“Why should creatures have the burden of existence forced upon them without their consent?” pg.62 I think this is a very important quote that deals with many of the ideas that people are confused about and are burdened with even today. The idea of “free will” versus predestination. Now I wont get into that at all right now, but I just wanted to point out that it is a very relevant quote to the present day problems. Another statement that really got me was in the same story of how Thor was complaining that Loki didn’t respect the Gods, and Loki replied with, “I pay respect to wisdom not to strength.” I believe this is a powerful and empowering quote to people in present day who feel that wisdom has not quality or superiority with the value of strength (comparing it with physical strength). But in fact, the value of wisdom has kept more people alive for longer than strength ever has. Strength is only one aspect of a person’s physical/mental character which guides and protects only a few aspects of the person. But wisdom is the observer, the communicator, the decision maker, the pathway to longevity and life. Wisdom cannot be taken from you, but strength dwindles away with every forceful attack.
--Spenser Hagan
“And there lies the deadly error. Only when your whole attention and desire are fixed on something else-
whether a distant mountain of the past…does the 'thrill arise'… This, I say is the first and deadly error
which appears on every level of life and is equally deadly on all, turning religion into a self-caressing
luxury and love into autoeroticism.” (94).
The “thrill” or “old thrill” that C. S. Lewis refers to in this passage is understood as his religious
experience. In the early chapters of Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis describes how he denounced his
Christianity. The passage above, located in Chapter 6 gives a deeper understanding of C. S. Lewis’ take
on religion. A common error that he highlights is the perversion of religion by individuals who use God as
a personal genie to satisfy personal desires. This falsification of God and spirituality is empty because it
seeks gratification in desires that derive from our social and political being to whom is driven by self
indulgence. Rather, the “thrill” and true connection with God can only be fully recognized when one
extends the focus from him/herself to the outward. Christianity is not about using the authority that God
has given us to satisfy what we want but rather how we can use this power in assisting individuals around
us. This is where true Joy resides and this is where our spiritual desires are met. Once we realize the
essence of God we began to understand ourselves and therefore recognize that our spiritual being
transcend our politically and socially constructed self. This reminds me of a brilliant quote from C. S
Lewis, "I find in myself desires which nothing in this earth can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that
I was made for another world."
--Breana Collins
There is a distinct break in form between chapter five and chapter six. Renaissance was almost
entirely occupied with episodes related to the internal and the imaginative; indeed Lewis comments
that this whole period was an “imaginative renaissance”. Here, Lewis relates the effect on him
of Rackham’s illustrations of Siegfried and the twilight of the gods; Wagner and mythology in
general. In contrast to this in chapter six the reader is confronted with a seemingly straight forward
description of Lewis school. We are plunged into his so called outer world. Here, Lewis discusses
the social make up of the school, and the practice of fagging in detail. Lewis uses chapter seven to
express his objections to Wyvern and the Wyverian system.. The grounds on which Lewis objects
to the school are interesting and indicative of the intention of the work as a whole. He objects to
Wyvern, the Wyverian system because it made him, and seems to have made others intellectually
priggish. He does not specifically object to ‘impure love’ which seems to have been endemic in the
Wyvernian system. He even states that such pederasty or the momentary loss of pure self interest
associated with the practise was the only thing at Wyvern which could have a good effect on the
students, that “Eros, turned upside down, blackened, distorted, and filthy, still bore traces of his
divinity”. He sees Priggishness as a much greater and more harmful sin than homosexuality. These
views, as Lewis acknowledges, (p 57) are not a natural fit with traditional Christian values and views
on sin. Such views, however, are arguably in keeping with Lewis’s intention with Surprised By Joy, a
so-called “suffocatingly subjective” story of his conversion, which here is detailing the “build-up” to
his “explicitly spiritual crisis”. It is not in keeping with this intention to moralise on sin in a tradition
and general way.
-Althea Francis
In chapters 6-8, Lewis concentrates on the hell of going through public school. Besides the fagging, the tiring pretentiousness, and the lack of interest that Lewis went through at Wyvern, there are some moments in his writing that show that there were small doses of Joy that he experienced in this, otherwise much hated, place. First and most obvious is his having Smewgy as a teacher. Smewgy introduces him to poetry from another perspective, one that will make his solitude at Wyvern solitude to be savored in order for him to enjoy poetry. He hails Smewgy as the best teacher he had, and even goes so far as to describe him having a “froglike expression.” This is important because he already has associated his father with the froglike protagonist of Animal-Land; thus frogs for Lewis, it can be argued, are figures that have a good meaning attached to them. Second, he finds joy in discovering what he defines as “good” fiction, and in “despising the ‘philistines’ who do not share it.” Being treated condescendingly throughout his years at Wyvern, he finds satisfaction in condescending “others” that do not share his tastes by becoming a “Highbrow.” Finally, another small Joy that he experiences among his misery, is that of being unconscious. The longing of being unconscious and thus in going to sleep and wishing he never wakes up. Despite not being the perfect solution of his problems, Lewis longs for “sleep, the prime good,” that will alleviate him from his harsh reality.
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