The Reading Life (C.S. Lewis)

For C.S. Lewis, noted author of Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other works, reading was an unsurpassed passion. He was known to have read widely and with retention, able to recite breathtaking amounts from memory. The point of The Reading Life is to create a "collection [that] brings together fun, whimsical, and wise selections from Lewis's lifetime of writing that would be of interest to those who share this passion." (from the editors, David Downing and Michael Maudlin) In his life, Lewis wrote on this topic often, and this work collects his thoughts on why we read, marks of a "True Reader," why children's stories are not just for children, the case for reading old books, and more.

Lewis is a gifted writer, and I greatly enjoyed this little volume. His insights, always delivered with eloquence (and often with wit), help articulate the value of reading in ways few have matched. Select thoughts are below.

Why do we read? 

"We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself . . . [we] are saturated with, and limited by, our own psychology." "Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is 'I have got out.' Or from another point of view, 'I have got in'; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside." "Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality . . . in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself."

On children's stories

I am almost inclined to set it up as canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story. 

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty. 

On fantasy

[Fantasy] stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his readh and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despire real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.

The value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by 'the veil of familiarity.'

On reading old books

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

Rating: A