A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Grief Observed
Book Review: A Grief Observed
Summary: 5 Stars
This book really is an aid to anyone experiencing the loss of a loved one. C.S. Lewis describes so eloquently the feelings of loneliness,anger, disbelief,faith and hope one feels while experiencing grief.Book Review: A Grief Observed
Summary: 5 Stars
"A Grief Observed" was one of the most powerful books I've ever read. I first read it 5 or 6 years ago. I was amazed at how short the book was but was slammed with the deep grief I felt from Lewis's words. He wrote the book only 4 months after losing his wife Joy. Here was grief displayed in all its rawness and vulnarability. I felt I truly understood this man's heart & soul during his mouring. He questions God &, even, verbally raises his fist to Him. Lewis had written about pain & suffering in his book "The Problem of Pain," but I think he was doing just that: writing about it. Other than the lose of his mother as a child, he had not experienced what he wrote about. God took Lewis on a journey of love & suffering when he met & married Joy Gresham. In the play "Shadowlands," when Joy is dying of cancer, she asks Lewis if their love was worth the suffering they were going through. That's the question Lewis faces. As the book progesses, one can read how Lewis begins to process his grief. At the end, he doesn't find answers to his deep questions, but He knows that God is God & is still sovereign.
Since reading the book, I've lost both parents, one suddenly & one gradually. I've experienced deep grief & now understand Lewis's grief. I have since re-read the book. I didn't go through the questioning that Lewis did, but I understood why he did it. There is an instant brotherhood among those who have experienced lose. Seeing another's pain immediately brings back one's own pain. I think this book would be helpful to those who have suffered the loss of a beloved, however, not until after a period of time. I don't know if the book would be helpful to one, who had recently suffered loss because the words & the person's grief are still painful.
Book Review: A Grief Well-Observed
Summary: 5 Stars
'The Lord Gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' The Book of Job 1:21(I am not sure Lewis meant it, but 'observed' also has religious connotations - observing a time of mourning. The ancient traditions were rooted in emotional and spiritual truth.)
It is only through great trial and long experience that anyone can say those words, understand their wisdom, and mean them. I can't really explain it to anyone. When I was twelve my best friend died of a congenital heart defect. The experience has shaped who I am, and my faith. For a long time I did not think I would ever even smile again. I knew few other people of any age who had experienced loss. Death is senseless and cruel - I was further reminded of that when a fellow college student was killed in a tragic accident last week. Things like that, like the September 11 attacks can bring back the old pain.
Anyone who has experienced grief will truly appreciate this work. It is raw, fresh emotion, a play by play of what grief is at first. But it ends a little further up that road, when one can see that life will go on. Grief does not ever really end. Love is dangerous, to love someone is to risk that loss. But as this book attests God never leaves YOU despite appearances. He is stronger than our most raging emotion and doubt and can take our questions and pain. 'For he was a man acquainted with grief, accustomed to sorrow.' Isaiah 52:3
The book is highly recommended, I only wish I could have read and understood it when I was younger.
Book Review: A Humble and Moving Book
Summary: 5 Stars
C.S. Lewis has, more often than not, been a very accessible writer. In his life he often achieved a balance of writing about some lofty subject matter in a way that the thinking common person could relate, all the while never "dumbing down" his writings in order to stir up mass appeal (which he got..and much deserved, I might add...all the same).
If one has read various writings of C.S. Lewis....whether it be his Science-Ficiton Trilogy, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, his other ventures into fiction (SCREWTAPE LETTERS or THE GREAT DIVORCE), his (for their time) very compassionate/forward-thinking essays on Christianity or even his autobiographical works (such as SURPRISED BY JOY), then an odd thing occurs. It may be completely delusional on the part of the reader, but one does begin to feel a certain kinship or affinity with C.S. Lewis. And though Lewis was, by most accounts, not the most sociable of men (although, by most accounts, a very gracious and kind-hearted man), many a read feels as though he/she knows Lewis based on the wonderful wealth of writings that he left behind.
So, with this in mind, A GRIEF OBSERVED succeeds on two levels.
For those who have read Lewis over the years, one aches to see a man so often filled with hope and inspiration on the verge of inconsolable desperation. Reading these thoughts that Lewis jotted into his notebook following the death of his wife is much like being a voyeur who witnesses another man's anguish and suffering. On the other hand, Lewis writes what many of those who have lost loved ones often think...but seldom articulate...and that in itself is cause enough for one to read this book.
It is not an easy book to read. Lewis is an expressive enough writer..even in the midst of terrible grief...that he is well able to express the sorrow, emptiness and doubt of faith that comes with losing a loved one. Yet this book is completely void of pretenses or airs. What is written on these pages is much like examining a raw nerve beneath a microscope.
I've no doubt that a man who so cherished his privacy in the way that C.S. Lewis did must have groped with the thought of having these thoughts...often written in notebooks as a form of therapy for his own self...published for all the world to read.
That he, indeed, allowed this work to be published would require a certain amount of humility...not to mention the sense of compassion and empathy that Lewis must have known would be felt by others who've lost loved ones. What Lewis did by allowing this work to be published is to provide a tome that will be read for decades to come by many who experience grief.
For those who are interested in the life of C.S. Lewis, then this book would be essential reading, if only to view him in the heart of a tempest to which he is vulnerable. For those who have lost a loved one, I know that no book can work like a potion to help overcome such grief. Still, this book might serve to provide some comfort during the trying days that face those who have experienced a profound loss.
Book Review: A Journey Through Loss and Pain
Summary: 5 Stars
Lewis wrote this little gem after his beloved wife, Joy, died of cancer. Knowing Lewis to be a man of deep faith and one of the most respected theologians of his day, secure in his beliefs, I was particularly interested in how he would react to such a soul-disemboweling blow. I was not disappointed -- like anyone else, he reeled. In A GRIEF OBSERVED, his struggle to regain his balance, physically and spiritually, is not unlike my own.
Speaking of the grieving process he writes, "At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want others to be about me. I dread moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me."
He struggles with anger as well as with the things people say to him. His faith is challenged -- he calls God the "great iconoclast," and he speaks of his fears.
Lewis's rambling style is compatible with the confused and jumbled feelings of the bereaved. His anger, sense of bewilderment and suffocation along with recognition and acknowlegment of the feelings and emotions express the too-often inexpressable.
This book is a fine and sensitive treatise on the pain of grieving and the soul's journey through the grieving process. I recommend it highly to anyone deep in grief or who is concerned about someone who is grieving.