The Book in the Bookstall

Baptized Imagination in Surprised by Joy

C. S. Lewis read George MacDonald's book Phantastes in 1916. He said that after reading this book his imagination was baptized. He meant that regenerative processes began in him. When this occurred, though he still considered himself an atheist at the time, he started on the long road to faith in Christ. He chronicles this in his autobiography Surprised by Joy.

Lewis and the Choice to Write Autobiography

Lewis wrote autobiography on purpose. That is, he was as intentional about writing Surprised by Joy as he was writing in each of the literary forms he employed. Lewis wrote in at least seventeen literary genres: apologetics, autobiography, educational philosophy, essays, fairy stories, journal, letters, literary criticism, literary history, lyric poetry, narrative poetry, the novel, religious devotion, satire, science fiction, short story, and translation.

He chose a literary form that matched what he wanted to say. Lewis was always seeking how to properly adorn his words, ideas, and imaginative expressions. He said, "It is easy to forget that the man who writes a good love sonnet needs not only to be enamoured of a woman, but also enamoured of the Sonnet." Similarly, Lewis said, "I wrote fairy tales because the Fairy Tale seemed the ideal Form for the stuff I had to say." He wrote his science fiction novels because they enabled him to say what he wanted to say about the longing for another world.

Lewis's point was clear: an author should select his or her literary genre as carefully as he or she selects the content. He or she should take the same care as a sculptor who selects her marble or a painter selects his material. He wrote in the literary form that helped him best set forth a certain body of ideas.

Some critics make large assumptions as to why Lewis wrote his autobiography. Some have suggested that Surprised by Joy is a bad autobiography because he leaves so much out. Others infer that Lewis used autobiography as a therapeutic exercise to cleanse his conscience before taking on his Narnian project. In other words, the autobiography was, at the end of the day, merely an exercise in confessional psychology.

Another critic claims that Lewis fails to disclose his shortcomings and hides realities behind pretense, suggesting that the work should have been called Suppressed by Jack(Jack was Lewis's nickname) rather than Surprised by Joy. Others say that the autobiography is similar in style to Augustine's Confessions.

Lewis probably chose autobiography so he could shape his rhetoric along the lines of a testimonial apologetic for the Christian faith. Lewis says that his goal in writing the book was to tell the story of how he moved from atheism to Christianity. And, relative to its matter, the purpose of the book determines the details he chose to both include and to leave out. This specific purpose also determined that the narrative should end at the point of his conversion at the age of thirty-three.

True, Lewis lived another thirty years after the events recounted in Surprised by Joy. During those years he became a noted public figure. His picture was published on the cover of Time magazine in 1947. He was a popular writer of science fiction and children's books. Lewis was also a recognized academic in medieval and Renaissance literature. Norman Cantor claims Lewis was the greatest scholar of medieval literature of his age. Lewis was even a popular radio presenter on the BBC and a noted lecturer.

None of these points, however, are mentioned in his autobiography. His intent was clear: to tell of his pilgrimage to faith, noting those events important in that process. He does not include details unnecessary to the story he wanted his readers to know. The details he left out did not advance this narrative.

One author faults Lewis for giving mounds of information about his school experiences but hardly anything about his war years. To be sure, Lewis did not have a positive experience in the schools he attended. As the autobiography makes explicit, he was awkward and bookish. He was an easy target for bullying and hazing by the older students. Lewis devotes many pages to these formative yet difficult days.

This same critic even charges that Lewis "seems bent on securing revenge on those he believed to have tormented him as a schoolboy by ridiculing them." This accusation seems unfair. Certainly other, more probable interpretations could be given. Lewis's preconversion days were marked by loneliness and estrangements. His mother died when he was only nine years old. His father sent him off to a boarding school in London across the Irish Sea, far from his Belfast home. The headmaster at the school eventually was institutionalized. In that school Lewis was underfed, beaten, and made to sleep in a room where the boys were not kept warm in winter.

Later, when he attended other schools, he constantly highlights his feelings of isolation and estrangement. These feelings exacerbated the deep longings for some object that seemed remote, distant, and ever elusive. As Lewis writes about his school years, he makes a strong case for the human story of isolation. Lewis's childhood is merely a particular example. Virtually everybody can describe their own feelings of abandonment and loneliness. And Lewis, telling his story, bonds with his readers. The apologetic possible in autobiography connects with some readers more deeply than would be possible through discursive argument. The number of pages given to his school years is appropriate, since this time made up the bulk of Lewis's...