Thank you for sharing these takeaways! I started the audiobook version of The Screwtape Letters once, but the narrator's voice was a bit too convincing and a little eerie given the narrator's point of view.
C.S. Lewis possessed a deep understanding of the human person, and it reflects throughout his writing.
Hi Drew, thanks for your comment! I can imagine the audiobook would be unsettling...I know there were several times while reading that I had to stop and remind myself who "the Enemy" really was. Every time I read Lewis, I'm blown away at how precisely he understood people. His work is a treasure.
I think one of the things Lewis does so well is his use of narrative and metaphor to explain difficult subject matter. So often even our specialized language falls short of the requisite words and syntax to invoke the right mental state necessary for the reader to elucidate the right concepts from the page that the author intends. This seems most evident to me in discussing the trinity at depth, where even our best analytic philosophy can only scratch the surface. However, pictures being worth a thousand words, metaphor and narrative fill those epistemological gaps -- it just makes more sense.
We just finished reading The Magician's Nephew and I kept noticing how Lewis uses such vivid imagery and allegory throughout the narrative to draw out aspects of the creation accounts in Genesis, as he tells of the creation of Narnia. He must have extensively studied Old Testament cosmology as it seems forms the basis for much of The Space Trilogy, as well.
Great writing. i think will get the book for myself.
I'm happy I've found another believer on substack. keep doing great work.
Thank you, and yes, definitely read it for yourself! It's definitely worth it.
Thank you for sharing these takeaways! I started the audiobook version of The Screwtape Letters once, but the narrator's voice was a bit too convincing and a little eerie given the narrator's point of view.
C.S. Lewis possessed a deep understanding of the human person, and it reflects throughout his writing.
Hi Drew, thanks for your comment! I can imagine the audiobook would be unsettling...I know there were several times while reading that I had to stop and remind myself who "the Enemy" really was. Every time I read Lewis, I'm blown away at how precisely he understood people. His work is a treasure.
I think one of the things Lewis does so well is his use of narrative and metaphor to explain difficult subject matter. So often even our specialized language falls short of the requisite words and syntax to invoke the right mental state necessary for the reader to elucidate the right concepts from the page that the author intends. This seems most evident to me in discussing the trinity at depth, where even our best analytic philosophy can only scratch the surface. However, pictures being worth a thousand words, metaphor and narrative fill those epistemological gaps -- it just makes more sense.
We just finished reading The Magician's Nephew and I kept noticing how Lewis uses such vivid imagery and allegory throughout the narrative to draw out aspects of the creation accounts in Genesis, as he tells of the creation of Narnia. He must have extensively studied Old Testament cosmology as it seems forms the basis for much of The Space Trilogy, as well.