Customer Reviews

C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences: New Edition

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This book is a collection of essays regarding C.S. Lewis by those who were acquainted with him at various times in his life. I've returned to reread it, or parts of it, from time to time. The book fills in some gaps for those of us who won't know him personally until we join him on the other side.

How did different people think of C.S. Lewis, the famous radio broadcaster, Oxford tutor, lecturer, and author? This collection of narratives from those who knew the man gives a strong flavoring of his personality and characteristics. Easy to read, organized, and candid, I enjoyed a leisurely reading experience with this book.

This book is divided into six parts, reflecting the various ways that people knew Lewis: Earliest Perspectives (memoirs by those who knew Lewis from the 1920s - contributors include Leo Baker, Alan Bede Griffiths, O.S.B., and A.C. Harwood), Master (people who were acquainted with Lewis as Oxford don - contributors include Erik Routley, Luke Rigby O.S.B., Derek Brewer, John Wain, and Peter Payley), Colleague (fellow dons Adam Fox, Gervase Mathew O.P., and Richard W. Ladborough), Transatlantic Ties (American contributors Charles Wrong, Jane Douglass, Nathan C. Starr, and Eugene McGovern), Much More Than A Tutor (people who knew Lewis outside the classroom - contributors include Walter Hooper, Charles Gilmore, Clifford Morris, George Sayer, Roger Lancelyn Green, Dr. Robert E. Havard, and James Dundas-Grant), and The Essence That Prevails (perspectives about the influence of C.S. Lewis written by A.C. Harwood, Austin Farrer, and Walter Hooper.) Other books that are similar to C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table include In Search of C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher, and Light on C.S. Lewis.

Lewis himself thought it unimportant, and even wrong, to be too curious about the private life of an author, as if you could work backwards into the "real" meaning of an author's writing through some sort of half-baked Freudian analysis (uh, does Wilson's book come to mind?!). Fortunately this book does not attempt to do so, since it is not really about is private life, but rather various angles of his public, mainly academic, life at Oxford and Cambridge. Of course personal tidbits are there, and they are quite enlightening and usually humorous, but you won't find the deep dark secret or alter ego that too many readers become obsessed with. Nor does the book paint a rosy picture in a hagiographic tone. It is just first-hand accounts of those who knew Lewis in varying degrees of intimacy at various stages of his life, some longer than others, showing that his life, like any other, is marked by the quotidian quality of normality. The only difference is that he was a genius with a rare talent for articulation and clear thinking, and his heart was kind; Sort of like a Spock with a sense of humor and a faith in God.

Here you find Lewis the frustrated poet, Lewis the analytical machine who argued for the joy of debate like his hero Johnson, Lewis the Inkling, Lewis the privately charitable (giving huge sums of money away to people he barely knew, widows in particular), Lewis the absent-minded Chair, Lewis the man of infinite memory recall, Lewis the scholar and popular lecturer, Lewis the godfather, Lewis the theologian unpopular with his colleagues for it, Lewis the tutor, Lewis the defender of Truth, Lewis the literary scholar, etc. Each essay has its own style, some better than others, some longer than others. But all open a unique window into the man we have come to admire, argue with and ultimately respect as a fellow traveler on the path to Truth and Meaning.

Former students, professors, his driver (Lewis didn't drive) and many other friends take their own angles on what it meant to know Lewis. I have found some of the essays out of step with what nearly everyone else has found to be "Lewis", such as one written in 1964 that says he was someone who didn't let others in, and that friendship with Lewis was more a matter of projection that a reality (and this essay was written by someone who was in deed not his friend). Yet on the whole the collection is superb, with reflections dating up to 1987.

Lewis enthusiasts will also find these books worth checking out: The Inklings of Oxford: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Their Friends, Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis: Images of His World and C. S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends and Colleagues. I have a listmania dedicated to Lewis as well. Enjoy!