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What are readers saying about A Grief Observed (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis)?
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Mike posted a review at .
(Language: English)
 
One of the things I've always loved about C. S. Lewis is that there isn't the slightest hint of fakery in him. When you read his words, you read his heart. This is most true in his book, A Grief Observed. These "jottings" were made in Lewis's private journals after the death of his wife, Joy, from cancer. They weren't intended for publication when written, but Jack later decided that they might help someone else who might be going through a similar experience as he. This is Jack Lewis as Jacob, wrestling with God. It is not always a pleasant sight to behold, and yet we cannot take our eyes off it. He bites and scratches and yells at God at the top of his lungs, then falls back in a heaving mass of quivering flesh. But like Jacob of old, Lewis will not turn loose until God blesses him. And ultimately God does bless him - and us through him. There are too many profound passages to quote. And we don't really want to quote everything. It would be like uncovering a secret. Lewis honesty sometimes borders on discomfort, a discomfort we feel with him and, if we have experienced a similar loss, understand. The first sentence of the book sent sharp razors of memory through me. "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." After my father died, I remember that strange sensation myself. I didn't realize that grief manifested itself like fear. Lewis goes on to describe his mourning in terms so eloquent, and yet, when we read them, so real. In speaking about the memory of his wife showing up at particular times and in particular places, Lewis says no. "Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." He speaks of how her face is becoming blurred in his memory, while her voice is still vivid. "The remembered voice - that can turn me at any moment to a whimpering child." Lewis eventually finds his way through the terrifying maze of grief and finds that the God he was wrestling with was holding him in His arms all the time. "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't." The lesson, for me, is that our ideas of how things "ought to be" are illusions of the truth that really is. God, through the natural process of death and grieving shatters our illusions and causes us to come face to face with truth. This is often extraordinarily painful. Says Lewis, "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?" 
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Mike posted a review at .
(Language: English)
One of the things I've always loved about C. S. Lewis is that there isn't the slightest hint of fakery in him. When you read his words, you read his heart. This is most true in his book, A Grief Observed. These "jottings" were made in Lewis's private journals after the death of his wife, Joy, from cancer. They weren't intended for publication when written, but Jack later decided that they might help someone else who might be going through a similar experience as he. This is Jack Lewis as Jacob, wrestling with God. It is not always a pleasant sight to behold, and yet we cannot take our eyes off it. He bites and scratches and yells at God at the top of his lungs, then falls back in a heaving mass of quivering flesh. But like Jacob of old, Lewis will not turn loose until God blesses him. And ultimately God does bless him - and us through him. There are too many profound passages to quote. And we don't really want to quote everything. It would be like uncovering a secret. Lewis honesty sometimes borders on discomfort, a discomfort we feel with him and, if we have experienced a similar loss, understand. The first sentence of the book sent sharp razors of memory through me. "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." After my father died, I remember that strange sensation myself. I didn't realize that grief manifested itself like fear. Lewis goes on to describe his mourning in terms so eloquent, and yet, when we read them, so real. In speaking about the memory of his wife showing up at particular times and in particular places, Lewis says no. "Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." He speaks of how her face is becoming blurred in his memory, while her voice is still vivid. "The remembered voice - that can turn me at any moment to a whimpering child." Lewis eventually finds his way through the terrifying maze of grief and finds that the God he was wrestling with was holding him in His arms all the time. "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't." The lesson, for me, is that our ideas of how things "ought to be" are illusions of the truth that really is. God, through the natural process of death and grieving shatters our illusions and causes us to come face to face with truth. This is often extraordinarily painful. Says Lewis, "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?"
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Brian posted a review at .
(Language: English)
Almost too personal to read. Profound insights about authentic christian suffering.
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A reader posted a review at .
(Language: English)
I'm hesitant to thump my drum for CS Lewis. He's touted by Gen X'ers and my fellow Gen Y'ers as basically the greatest Christian writer since Paul. There is a cult of celebrity at work with which I take issue (his writing is not as great as many seem to think nor was his theology perfect).However, my ground-to-a-nub axe aside, "A Grief Observed" is a profound work. For anyone who's ever suffered any kind of serious loss, CS Lewis' memoir will ring many familiar bells. When I read this a few years ago, I was in the throes of a deep grief-driven depression and more than once I would stop, close the book, and marvel, "I could've written this."--not in a self-flattering, narcissistic way, but in the sense that no matter what kind of grief you're suffering, this small, intimate diary of one man's journey through the pain will resonate; its familiarity transcends genders, generations and genres of grief (feel free to sneer at the alliteration). If you're suffering through the loss of a loved one or perhaps ANY kind of grief, CS Lewis' private struggle will show you that you are not trespassing in territory so terrible that you're alone, and that no valley is too dark to be lost in forever, nor so desolate that your spirit will starve.
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Petra posted a review at .
(Language: English)
Probably one of my favorite books because it exposes genuine humanness with an uncensored blatant honesty. It's not a theological road map but a genuine human account of suffering with its deepest disappointments and longings. After the death of his wife, Lewis' faith is shook to a devastating low. Lewis finds himself on a journey strewn with raw and heartbreaking pain, but one that ultimately leads him back to a faith-affirming relationship with God. A powerful, deeply healing classic not to be missed.
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Colby posted a review at .
(Language: English)
This book doesn't seem to have the same kind of coherence I have come to expect from good ol' Clive, but it is certainly understandable given its pretext. I recommend it for anyone having trouble grieving for the loss of a loved one.
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Lara posted a review at .
(Language: English)
"You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears" (45). I think this statement from C.S. Lewis summarizes his thoughts on grief. I appreciated his raw honesty, heartache, and questions as a great man of faith who is indeed very human. It was only when "I mourned H. [his wife] least, [that] I remembered her best" (44) and "the less I mourn her the nearer I seem to her" (56). I remember first hearing about C.S. Lewis' life and the death of his wife while I was standing in a book store nearly ten years ago. Though I do not remember who was telling me about C.S. Lewis, I do remember that person describing him as someone who had to lose his wife to deepen his faith. That always stayed with me as one of my only knowledgeable details of his life... and I remember both being shocked and humbled by it. So as I read A Grief Observed, I realized that this was that story of C.S. Lewis, and I read more indepth about this aspect of his life and faith. Throughout Lewis' journal, he uses beautiful figurative language to describe the death of one's mate: it is like a valley, it is like an amputation, a map of sorrow. One of the most profound descriptions is when he says: "We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don't want to pretend that it is whole and complete." We will be still married, still in love. Therefore we shall still ache" (54). Oh, what a beautiful blessing of marriage... and the truth indeed that we enter into the covenant knowing that more than likely, someone is going to grieve the other. And I can relate to Lewis' realization that his order went him, his wife, and then God. "In that order. The order and the proportions exactly what they ought not to have been" (62). That was truth to me! "Praise in true order; of Him as the giver, of her as the gift" (62)... what great perspective and shift! I liked what his stepson said in the foreward, that "it almost seems cruel that her death was delayed long enough for him to grow to love her so completely that she filled his world as the greatest gift that God had ever given him, and then she died and left him alone in a place that her presence in his life had created for him" (xxx). His story will forever remind me of the quote: is it better to have loved and lost, or never to have loved at all? I think his journal answers that question both beautifully and painfully. So I take refuge in his words and his situation, one that I can not relate to, but know is inevitable in love and life. I too think "it is all right to wallow in one's journal... what we work out in our journals we don't take out on family and friends" (xiv). I thank him for writing, for sharing, and for loving.
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A reader posted a review at .
(Language: English)
Being in the midst of grief myself, I am comforted by CS Lewis' honest, heartfelt writings as he struggles with the loss of his wife. Outstanding outpouring of realism, definitely recommended to all and highly recommended for anyone who has lost a loved one.
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A reader posted a review at .
(Language: English)
When you grief, don't read any book. After you grief, read this book.
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