The Bible and Culture

Ben: Lewis makes an important distinction between the imaginary and the imaginative and insists his fiction is of the latter sort. Help us to better understand what he means by this, and why he also says you can look at his fiction as a spectacle, or as a set of spectacles through which we see the ‘real’ world in a new way.Alister: Lewis saw the imagination as operating according to some deep principles, which meant that it had the potential to lead us to the source of our hearts’ desire. He … [Read more...]

Ben: Lewis has often been touted as the great Christian apologete of the 20th century. What struck me in reading your discussion of this is that you were certainly well positioned to critically evaluate the merits of what he wrote and said of this nature, since you’ve done a fair bit of apologetics yourself. Now that we are in a more post-modern and post-Christian era in the West, in what ways does Lewis’ approach look dated, and in what ways still helpful? (N.B. It has struck me as very odd tha … [Read more...]

Ben: 6) Chronological snobbery is a phrase we find at various points in Lewis’ work. It seems that this concept is even more relevant now than ever in the age of rapid technological turnover where the latest is the greatest and the newest is taken to be the truest. How does Lewis’ approach help us to combat historical and theological and even literary amnesia?Alister: This is a critically important point, given our culture’s obsession with novelty and the “latest research” – which is so oft … [Read more...]

Ben: I was reading along on p. 70, and read these lines from Lewis “Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills”. A line you give in the context of discussing his war poems. I have to say this certainly corresponds with my own experience when we suddenly lost Christy our eldest child at 32 to a pulmonary embolism. My way of coping was to write a poem about this, and then reflections on grieving entitled ‘When a Daughter Dies” which apparently has he … [Read more...]

Ben: One of the things your biography of Lewis could not be accused of is being hagiography. I have often wondered why exactly Americans have so often sought to polish the halo of Lewis including those who have written about him, and revere him to such a great degree, whereas by in large this is not true in the U.K. and never has been. I wonder if you have thought as to why the reception of Lewis in the U.K. vs. in America differs to a significant degree? Recently I went and saw a British actor … [Read more...]

Ben: ‘Northerness’ is of course a topic that comes up again and again when it comes to Lewis’ developing imagination and later his fiction, but I have to say I found it strange to hear about Norse mythology lumped together with things Germanic like Wagner!! Wagner was about as Norse as me, and if Wagner’s fantasy world was a major influence shouldn’t one call it ‘Southerness’ compared to the geographical locales of Lewis?Alister: Point taken – but maybe you press it too far. As a boy, Lewis … [Read more...]

Ben: One of the keys, you suggest, to Lewis’ intellectual survival during his WWI service was his ability to compartmentalize things, and to continue to have and protect his ‘inner life’ and imagination without being unduly traumatized. Could you say more about this? Was Lewis retreating into some fantasy world to protect himself from being deeply wounded by his experiences in France?Alister: It’s very difficult, and probably quite unwise, to try and reconstruct someone’s mental defences. N … [Read more...]