, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics, a high and still persisting reputation. Miracles, The Problem of Pain, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, all were popular when they appeared, and most have kept their popularity and continue to sell. Of this Lewis there is a shrine and an archive at Wheaton College in Illinois.
Review, 3184 words
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