LITERARY FILE : ‘Shadowlands’ Rekindles Interest in C. S. Lewis

If “Shadowlands” becomes a box-office success, “Jurassic Park” won’t be the only dinosaur-centered film to make its mark among recent movies. “Shadowlands” is about the brief, late-in-life marriage of American divorcee Joy Davidman Gresham and English writer C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis. Lewis dubbed himself a “dinosaur” and an “Old Western Man” in reference to his traditional, Christian and literary perspectives.

At first glance, this Englishman who died at age 64 the same day as John F. Kennedy may seem a rather snoozy subject for a film. Many people only know Lewis as a children’s writer: His seven-volume fantasy series “The Chronicles of Narnia” is a perennial favorite. Actually, the stocky, chain-smoking, Belfast-born Anglican defies easy categorization.

Schooled in his teens by a private tutor who predicted no great success for his pupil, Lewis went on to become a Renaissance and Medieval literature professor at both Oxford and Cambridge. Despite his demanding academic schedule, Lewis carved out time to write more than 50 books, pamphlets and essays. These include poetry, literary criticism (“The Oxford History of English Literature in the 16th Century,” “An Experiment in Criticism”), the autobiography “Surprised by Joy,” a science-fiction trilogy, a novel about the Cupid and Psyche myth called “Till We Have Faces” and theological works such as “Mere Christianity,” “The Problem of Pain” and “The Screwtape Letters.” All of these, plus others, are still in print and sell by the thousands in various translations.

Lewis’ marriage to Gresham in 1956 came after years of confirmed bachelorhood. At first largely a “green-card” arrangement to help Gresham and her two sons (only one is portrayed in the film) stay in England while she slowly died of cancer, the four-year union ultimately thawed Lewis’ emotions and launched him into the greatest romance of his life. Still, the relative quickness, secrecy and taint of previous divorce attached to the wedding in England’s conservative ‘50s society added to Lewis’ somewhat quixotic reputation.

Thanks to his prodigious book output, the writer has become something of a hero to a wide swath of people who admire his blend of brains, faith, poetic spirit and storytelling finesse. As early as 1947, he was popular enough to rate a Time magazine cover story describing him as “one of a growing band of heretics among modern intellectuals: an intellectual who believes in God.”

Lewis is not without detractors. In his own lifetime, a number of his university colleagues found his unabashed advocacy of Christianity so distasteful that they voted Cecil Day-Lewis (Daniel Day-Lewis’ father) into a coveted poetry professorship at Oxford over Lewis largely out of spite. Still, Lewis, or Jack as he was nicknamed, never lacked for talented and supportive friends such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams to appreciate his wit, generosity (he donated most of his book proceeds to charity), sensitivity to beauty and roving imagination.

The last decade has seen something of a Lewis renaissance. “Shadowlands” has attracted interest in various incarnations as a British television drama and a Tony Award-winning play before it became a film. John Cleese recorded a biting audiocassette rendition of “The Screwtape Letters,” and the BBC has turned out television versions of a few of the Narnia books. Several Lewis biographies and an edition of his diary were recently published. There are thriving C. S. Lewis societies replete with monthly journals and meetings in Los Angeles and New York. And the Redlands-based C. S. Lewis Foundation for Higher Education presents triannual conferences in England about the man and his works.

Even 30 years after his death, Lewis fans believe that his words wear well. Below, a smattering of Lewisania:

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. -- “The Four Loves” Flippancy . . . is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it. -- “The Screwtape Letters” Ambition! We must be careful what we mean by it. If it means the desire to get ahead of other people--which is what I think it does mean--then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is good. It isn’t wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can possibly be acted, but the wish to have his name in bigger type than the other actors is a bad one. -- “God in the Dock” It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or another of these destinations. -- “The Weight of Glory” Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky. -- “The Screwtape Letters” In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

-- “An Experiment in Criticism.”