Jack's Life: The Life Story of C.S. Lewis by Douglas H. GreshamMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not as good as Gresham's autobiography Lenten Lands, which has much more about Gresham's relationship with C. S. Lewis, his stepfather. In this work, Jack is the hero and Mrs. Moore the villain, but Gresham tries to be understanding of the villain. Mrs. Moore is Jack's adopted mother who he cares for because of a promise he made to her son Paddy during WWI. Warnie, Jack's brother, plays the main supporting role and Gresham and his mother Joy Davidman are a part of the latter years of joy, pain, and struggle, but also victory in Christ.
The biography is a tribute to Jack, who, Gresham says, lived out his Christianity better than anyone he's ever known. The one inconsistency with this is that Jack seems almost incapable of tough love. I got the overwhelming impression that the demanding, self-pitying Mrs. Moore needed some gentle rebuking and firm resistance. But the only person who ever properly stood up to her, in Gresham's pages, was her daughter Maureen. After Maureen married and left the Kilns, she reappears once to tell her mom to back off and give Jack a rest, as he was convalescing in the hospital from exhaustion. Warnie and Jack's friends couldn't understand why Jack always gave in to her incessant pettiness. Whenever pressed, Jack told Warnie to "mind his own business." This also sounds like a failure to make oneself accountable. Warnie was a struggling alcoholic and, rather than intervene, Jack seems to have minded his own business.
That said, Jack does press on patiently and admirably. His sense of duty inspires. One also gets the sense that if it weren't for the inklings and his students Jack would've crumbled. Friendship is a powerful means of grace in Jack's Life, but there is little here about those relationships. This is not as surprising however, as how little there is about Jack's relationship with Gresham's mother and with Gresham himself. Mrs. Moore and Warnie have the most ink next to Lewis himself. I couldn't help feeling cheated.
I've read numerous biographies of Lewis and the Inklings, and this is perhaps the best on Jack's life in the trenches of WWI and his trials with Mrs. Moore. It is wonderfully accessible as it is written on about a fifth grade level and is usually brief, plain, and to the point. Gresham has many wonderful insights into things like Jack's nightmares and Lewis's love and care for his property-the kilns. This is a good place to start with understanding Lewis, but I recommend moving on to Gresham's Lenten Lands, George Sayer's Jack, Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings, and Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment