“No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.”
C. S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters,” p. 71.
Another typo on the title, Lila. It happens…
I love Lewis. His essays, his work as Professor, his fiction, his personality.He’s the most interesting of the Inklings. Have you read “Surprised by Joy”, his account of his unique love story? It was put into film, a very good one, called “Shadowlands”, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as Lewis.
Yes – I know Shadowlands.
His wife’s name was Joy, right, so it’s a pun…
She was a remarkable woman too.
Actually, another of the Inklings is very interesting and in my opinion equal to Lewis as a fiction writer – less well known, though.
I recall reading the Place of the Lion a long time ago…or maybe I have the name confused.
It has an antique book seller in it…it’s set in a quiet country parish.
Hopkins makes a perfect Lewis, which tells you what an amazing actor he is, because he’s also a perfect Hannibal Lecter
You mean Charles Williams? Yes, that’s the title, it’s a good novel, but “Descend into Hell” is his best. He’s an amazing writer, but not an easy one. Occult Christian Mysteries aren’t that simple to understand and enjoy. I love his Arthurian poems too.
Hopkins is an Actor, with capital A.
Yes, Charles Williams. I have to tell you I thought he was actually better than Lewis.
I’ve read there was some little professional jealousy there…
Tolkien and Lewis were University Professors. Williams wasn’t, that was the catch, he was an eccentric, a bit of a genious and used to say: I’ve got no University Chair and almost no chairs at all”. You’re right to believe him the best fictionist of the three. Lewis is the most complete,due to his essays, and Tolkien the most famous, everybody knows why: ” my preciouuussss….”
Lewis was the first one I knew..when I was a child there was Narnia and then when I was about 12, like many people, I became hooked on poetry and of course I read Milton (borrowed from a lending library) and was anxious to read anything I could about him.and there was Lewis’ introduction – which I still think is one of the best critical essays..the one about Romanticism and solipsism. But later, I began to find him limited in some respects…
I came across Williams much later…and he is very, very powerful.
There are some writers who have that kind of compelling imagination you don’t forget. The first time I read Golding was like that.
Flannery O’Connor also.
And then there’s a book I read by some Canadian professor whom I’d never heard of…something about the little girl who burned herself with matches (??)…I’ll look it up..very slight, almost grotesque…I can’t believe he’s unknown, it was such an unforgettable book (but there I can’t remember the title)
I know the story of a girl seller of matches, very poor, a Christmas story, I believe it’s Dickens or the like.
Yes, I understand what you mean about Lewis and agree, but still see his essays on pain as superior. Narnia is totally old fashion. Nothing beats Tolkien in fantasy. Williams is something else anyway. Yeats also, fabulous, “oh, the winding stair…”
No – you’re thinking of Anderson’s “The Little Match Girl”…that’s a great fairy tale but this isn’t that..
I googled it and found it
http://www.amazon.ca/little-girl-who-fond-matches/dp/0887846556
gaetan soucy…yes, now I remember
can’t think why I thought he was a Canadian professor
apparently he’s unknown in the west but celebrated in France..
that’s better. It would have been shocking if he were not.
It’s an amazing book
Right on Anderson and right again on Soucy being Canadian.I read the synopsis and it looks terrifying, but also a masterpiece. I’ll try to read it and then I’ll let you know what I think.
See you.
Hi again
Your suggestion of reading will take a few days to arrive. Meanwhile, I recalled one of my favourite quotes from a very complicated book from Lewis, don’t know if you read it, the ideas are good but in the middle, somehow, it simply fails to deliver, and the plot is all mixed up in the end. Anyway, there are some very good quotes, this one is about masks and miscommunication:
“Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. […] I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word [saying what we mean] can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean ? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces ?”
in Till we have faces by C. S. Lewis
That’s very good.
I’ll look it up.
Thanks very much