Review: A Grief Observed, By C.S. Lewis
This classic personal memoir is available free in various formats. It's a short book. A Grief Observed draws from Lewis' stream of thoughts notebooks. He wrote it during his severe grief very soon after his wife's death from cancer in 1960. The book includes vivid descriptions of some common raw emotions in acute grief, though many passages may not be as relatable or easy to read. Lewis was a Christian theologian, and much of the book focuses on religion.
My rating: Recommended ★★☆☆
Note: This format for reviews is a work in progress – more about this here. Comments welcome. 0 stars = red flag; 1 = not recommended; 2 = recommended, with limits; 3 = recommended, above average; 4 = highly recommended.
Overview:
- Memoir, with vivid descriptions of acute grief.
- 40 pages (or more in formats with small pages).
- Husband grieving for the loss of his wife (cancer), England, 1960/61.
- Written by a writer and theologian (Christian), in the first weeks and months of bereavement.
- Readability ranges from easy-to-understand passages to quite difficult.
- English language. The World Catalog of Books lists translations into 17 European and Asian languages. You can also use the Catalog to check if any libraries near you have a copy.
- Access: For sale in a wide variety of formats. It's in the public domain, and there are free versions in multiple written formats, here for example. It can also be borrowed from the Internet Archive.
- Goodreads rating: 79% positive, 13% neutral, 5% negative.
- From over 71,000 ratings on November 9, 2022. Positive = 4 or 5 stars, Neutral = 3 stars, Negative = 1 or 2 stars.
My full review:
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was a Christian theologian, and author of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He originally published this grief memoir under a pseudonym soon after his wife's death. So he refers to his wife, H. Joy Davidman Gresham, only as H. in the book. (Their relationship and her dying of cancer were dramatized in the film, Shadowlands.)
As a publication of one person's stream of thoughts, particularly his religious beliefs, there is much that won't be relatable to many people. For others, Lewis' struggle with what this devastating loss means for his relationship with his God may be one of the book's gifts.
Lewis eloquently describes several of the very common experiences of early, severe grief. When I was reeling under the force of shattering, raw emotions, it helped to see this reflection. Some examples:
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.
You tell me "she goes on." But my heart and body are crying out, come back, come back.
Grief is like a bomber circling around and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead.
I first read this book in the first days after my son died, and my restless, exhausted mind wandered off frequently. I skipped over much of it. Lewis captured the relentless, monotonous beat of grief's thoughts circling around themselves. It's a relief to know it's not just you who finds themselves in this state, but it can be heavy going. The book is more about trying to understand what's happening to you, and less about how to deal with that.
A Grief Observed was published in 1961, relatively soon after H. died (in July 1960). So Lewis' memoir doesn't reach past very early grief. There are flashes, though, of his grief easing:
Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. And I'd had a very tiring but very healthy twelve hours the day before, and a sounder night's sleep; and after ten days of low-hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness, the sun was shining and there was a light breeze. And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best.
November 10, 2022
I read this book a month after my son died. I am a Christian, and C.S. Lewis' books were important to me as a college student many years ago, so I expected to like it. I didn't, and I was surprised at how much I disliked this book. I agree with you that his descriptions of the early stages of grief are on target, so that was comforting. I also appreciated his honesty about the impact of his wife's death on his feelings about God. But I realized in reading this book that C.S. Lewis was a bit underdeveloped and uninspiring as a person in ways that I had not recognized when I was younger. He did not offer much in this book that I found encouraging or insightful or helpful. And, indeed, from what I have read, he never recovered from this loss, and he himself died only a few years later. For an alternative classic Christian book on grief, I strongly recommend Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff, which I found to be quite moving.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that - and for the recommendation: I'm not familiar with Lament for a Son. I shall most definitely look for it. All the best.
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