One of the best biographies I have ever read is: C.S. Lewis, The
Authentic Voice by William Griffin. It is unlike any other biography that I
have come across, in that it is not a continuous narrative of Lewis’s life, but
rather a collection of chronological vignettes that together give a much more
rounded picture of the man than would a traditional style of biography. Some of
these snippets last for several pages, but many of them are short two- or
three-paragraph descriptions on encounters he had with people, speaking
engagements, books he was reviewing, students he was tutoring, walking trips he
made with his friends, conversations he had with various people, his loves and
his hates. It is a highly entertaining volume in which each chapter is a year
of Lewis’s life from his inauguration into a teaching position at Oxford, in
1925, to his death in 1963. Nevertheless because it is broken into fragments of
his life, the book can be dipped into anywhere.
The copy I have is somewhat dilapidated, so I guess I must have read it
half a dozen times. An example of the style of the little sections in the chapters is an episode involving a tutorial with a student who
walked in late, snickering to himself. When Lewis asked him what was so funny,
the guy answered, “I’ve just been walking through a graveyard and I saw the
headstone of an atheist that read ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go!’ Quick as
a flash Lewis responded, “I’ll bet he wishes now that that were true…”
What emerges from the book is a rounded picture of the man, from little
habits he had (flicking cigarette ash on his carpet – he maintained it was good
for the fibers), turns of phrase he used (The Oxford History of the English
Language, for which he wrote a long section on Medieval English poetry and
which he referred to as OHEL), ways in which he practiced the Christian virtues
(his generosity in giving away substantial chunks of his royalties to friends
in need and other charitable causes), rivalries he entertained (with T.S. Eliot
for example), and his friendships (with members of the Inklings and others), but
most of all his brilliant mind and his peerless academic knowledge.
One reviewer for the Chicago Tribune noted that “Lewis walks onto the
stage almost immediately, speaking as if in a one- character show, and hold our
attention… to the very end… One comes to experience him with a rare directness,
and the biographer seems to disappear and leaves the reader standing
face-to-face with his subject. For anyone interested in the Inklings and their
works and lives I would highly recommend this biography. It can be purchased on
Amazon.com for a piffling sum.
Labels: biography, C.S. Lewis, Oxford, Oxford History of the English Language
