C.S.Lewis:
“There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips…. We grow up surrounded by propaganda in favor of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance.”
and
“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act, that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was some equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”
[Lila: “Queer” as in odd/strange}]
This is a stunning piece, largely because the thought-content has not appeared many times in many places. Your appreciation of small points, such as the one mentioned long ago by CS Lewis, is a delight to note. I think many of us would be well-rewarded by looking in on Lewis’ work with some frequency. I was blessed with a mother who, c. 1949, for my bed-time reading, introduced me to Lewis by way of his Out of the Silent Planet.
Delightful that you found this excerpt, and thought to bring it to our attention. –Much needed.
I don’t actually have more than one book of Lewis’ with me, otherwise I would quote more.
He’s a wonderful writer to cross bridges to other worlds.
For instance, there is a lot of occult and Rosicrucian symbolism in his writing, as there is in Charles Williams, who really is just as arresting a writer.