Synopses & Reviews
Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man — or at any rate a man like me — out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.
Review
"A very personal, anguished, luminous little book about the meaning of death, marriage, and religion." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Lewis] faces his tortured life with unswerving honesty, and writes out his conclusions, or lack of them, with a poetic expression which is often agony but never self-pity." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Written with love, humility, and faith, this brief but poignant volume was first published in 1961 following the death of C. S. Lewis's wife, the American-born poet Joy Davidman.
Written in longhand in notebooks that Lewis found in his home, A Grief Observed probes the "mad midnight moments" of Lewis's mourning and loss, moments in which he questioned what he had previously believed about life and death, marriage, and even God. Indecision and self-pity assailed Lewis. "We are under the harrow and can't escape," he writes. "I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get. The old life, the jokes, the drinks, the arguments, the lovemaking, the tiny, heartbreaking commonplace."
Lewis writes his statement of faith with precision, humor, and grace. Yet neither is Lewis reluctant to confess his continuing doubts and his awareness of his own human frailty. Writing A Grief Observed as "a defense against total collapse, a safety valve," he came to recognize that "bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love."
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was born in Belfast. He was a fellow and tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was later Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, where he remained until his death. Lewis's most distinguished and popular accomplishments include The Chronicles of Narnia, Out of the Silent Planet, The Four Loves, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.
"A very personal, anguished, luminous little book about the meaning of death, marriage, and religion." -Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The Spiritual Journey of Grief
A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moments," A Grief Observed is an unflinchingly truthful account of how loss can lead even a stalwart believer to lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.
Synopsis
A classic work on grief, A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewiss honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. Written after his wifes tragic death as a way of surviving the “mad midnight moments,” A Grief Observed an unflinchingly truthful account of how loss can lead even a stalwart believer to lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and the inspirational tale of how he can possibly regain his bearings.
About the Author
Clive Staples Lewis, born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1898, was Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford and later was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University.