- Shall we share some highs and lows of break?
A quick overview of Semester 2 texts. I originally wanted to begin with The Weight of Glory but have rethought our process. Semester 1 contained a good deal of fiction and imagination with a bit of theology. Semester 2 leads us to some heavier texts as well as what is often considered his most complex fiction, Till We Have Faces, which is a retelling of the Greek tale, Cupid and Psyche. The texts I hope to cover this semester include:
- A Grief Observed (Personal Narrative, Autobiographical)
- The Problem with Pain (Theological)
- An Experiment in Criticism (Literary Criticism Theory)
- The Weight of Glory and several other essays (Editorial)
- Till We Have Faces (Allegorical Nonfiction)
- and a related work of your choice.
Rational to begin with A Grief Observed:
- So far, we have read several works by Lewis, most driven by his literary or theological explorations. Because we have not read his autobiography or any of the several biographical books written about him, what we know of him is mostly what we have inferred from his texts. A Grief Observed is unique because it chronicles perhaps his toughest stage of life in which his wife dies along with all of the deep questions he delves into with the process of grief. This novel carries Lewis' signature logic and humor, but exposes a raw element of his personality and honest questions from the mature point of view of Lewis in his later years. Unlike his apologetic works which focus on his goal of creating a logical worldview in which spirituality and the belief in God are viable and even intellectual realities, this novel is his honest (and at first published confidentially under the pseudonym of N. W. Clerk) questions posed to God and himself more than any onlooker. A Grief Observed explores the core of a person facing his biggest fear come true and finding an intellectually honest reconciliation of unanswerable questions and identities. For this reason, this novel holds a treasure to be discovered about Lewis in who he was as a thinker, a theologian, a writer, an apologist and a believer.
- For you as high school students and me as a person in the middle of my life, we are both caught in the grind of daily stresses and multiple life roles; we are students of unknown futures, and most joyfully, we are marvelers at all the wonder and magic that comes in unexpected moments and people along the way. I find this book especially valuable in teaching me to seek out the beauty that I know is temporary, not just because it will one day be gone, but because it is by the enjoyment that we make it real. Lewis models to us what it means to ask real questions to God and oneself unashamedly. This is courage we all need to live a full, meaningful life.
- "Reading A Grief Observed is to share not only in C. S. Lewis’s grief but in his understanding of love, and that is richness indeed" (Madeleine L'Engle)
A journal to start:
2018 - Journal 1 (Here is a pdf to begin A Grief Observed.)
- What is the best advice you've ever heard (or given) in the case of a lost loved one? The worst? Why?
- Why do you suppose Lewis published this under a pseudonym?
- After reading Gresham's Introduction, describe the mentality that we as young people may not understand about the grief Lewis experienced as an older person.
- What was the context of the role of a British gentleman that Gresham wanted to discuss as an explanation for his own childhood behavior before the novel began?
HW: Read the Introduction by Gresham, his step-son (The forward by L'Engle is optional) and complete J1.
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