Today C.S. Lewis is known as one of the greatest Christian apologist of the modern age, and, through works such as Surprised by Joy, he has convinced numerous people to investigate Christianity. Considering this, it is interesting to note that he did not become a Christian until somewhat late in life, despite the instances of Joy he experienced. He later realized that these moments of Joy were signposts marking a longing for something greater than his current reality and ushering him toward the Lord. As expected for a prolific author and respected scholar, many of these signposts arrived to him in the form of literature. The Joy that he found in fiction, and even in mythology, worked to point him toward a faith that he had once forsaken.
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Lewis’ first experience with Joy, in relation to literature, was felt very early in his life. It is the second moment that he can recall ever experiencing this strange longing, and it is brought upon him by Beatrice Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. This new and foreign feeling was so deep and unexpected, that it actually shocked and troubled young Lewis. Despite its strangeness, the boy would return to the book in hopes that he would feel it again. Lewis writes, “It was something different from ordinary life and even ordinary pleasure; something as they would now say, ‘in another dimension” (17). Even in this young age, the Joy that Lewis experienced due to a storybook, and shortly after due to a poem, points to the passions and interests he will possess as he ages and becomes a more voracious …show more content…
To him, it seemed as though his books were betraying him. The authors that he liked and respected, who were reasonable and correct, all suffered from the delusion of Christianity. The non-religious authors that he once loved now seemed shallow and too simple. Lewis writes that, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous” (191). To every realm of literature he turned he could not escape the Lord and inevitably, as was God’s plan, he discovered the reasonability of theism and embraced
Lewis’ first experience with Joy, in relation to literature, was felt very early in his life. It is the second moment that he can recall ever experiencing this strange longing, and it is brought upon him by Beatrice Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. This new and foreign feeling was so deep and unexpected, that it actually shocked and troubled young Lewis. Despite its strangeness, the boy would return to the book in hopes that he would feel it again. Lewis writes, “It was something different from ordinary life and even ordinary pleasure; something as they would now say, ‘in another dimension” (17). Even in this young age, the Joy that Lewis experienced due to a storybook, and shortly after due to a poem, points to the passions and interests he will possess as he ages and becomes a more voracious …show more content…
To him, it seemed as though his books were betraying him. The authors that he liked and respected, who were reasonable and correct, all suffered from the delusion of Christianity. The non-religious authors that he once loved now seemed shallow and too simple. Lewis writes that, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous” (191). To every realm of literature he turned he could not escape the Lord and inevitably, as was God’s plan, he discovered the reasonability of theism and embraced