“A Grief Observed,” by C. S. Lewis – A Review

by Marc Hays and Aaron W. Eley

A few years ago, I received a pile of books from a friend, several of which were works by C. S. Lewis. The fact that all of them bore my friend’s name, in the upper right-hand corner of the first page, caused his donation to seem more like a purging than a gift. As such, I inquired as to his health; he said he felt fine. No fever. No chills. I inquired as to his sanity, and he assured me that his actions stemmed from sound-reasoning. Given the nature of my two queries, I could take the former answer prima facie but have continued to this day to doubt the latter. I informed him that his name would forever remain inside the cover and that he could return to retrieve his volumes any time that he wished. If he took too long to return, however, they would become annotated copies.

One of the volumes in the stack of works by Lewis was rather thin. None of them were particularly large, but one was almost a pamphlet, bearing the title A Grief Observed. When I indicate small, I mean this book is slender enough to be read in the span of one pot of coffee, or perhaps two large cups of tea; I suppose Lewis would have preferred the tea.

My copy of A Grief Observed consists of 76 pages organized into 4 chapters. The book is a chronological progression of Lewis’ state of mind as he grieved over the loss of his wife, Joy, to cancer. In the Foreword, Madeleine L’Engle relates the fact that “when C. S. Lewis married Joy Davidson, it was a pretty certain expectation that she would die first, unless there was an unexpected accident, for she was in the hospital. He knew that he was marrying a woman who was dying of cancer.” She went into a period of remission which allowed them an extended period of time as a married couple, but in the end, their marriage was comparably short.

In the introduction, Douglas H. Gresham, Lewis’ stepson, states,

Anything entitled ‘Grief Observed’ would have to be so general and nonspecific as to be academic in its approach and thus of little use to anyone approaching or experiencing bereavement.

This book on the other hand, is a stark recounting of one man’s studied attempts to come to grips with and in the end defeat the emotional paralysis of the most shattering grief of his life.

What makes A Grief Observed even more remarkable is that the author was an exceptional man, and the woman whom he mourns, an exceptional woman. Both of them were writers, both were committed Christians, but here the similarities end. It fascinates me how God sometimes brings people together who are so far apart, in so many ways, and merges them into that spiritual homogeneity which is marriage.

In the first portion of the final chapter, Lewis discusses his reasons for cataloging his thoughts into a written work:

In so far as this record was a defence against total collapse, it has done some good. The other end I had in view turns out to have been based on a misunderstanding. I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don’t stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.

If you’ve ever wished that you could sit down and have a conversation with a truly great man and ask him the great, great questions of life and death, then this is your lucky day. Even more, you aren’t required to come up with a list of questions. Lewis has asked them for you. He does not pretend to know all the answers, but you get to hitch a ride with one of the greatest question-askers that I have ever come across.

One recommendation: Read Mere Christianity first. A basic understanding of how Lewis thinks will make the brief volume under consideration much richer. A Grief Observed is a real-time application of the conclusions reached in Mere Christianity. Lewis is a Christian man asking questions about the world that the one, true, and living God created and that the lord and savior Jesus Christ has redeemed.

Concerning the Christian paradigm by which Lewis considers his grief, here’s a final quote:

It doesn’t matter that all the photographs of (my late wife) are bad. It doesn’t matter—not much—if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage—is it not in some ways an advantage—that it can’t pretend the least resemblance to that which it unites me?

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want (my late wife), not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, an obstacle.

Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images–sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers.

All reality is iconoclastic…

Okay, I have to stop. I’ve probably aggravated some copyright laws already. I highly recommend spending a morning or an evening drinking from the redolent fountain of C. S. Lewis. We are blessed that he took the time to journal this difficult period of his life. You will be blessed by taking the time to read it.

Amazon has the book here.

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A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis