A Grief Observed

Aug 16, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Grieving people; Fans of C. S. Lewis

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books

Shelves: 501, memoirs

Heartwrenching narrative about death and mourning. Inspiring musings of somebody who have just lost his loved one. Musings that include all phases of grief from shock, pain, acceptance and moving on. He even went to the stage of questioning the existence and love of God but in a way is so thought-provoking even people with strong faith will need to double check his deep-seated beliefs.

This 76-page poignant, partly angry and deeply moving journal by Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis (1898-1963) was fir...more Heartwrenching narrative about death and mourning. Inspiring musings of somebody who have just lost his loved one. Musings that include all phases of grief from shock, pain, acceptance and moving on. He even went to the stage of questioning the existence and love of God but in a way is so thought-provoking even people with strong faith will need to double check his deep-seated beliefs.

This 76-page poignant, partly angry and deeply moving journal by Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis (1898-1963) was first published in 1961 following the death (bone cancer, 1960) of his wife Helen Joy Gresham (nee Davidman) who Lewis fondly referred to as simply H. C. S. Lewis died just two years after this book was published.

This book seems to be an ideal companion for people who are in bereavement. While reading, you'll have this feeling that Lewis' thoughts are yours. This is a good idea because C. S. Lewis is one remarkable Christian writer (Screwtape Letters, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, etc) and his thoughts are inspiring and can strengthen one's faith especially if that someone has just lost a loved one.

I had my share of deaths in the family. I lost my dad in 1997. My last grandparent died in 1984. Last month, the 15-y/o daughter (as young as my daughter Jillian) of a first cousin died from leukemia. Yesterday, the day I read this book, my maternal aunt was buried.

Thus, I was able to identify with Lewis. I just had to pull out those painful death experiences while reading Lewis' narratives. I rode with him in his journey of emotions from his initial shock (Chapter 1), doubts on the love and wisdom of God (Chapter 2), followed by acceptance recognizing that love does not end with death (Chapter 3) and finally moving on with a positive attitude and hope that living is still worthwhile (Chapter 4). It also offers what you should do to comfort a friend who has just lost someone. Do you say "she is now at peace"? or "everything happens for a reason?" or "there is no death" and "death does not matter"? or "she will now live forever in your memory"? or "she is now with God"? In his moment of grief, Lewis explained that all these words are shallow if not meaningless or even some of them are untrue. Something that most of us normally say and we thought that those are comforting could actually be received by our friend as just plain blubbers or even insulting.

Before, when reading, I used to write on the very last page of the book, the page numbers where the nice quotes are. Lately, I got tired of looking for a pen when reading so I adapted my lawyer-brother's style of folding the upper right-hand corner the page. Out of 76 pages, I almost tip-folded every page! There were even those pages that I could not decide which direction I would like the fold to be.

But this is my favorite as this, for me, is the most heart-wrenching of them all:

"Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of his shell if it is now doomed to crawl back - to be sucked back - into it?"

This is particularly striking because C. S. Lewis found love in the late middle-age when he met Joy, an American writer and a single-mother (of two sons). One of these two sons, Douglas H. Gresham, even wrote the second introduction of the edition I have of this book. It is a very relevant piece telling what kind of a stepfather Lewis was and how true Lewis and his mother's love was for each other only to be cut short by death. Gresham also stressed that The indefinite article (the "A") in the title serves to make it clear that Lewis's grief is not the quintessential grief experience at the loss of a loved one, but one individual's perspective among countless others. Even a letter in the title makes a lot of "comforting" difference.

A stunning book: A Grief Observed (always remember the "A")!(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Medeline Sinclair rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: most-loved

I read this book for the first time something like four years ago. Me, like everyone else who had gone through the loss of a beloved, will surely recognize the same emotions that Lewis describes.
It's not easy to give a rational review of this book. It's something like a mirror, reading those words makes you feel like Lewis had been looking into your heart when he wrote them.
But this is not only a portrait of loss. It would be reductive to say that he only speaks about his pain. First of all, the...more I read this book for the first time something like four years ago. Me, like everyone else who had gone through the loss of a beloved, will surely recognize the same emotions that Lewis describes.
It's not easy to give a rational review of this book. It's something like a mirror, reading those words makes you feel like Lewis had been looking into your heart when he wrote them.
But this is not only a portrait of loss. It would be reductive to say that he only speaks about his pain. First of all, the main theme is love. May I say it's about Love.
It's because that love existed that it could be "lost".
It's moving the way he talks about his wife and I don't think there will ever be a woman who wouldn't want that kind of love. Friendship, complicity, loyalty, honesty, protection, this and much more was what formed their relationship.
Lewis talks about his two major loves: God and his wife.
He asks "the" question everybody who have been in pain had at least once asked God: why? And he does get angry. He does get sad, he does scream through ink on paper. He screams about his suffering and ours.
But yet, this is not a book about pain.
There is fear. There is hope. It's not bitter, it's bittersweet, since through screams he understands that a goodbye is not forever, through anger he understands that nothing is really over. That she is not really over, she is not really dead till he has got that everlasting hope to rejoin.
The book comes near the end with an appointment: she'll be there when it'll be his time. It's quite funny the way she says that neither Heaven or Hell could stop her. And then the book ends leaving you with a little sad smile, a bittersweet emotion which is a mixture of hope, fear, sadness and courage.
This book helped me a lot in my darkest days. We know he used to say that you become friend with someone saying "you too". That's why I think about him like a friend, a mentor, a man who wasn't just an intellectual but also a man who was able to touch the human heart in its most wounded spots without falling in mere complaining.
I suggest this book to anyone who have suffered the same even if sometimes it takes bravery to look in the mirror of your wounds. But, I can promise you, once you do you find yourself a new friend and new hopes.(less)

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Jan 27, 2011 booklady rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone dealing w/grief

Shelves: 2002, autobiography, philosophy, psychology, spiritual, favorites

Do we find a book or does it find us? A Grief Observed seemed to 'find' me when I needed consoling insight after my brother died; C. S. Lewis was foreverafter a friend who not only knew and understood something very profound, but also had been there for me when I needed him.

A Grief Observed was also my introduction to the immortal Lewis, having missed the Narnian Chronicles in my childhood. While an improbable first book, Grief is no less excellent for being anomalous. Lewis wrote Grief in respo...more

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Sep 24, 2010 Louize rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Unlike C.S. Lewis, it was my dad whom I lost 17 years ago; but when he said that “grief felt so like fear” in the beginning of his book, I believe I know what he meant ; or, to make it more precise, I think he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

A Grief Observed offers a look at a man in deep despair, who doubted God because of it, but eventually emerges with a deep understanding of himself, his love for his departed wife, and of God.

In the first part, the question he presented is not “Do God...more Unlike C.S. Lewis, it was my dad whom I lost 17 years ago; but when he said that “grief felt so like fear” in the beginning of his book, I believe I know what he meant ; or, to make it more precise, I think he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

A Grief Observed offers a look at a man in deep despair, who doubted God because of it, but eventually emerges with a deep understanding of himself, his love for his departed wife, and of God.

In the first part, the question he presented is not “Do God really exist?”, but rather ”Is God truly good?” If so, then why is a good God would allow man to suffer?

Along the way, he referred to God as the Cosmic Sadist. He said that God needs to shake and torture us for us to realize that we have some higher purpose. Although I wouldn’t be so bold as to call God a sadist, I do believe that He allows grief for us to experience and appreciate life more fully. Knowing both sides of the coin, grief and joy, allows us to see God’s face and acknowledge His presence in our lives. For indeed on our own, faith is like a house of cards build on thin air, until God knocks it down and call us to build on a firm foundation.

During his slow recuperation from sorrow, Lewis tackles the question ”How can one overcome grief without betraying the departed?”

”There is no denying that in some sense I feel better; and with that comes at once a sort of shame…” In this I have to fully agree with his reasoning. It is true that prolonging our unhappiness does not convey our deepest love for the departed, nor do we give justice to their memories. That in sorrow, we can have no distinctive memory of them; that every image we conjure of them is canceled by our miseries, leaving us more confused. It is when we are at peace that we remember them more clearly, sometimes leaving a smile to our lips.

In his reconciliation with God, Lewis mentioned the perfection of things, like marriage. Therefore, such things could not be prolonged and we then have to move on. This fact really hit me most. That no matter how close and perfect my husband and I are for each other, death will separate us. “It was too perfect to last”, he said. The mere thought of it sends shiver through me. My only recourse is to hold on to God’s promise of hope; Christ will gather us all in his return. We will be together again.

Lastly, he mentioned, ”Now get on with it. Become a god.” Apostle Paul said as much in his epistle to the missionary churches.

Most people think that we are but a handful of dust to begin with and to dust we shall return in the end. For anyone else who believes that we are created in the image of God, our goal should be to know more & more about Christ, and strive to emulate him at all times. We do have a higher purpose, that life has a meaning and so is death.

The first part of this book is set in Lewis’ very deep anger at God which shows, and so requires an amount of discernment; and the final part is a good source of encouragement. A Grief Observed is a great book for those in deep sorrow because of loss, and for those who are questioning their faith.
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Sep 09, 2008 Lavinia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005, journals-biographies-memoirs, in-en

"a grief observed" e probabil una din cele mai cutremuratoare carti care mi-au cazut in mina. cei care i-ati citit biografia ["surprised by joy"] stiti ca procesul lui de convertire a fost unul rational si lipsit de focuri de artificii. de fapt cam in toate scrierile [din cit am citit & obsevat eu] pare sa aiba un soi de detasare rationala. tocmai din cauza asta am fost mai mult decit uimita sa descopar aici un lewis pasional si introspectiv, scriitorul cedindu-i loc barbatului de data asta....more

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Feb 03, 2008 Dennis Baker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Favorite Quotes:

"I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."

"I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whet...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Brett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Any human with a soul/heart

Shelves: all-time-favorites, spirituality-religion, philosophy

One of the most moving (and poetic) masterpieces ever written. This very small book (112 pages) had a profound effect on me, and I would submit that the same experience happens upon the reading of it by anyone else with a heart that still beats strongly in their chest.

Dealing with the imminent death of his wife, now bed-ridden, Mr. Lewis takes us on a heart wrenching journey of sorrow, guilt, and even anger. This is a collection of his actual letters and notes during the time, some more articula...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Grief Observed is one of C.S. Lewis' most autobiographical books. He basically writes an account of his experience following the death of his wife, Joy. It seems like more of an account of his grief than a narrative, because it really doesn't tell a story. Just like the title says, it's as if he observes his own grief and writes about it. He doesn't discuss Joy's life, their marriage or anyone else present in his life at the time. He does not put on airs about having some superhuman strength d...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Courtney Johnston rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, borrowed, extraordinary

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing."

I don't think I've ever felt the prickle of tears over the first paragraph of a book.

'A Grief Observed' is barely a book - 70 small pages of short paragraphs - lancing, glancing thoughts. Lewis wrote as a way of coping after the death of his wife from bone cancer; he had no original intention to...more

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Jul 17, 2011 elfsi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bintanglima_recomended, christianity-terjemahan, favorites

Sepenggal kalimat sebagai awal ketertarikan menikmati untaian kalimat “mengupas duka” didalam buku ini :

“Tidak ada yang pernah memberitahuku kalau kesedihan itu sama dengan ketakutan. Aku tidak takut, tapi aku merasa takut. Perutku sakit, aku resah, mengantuk. Dan aku harus terus mengalaminya.”

Aku tahu yang namanya kehilangan atau tepatnya dipisahkan oleh kematian seseorang yang sangat kita cintai pasti rasanya sangat menyedihkan seolah-olah kita ingin terus mengenangnya dan hidup bersamanya, hi...more Sepenggal kalimat sebagai awal ketertarikan menikmati untaian kalimat “mengupas duka” didalam buku ini :

“Tidak ada yang pernah memberitahuku kalau kesedihan itu sama dengan ketakutan. Aku tidak takut, tapi aku merasa takut. Perutku sakit, aku resah, mengantuk. Dan aku harus terus mengalaminya.”

Aku tahu yang namanya kehilangan atau tepatnya dipisahkan oleh kematian seseorang yang sangat kita cintai pasti rasanya sangat menyedihkan seolah-olah kita ingin terus mengenangnya dan hidup bersamanya, hidup tanpa harapan dan seolah – olah semua tidak ada gunanya, sia – sia bahkan kepercayaan kepadaNya pun terasa seolah tak berguna.

Tapi aku lebih lagi mengerti semua itu bahkan seperti mengalaminya setelah membaca buku ini.
Buku ini kisah seseorang yang berusaha untuk pulih dan pada akhirnya mengalahkan kelumpuhan emosional karena dukacita yang paling menghancurkan dalam hidupnya ketika isterinya meninggal dunia.
Seorang yang mungkin awalnya tidak ingin berbagi tentang hal terdalam bahkan duka terdalam didalam dirinya pada orang lain, itu sebabnya ada inisial “H” dalam buku ini dan tetap dibiarkan dalam inisial itu, yang tak lain adalah nama isterinya sendiri.
Curahan hati yang sangat menyentuh dan membuatku ikut tersesak merasakan duka itu.

Tidak ada satupun foto yang dapat benar- benar menggantikan senyuman kekasih kita. Kadang-kadang, kilasan seseorang yang lewat di jalan, seseorang yang hidup, bergerak, bertindak akan membangkitkan kenangan itu. Namun kenangan kita, meskipun sangat berharga, bolong-bolong seperti saringan, dan pelan – pelan kenangan itu akan menghilang.
“Jangan bicara padaku mengenai penghiburan dari agama atau aku akan menduga bahwa sebenarnya kau tidak tau apa- apa” tulis Lewis.

Mungkin sejenak aku akan tertegun seolah merasa bagaimana mungkin seorang raksasa intelektual, dan penulis buku rohani yang diakui paling berpengaruh di masanya dapat mengalami duka yang begitu dalam.

Hingga akhirnya aku menuju kesimpulan mungkin suatu hari nanti aku akan mengalaminya, ketika aku akan kehilangan Pasangan Hidupku, tapi aku setuju pada tulisan Lewis bahwa ‘kesedihan itu bukan akhir dalam pernikahan, tapi hanya salah satu fase yang harus dilewati sama seperti bulan madu, yang kita inginkan adalah menjalani pernikahan kita dengan baik dan melewati fase itu :)
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Jul 10, 2008 Sarah Sammis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: released, challenge

Until I read A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis was only an author who I knew through his Narnia series. As it's not one of my favorite series by far Lewis hasn't been on my radar when I'm looking for books to read. He did though have a long scholarly career and I think as time permits I would like to read more of his nonfiction.

Lewis wrote A Grief Observed as an emotional response to his wife's death. He and (Helen) Joy Davidman had a short and at the time unconventional relationship due to her sta...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My second favorite book by Lewis. The books shows us that we never really know what we will do until confronted by the harsh realities of life. We can think we know or that we have the answers; we may watch other people struggle and judge them, but---until the unthinkable--the loss of a close loved one happens, we don't really know. Experiences in life happen to show us our "house of cards" and God does knock them down so we will know our foundation is not as deep as it should be. Also illustrat...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis soon after finding out my mother's husband had passed away. I wanted to get an idea of what my mother was going through--what it was like to lose the most cherished of loved ones, one's own spouse.

A Grief Observed is about a real man's (Lewis') struggle not only with the death of his wife, but also with the God whom he claimed to believe in. It is intellectual--for Lewis is a very intelligent and logical academic and Christian apologist--but also raw, c...more I picked up A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis soon after finding out my mother's husband had passed away. I wanted to get an idea of what my mother was going through--what it was like to lose the most cherished of loved ones, one's own spouse.

A Grief Observed is about a real man's (Lewis') struggle not only with the death of his wife, but also with the God whom he claimed to believe in. It is intellectual--for Lewis is a very intelligent and logical academic and Christian apologist--but also raw, candid, uncensored. Though no one person's grief is identical to another's, there is a fundamental truth found in all people's grief, and Lewis captures the nature of that truth when he recounts his own grief after losing his wife.

His was a brief marriage, begun in the hospital when his wife was ill with cancer. He knew her death was imminent--that she would most likely die before he did--yet he loved her still and wanted to marry her. It was a love that could not last, which begs the question, "Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?" The hard truth is that all people who marry will lose the other--we all live in death's dark shadow. It certainly puts marriage in a whole new and ephemeral light.

On page 5-6, Lewis writes of his grief, "Meanwhile, where is God?...But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence." Though a man of strong Christian faith, Lewis' foundation was shaken when his wife died. A Grief Observed is the journey through his doubt, anger, frustration, weakness and humility.

I like this story most of all because it shows that it's okay to be angry with God, to struggle with Him and to question the things He allows to happen. If it weren't okay, it wouldn't be a genuine relationship. We are human after all, filled with human emotions and desires. But if we keep trusting and seeking after God—even when He seems to have disappeared—He will prove Himself faithful, thereby increasing our own faith. "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:6-7). Lewis went through the fires of hell when he grieved for his wife, but instead of perishing, his faith was refined and proved genuine.(less)

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Jan 01, 2009 Andre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To state the obvious, this is about Lewis's struggle to cope with the death of his wife. And without a doubt, this is something that I don't know about (perhaps one day I shall be privileged enough to be in a situation where a marriage ends due to the death of one of us).

But the fact of the matter is that this book is about getting over loss. Loss takes so many forms that when one, like I did, read it in the context of being angry that Lewis could dare bitch and moan about losing his wife, in sp...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Jonathan Brooker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A short read, but so good that I found myself responding out loud to a number of things he wrote. This was such a personal and transparent writing that I just couldn't not like it. Here Lewis is pouring out his heart and his mind onto the paper after the death of his wife. It's not pretty, and it's not put together.

I could have done without the forward by Madeleine L'Engle, as I feel she missed much of the point of this writing. It's not entirely theologically sound (though I'm not sure that's t...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, bio, inspirational, spirituality, reads-2013, tear-jerker

I am grateful for C.S. Lewis for having the courage to question God about what happened to his life, losing his wife, friend and soulmate Helen Joy Davidman. H.(Davidman) is the first and last wife of CS Lewis. It seems that they have the same intellectual minds, they are really 'soulmates' in fact.
But when H. died because of cancer, Lewis had a grief so bad. He dared to say that God is a Cosmic Sadist, because He's not that good. But at the end, he still realizes that God is all he need. He can...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Shelby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: completed-reads-of-2013

I feel as if I am left in both anguish and comfort. Within each line I could imagine a tear drop with the ink. A Grief Observed is unlike anything I've ever read by Lewis. Of course his deep, eloquent style of writing held it's shape, but the tone was so out of synch with it's usual light hearted sort of melody. My heart grieved with him and for him. And not in whole because he lost his wife or, seemingly, in increments, his way. That subject however, remains in the heart.

"For a good wife conta...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Joanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fic, journals

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

My Mum was recommended A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis when my Grandad passed away seven years ago, but never got around to buying a copy. She remembered the recommendation after our recent loss of a good friend, and so bought the book. Hoping it might help, I borrowed it, and it's a great little book.

After the death of his wife, Joy Davidson, C.S. Lewis wrote a journal of his thoughts and feelings; his sadness, his love for his wife, his issues with God...more Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

My Mum was recommended A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis when my Grandad passed away seven years ago, but never got around to buying a copy. She remembered the recommendation after our recent loss of a good friend, and so bought the book. Hoping it might help, I borrowed it, and it's a great little book.

After the death of his wife, Joy Davidson, C.S. Lewis wrote a journal of his thoughts and feelings; his sadness, his love for his wife, his issues with God during that period, and how he slowly finds his way through the agony and despair of bereavement.

As I said, I originally picked up A Grief Observed hoping it would help me with my own grief, and in a small way it did, in that I identified with some of what thought and felt. But what I didn't expect was just how much I was bowled over by Lewis' love for his wife, rather than his grief over her passing; through his grief, his love for his wife is so evident, it's startlingly beautiful despite the sadness. I would strongly recommend people pick A Grief Observed up if only for this alone - I love a good epic love story in my fiction, but nothing really comes close to how amazing it is to read a person's true, real feelings written down so honestly. It's raw, and it's real, and it's wonderful.

You can tell as you're reading that this wasn't written with the intention for it to be published. Whatever he thought about getting the book published after he was finished with it and past his grief, it doesn't say, but as he was writing, it was very much just for him, and feels so personal. There would be moments were he is talking about a particular idea, a notion of God as the "Cosmic Sadist", and the very next paragraph he'll say he wrote the previous the night before when he was in a rage, and he didn't actually mean it. Because of this, you're very much aware that he's writing as a release; a way to express everything he's thinking and feeling and just get it all out. Unlike a memoir, where the author talks about the past from the present, A Grief Observed is very much in the moment of Lewis' grief. So personal. I felt like I was intruding, yet at the same time so privileged to be getting such an insight into the mind of someone so great in a very private and personal time.

Lewis was devoutly religious, and so his views of God and his faith in the wake of his wife's death are greatly discussed. As an atheist, this wasn't very helpful for me personally, but I found it reassuring on behalf of my Mum, who is religious. Lewis talks about how he doesn't doubt that God exists because his wife has died, but rages about how he feels like he's been deserted by God when he needs him most:

"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be - or so it feels - welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence." (p7)

He has all these questions about God and his faith as he grieves, questions I can imagine my Mum asking herself, and what is so wonderful is that as Lewis slowly makes his way through, he discovers reasons that make perfect sense as to why God wasn't there. He comes through, his doubts disappear, and his faith and love for God is as strong as ever. I believe this being immensely comforting to the religious when they feel their belief wavering in times of grief, so they feel less lost, less deserted, and that they'll find God's presence again once they work their way through the sharpest pain of grief. To know that this book could possibly help my Mum feel less lost makes me so very grateful.

I was also amazed at the sheer clarity Lewis has despite being so hung up on his grief. He used the most brilliant metaphors to describe his pain, or his thoughts about God and his faith. I especially liked the one where he describes grief being like a person losing a leg; the amputee will heal, but he will still have lost a leg, and will have to learn a new way of living without his leg, learn to use a wooden leg, and may still feel aches and pains in his stump. Or the one about believing his faith is like the sturdiest of buildings, but not realising until his faith is tested that it's actually just a house of cards that is easily knocked down. A Grief Observed is full of clever metaphors such as these to get across exactly what he is thinking and feeling, and it's amazing that he is about to put such thoughts and feelings into these ideas when his heart is so heavy.

In all, a fantastic little book, one I would highly recommend as an poweful, personal insight into one of our great authors, but also to help those who are religious through the doubts that come with grief.(less)

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Nov 30, 2012 Ian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My mum died on 23rd November, aged 84. She almost died last year and I have been mindful since then of how little time I might have with her and of how I needed to enjoy what time I had with her while she still lived and show her how much I loved her. I ordered "A Grief Observed" two months ago because I knew at some point I would have to cope with the grief of losing her. It is a strange sort of book. In it I have been able to recognise the same emotions, questions, fears and misgivings that I...more My mum died on 23rd November, aged 84. She almost died last year and I have been mindful since then of how little time I might have with her and of how I needed to enjoy what time I had with her while she still lived and show her how much I loved her. I ordered "A Grief Observed" two months ago because I knew at some point I would have to cope with the grief of losing her. It is a strange sort of book. In it I have been able to recognise the same emotions, questions, fears and misgivings that I have felt over the 7 days since my Mum died. Yet CS Lewis doesn't supply any ready answers and seemed as full of questions and uncertainties at the end of his musings on the death of his wife as he was at the beginning.

He came close to losing his faith, yet pulled back from the brink and acknowledged his human limitations in the face of the Ultimate Question. His final conclusion, if that is not too strong a word, was that his wife survived as a pure intelligence, but that this wasn't the ultimate end since there was still the physical resurrection to come. In his own words, "But I musn't because I have come to misunderstand a little less completely what a pure intelligence might be, lean over too far. There is also, whatever it means, the resurrection of the body. We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least".

It isn't an easy book. Some of his musings will strike some people as horrifying, in the various visions that he entertains of a far less than benevolent God. Yet there is an honesty here as well in such musings (possibly because this work was derived from privare journals he kept for dealing with his grief.) I'm not sure that many people will find consolation in his words so much as a great writer putting into words the thoughts they have been trying unsuccessfully to articulate. But in better understanding the phases or facets of the experience of mourning they may feel that soneone has understood their pain and perhaps this will give some measure of peace.(less)

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Nov 14, 2012 Nickolaus Pacione rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Clive knew this subject all too well, a woman I was corresponding with who lived across town in Glendale Heights gave me a copy of this book as I was telling her that I wrote too. There were people playing tug a war with me because they wanted me to write for church bulletins and all of that, that is where I was given this book. It was a part of my original collection from Glendale Heights and written as a journal about how he was dealing with the loss of his wife. I think that was why he wrote...more Clive knew this subject all too well, a woman I was corresponding with who lived across town in Glendale Heights gave me a copy of this book as I was telling her that I wrote too. There were people playing tug a war with me because they wanted me to write for church bulletins and all of that, that is where I was given this book. It was a part of my original collection from Glendale Heights and written as a journal about how he was dealing with the loss of his wife. I think that was why he wrote so much because it tormented the hell out of him when he wrote some of his other works in fantasy, The Screwtape Letter, could be seen as horror in some ways. I had Mere Christianity but haven't had a chance to read that one personally. Clive is one of those authors that I will call my lesser known influences because of the dark subject matter comes out stronger in the vein of writers Richard Matheson and H.P. Lovecraft.
This book has a lot of insight and it is one that is criminally underrated because it deals with loss of a loved one, I wish I had this one today because of the death of my grandmother back in April. So I look at this book as something that helps with the death of a loved one. It is highly recommended in this sense -- but a lot of Christians will recommend this one as witnessing tool. But if you're a writer Clive Lewis is a writer you might know about, but if you don't -- look up The Screwtape Letters because that is one of his masterpieces. It was written in a very dark place. That story was a satire in ways, but a lot of people will argue the genre it is. This one there is no argument that it is a memoir. I want to get my hands on another copy of this one before I do another book that is a memoir like book. I was reading this book right around the time I was working for the public information office at College of DuPage.
C.S. Lewis is a lot of things to a lot of people in the faith community -- he is as respected as Richard Matheson or H.P. Lovecraft. I've seen Rusty Nugent recommend this author, this is my turn to recommend him too. I will never read Fifty Shades of Grey or all the books that are called mommy porn -- that is not my term, but this is one of those books I think a Christian will really enjoy if they get scared by The Screwtape Letters. I remember the period of my life I was in when I read this book, and that is part of the reason I want to get this one again when I get my new book case. I recommend this book to Mick Mercerbecause he has that qUality too to his writing.(less)

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Nov 01, 2012 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-e-book-located

Even after reading the introduction that talked about how only upon re-reading this book after the passing of a spouse was the commenter really about to relate to the experience, I had the same feeling upon reading the book that I myself was probably missing a lot of commonality that I would feel if I read this book after the passing of a close loved one. Even still, I loved it. His mind amazes me, and his honesty and sincerity in thought astounds me.

C.S. Lewis had married his wife knowing abou...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Megan Larson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs

I recently finished Letters to an American Lady for the second time, which records the correspondence of Lewis with, well, an American lady, during the last fifteen years of his life. His engagement, marriage, and bereavement are all mentioned in these letters, although with very few details (as befitted the kind of relationship he had with this woman). I knew about A Grief Observed before, but, until this second time through his letters, I wasn't ready to read it. I admire Lewis so much--what w...more I recently finished Letters to an American Lady for the second time, which records the correspondence of Lewis with, well, an American lady, during the last fifteen years of his life. His engagement, marriage, and bereavement are all mentioned in these letters, although with very few details (as befitted the kind of relationship he had with this woman). I knew about A Grief Observed before, but, until this second time through his letters, I wasn't ready to read it. I admire Lewis so much--what would I find in this book that he felt the need to publish under a pen name?
And now that I've read it, how do I review it? How often do I get to read someone's diary, let alone the entries surrounding the most painful, gut-wrenching experience he'd ever faced? How do I (and I use the word carefully) judge that? It's one thing reading the book of Job, about a spiritual giant whose intense sufferings caused him to question (but never to curse) God. It's one thing to analyse just where Job went wrong that got him those serious dressings down at the end of the book, because I can be fairly certain that, wherever Job went wrong, I do too. I'm supposed to know all about Job's suffering. It's in the Bible. But Lewis--he wrote these journals thinking they were for his sanity. He wasn't editing them so they'd be all theologically sound and emotionally spic and span for me--he was venting. And then he decided that it might do the world some good to see what can happen to the faith of a bereaved believer.
I don't think I can say much, yet. In the throes of the worst pangs of grief, Lewis did curse God. He hated Him. He tried to use all that "Lewis-ness" we love so much to get some of his own back. But the worst of these lashings out even the deeply angry Lewis recognized as "a yell, not a thought." And the more he angrily rationalized, the more his head hit the wall. Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense? Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?
A friend recently shared a meaningful quote with me by a truly remarkable believer and missionary, Adoniram Judson, who lost two wives in tragic circumstances, and several children as well. In counseling his sister on the loss of her husband, he wrote, I can assure you that months and months of heart-rending anguish are before you, whether you will or not. Yet take the bitter cup with both hands, and sit down to your repast. You will soon learn a secret, that there is sweetness at the bottom." I wish, somehow, Lewis had known to look for the sweetness, because it did come. I hope I will look for it too.
So finally, although still gradually, Lewis returned to the principle that "My thoughts are not your thoughts," and acknowledged that he had been, and was, deeply loved by God. And, rather than analyzing too much, I'll meditate on a few of my favorite passages--as Lewis's eyes are beginning not to be so clouded with angry tears, and belief makes sense to him again.

And then one babbles--'If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her.' But one can't tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it. If it suddenly became a real possibility, then, for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it. But is it ever allowed?
It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done. He replies to our babble, 'You cannot and you dare not. I could and dared.'
Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks.

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask--half our great theological and metaphysical problems--are like that.

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.

And finally, Job: Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know...I repent in dust and ashes. And yet, for all his caterwauling, God lovingly restored Job. He lovingly restored Jack. There is sweetness at the bottom.

p.s. I found Madeleine L'Engle's introduction disturbingly incongruous with the book itself. She seemed to take the "filth and nonsense" and "senseless writhings" to be the best and bravest portions, as if Lewis wanted his readers to doubt in their right minds what he doubted in his blind grief. She also argued for faith in universalism, evidence of which heresy I have never seen in Lewis's work, as if it flowed naturally from the text. My first encounter with Ms. L'Engle since the "Time" series, and I'm wishing it could be erased.(less)

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Aug 06, 2012 Saumya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review might not be that coherent for it becomes hard to explain something that is very close to your heart. I read this book a day after my mother's first death anniversary. Anyone who has lost a loved one will know what Lewis is talking about. And those who have not lost a close relative will 'think' they know what he is talking about. Losing someone is hard enough and to adjust to a life without them is unimaginable. Lewis says Grief is a process and you cannot map it or record its histo...more This review might not be that coherent for it becomes hard to explain something that is very close to your heart. I read this book a day after my mother's first death anniversary. Anyone who has lost a loved one will know what Lewis is talking about. And those who have not lost a close relative will 'think' they know what he is talking about. Losing someone is hard enough and to adjust to a life without them is unimaginable. Lewis says Grief is a process and you cannot map it or record its history. and it’s true there are several phases to it. He goes on from what he is feeling: sheer shock, pain, agony, self-pity to what it has done to his faith, doubting not the existence of God but the nature of his "goodness" to acceptance of the loss. He questions the entire notion of after life and "family reunions" and in the latter part he comes to a new understanding of his faith in God, in the presence of H. (he calls his wife H. in his notes).

the first line of the book tells you Lewis knows what he is talking about. "No one ever told me grief felt so like fear." for it indeed is that. he grapples with the sudden turn his life has taken and even though he was mentally prepared for his wife's death (or so he thought) the real thing is always very different from the imaginary. The best part about the book is that it is honest. he never thought of publishing it (at least not while writing it as notes) and that allows it to be honest. anyone who has lost someone will cry over some pages not because it is moving but because it seems it is about you. Your pain. Your suffering. But I am not saying it is the epitome of suffering as Madeline L'Engle (in the foreword)and his son (in the introduction) says, every person's grief is different but it has similarities. I, for one, had a constant refrain for almost a year that no one gets it not even those who have lost someone. but the truth now I realise is that everyone reacts differently and we cannot bring ourselves to talk about something too personal, too moving, we cannot risk public embarrassment by showing tears. but underneath everyone share some similarities. For instance he talks about feeling of guilt on enjoying a happy moment or the fear of slipping memories rather the fear of distorting the real person with our imagination or what we thought the real person was. These are few things i share with him but where he has the memories to fall back on I have complete wipe out; he questions his faith in god while i never had any faith in first place. The point I am trying to make is that it’s not a perfect book in the sense it does not tell you everything about grief. As his son says that the title "A Grief Observed" says it’s just about one person's grief. and yet it helps because it makes the journey less lonely; we realise that somewhere someone got at least part of what we are going through and there are moments when i personally think that probably I am going insane "THIS is not normal" and reading it I felt it is just a phase, everyone has to go through it. It’s only natural. I still cannot relate to the latter part maybe because I am not there yet or maybe because of my "faithlessness" in existence of God.

sometimes you read a book and think it’s the best book written for it speaks to you, but after a year or month or even a week you go back to it and catch yourself thinking "what was it that i liked in this book in first place?" and gradually you can see all the faults it has (happens with me oftener than not). But one thing I am sure that it will never happen with this book. Because in parts it IS what I have experienced, what I am still experiencing. I recommend to anyone who is grieving. You ought to read it to understand the need of reading it.
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Jun 21, 2012 VaultOfBooks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

By:C.S. Lewis. Grade:A+

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only tortur...more By:C.S. Lewis. Grade:A+

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.

C.S. Lewis always brings new ideas to the table and in such a poignant way that touches the very core of your heart. This book was hard to read because it dealt with grief, something most of us have gone through, which can be a source of such emotional stress. This book was like removing all the fluff and dealing with the hardness and harshness of life. But more specifically, C.S. Lewis' life. I have never seen such a naked and bare view of this intellectual great. It goes to prove that who we are comes to light in the hard places of life.

This transcription is the closest I've ever come to crying over a book. Even though these were his notes through this process and not something that he necessarily worked at to communicate effectively with, you could feel the emotion and the pain coming off the pages. Maybe it's different for each person who has experienced different degrees of grief. Maybe what I was feeling was a reflection of my own emotional experiences, but whatever it is, you get the sense that C.S. Lewis is in pain and that makes all of his writings the more bearable and the more eaiser to listen to, because he knows the pain too.

In this pain he deals with his doubts about God. Not the issue about whether or not there is a God but who God really is. He is brutally honest with God and with himself. And in the end it's not like the pain is suddenly gone, he just "misunderstands a little less completely."

It is so interesting, this is like a true journal or diary. When he starts to right himself back up from this overwhelming sense of grief it's not like we see it gradually come, as the conclusions of his other books show; It is almost, almost, sudden but still filled with clarity. You still kind of wish you could have been there each day because you know he didn't document each moment of this revelation. He himself said that he was only writing down one thought in one hundred that he was thinking.

When you finish the book you will come out with grief analyzed in some ways. Maybe with some pointers on how to deal with your own grief. But definitely with the sense that you aren't alone when you are grieving. Someone has gone through this too. And maybe that's what makes this book so valuable. Having someone inside being able to write out what he was feeling in those very moments, shedding some light on what's happening inside of you.

Originally reviewed at http://the-vault.co.cc/(less)

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May 24, 2012 JoAnn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, non-fiction, religious

Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game ‘or else people won’t take it seriously.’ Apparently it’s like that. Your bid—for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity—will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less wi...more Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game ‘or else people won’t take it seriously.’ Apparently it’s like that. Your bid—for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity—will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man—or at any rate a man like me—out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.

You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it.
And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.

On the other hand, ‘Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? And there’s also ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity.

Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all. That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions ‘on the further shore’; not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End.

It doesn’t matter that all the photographs of H. are bad. It doesn’t matter—not much—if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage—is it not in some ways an advantage—that it can’t pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me?

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle.

Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images—sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayer.

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May 05, 2012 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, christian, inspirational, non-fiction, philosophy

This book is a short compilation of journal entries Mr. Lewis made, in order to keep his sanity, after his wife died.
"Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is noting we can do with suffering except to suffer it?"
While we do not see all of his entries we do have the opportunity to experience his flow of emotions from despair to acceptance.

At times Mr. Lewis felt the door (to God) was shut and bolted. Then his eyes opened with realization an...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Judy Croome rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the last year, I've experienced a spate of close family deaths, but Lewis’s A GRIEF OBSERVED is a personal diary I could relate to only fleetingly. Perhaps his sincere grief, and its intensity, is different to my grief because, thankfully, I haven’t yet lost my own much-loved spouse.

While Madeleine L’Engle’s introduction was an erudite and emotional expression of her grief after losing her husband of 40 years, Lewis’s first two chapters were too angrily self-absorbed and incoherent for me to...more In the last year, I've experienced a spate of close family deaths, but Lewis’s A GRIEF OBSERVED is a personal diary I could relate to only fleetingly. Perhaps his sincere grief, and its intensity, is different to my grief because, thankfully, I haven’t yet lost my own much-loved spouse.

While Madeleine L’Engle’s introduction was an erudite and emotional expression of her grief after losing her husband of 40 years, Lewis’s first two chapters were too angrily self-absorbed and incoherent for me to gain any comfort or connection with his writing. To his credit, he appears fully aware of this, and expresses his own doubts about his painful intellectual ramblings about what is, in truth, a purely emotional experience.

“Do I hope,” he says on Page 32, “that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less?” And later, on Page 36, he says, “Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.” I was left with the impression that, in his obvious shock at losing his beloved H, despite all their prayers, he turned to his outstanding intellect for succour, and found none.

Reflecting the social era in which he wrote it (1960), and his own genius (he was an Oxford Fellow), there are also hints of social and intellectual elitism in this book. Lewis’s disparaging dismissal of a labouring man’s grief for his Mum (Page 21 and 51) did expose certain personal attitudes to people he considered intellectually and socially beneath him.

But then, like grief itself, this is a very individual book. Lewis’s grief cannot be mine, and vice versa. I’m left with a mild sense of distaste that such a personal diary was ever published and wonder why Lewis agreed to publish such an intimate and, at times, hostile reflection of his private experience of loss.

However, the last two chapters, when Lewis has clearly begun to find his emotional balance again, did provide some interesting and challenging thoughts on death, the process of grieving and God. Observations such as the small gem “Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process,” made the book worth finishing.(less)

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Mar 03, 2012 Bill Hennessy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: people-knowledge, faith

A Grief Observed saved me from the support group epidemic.

In 1994, support groups were all the rage. There support groups for addicts, which do great things. But the concept had grown beyond reason to include support groups for people afraid of socks, who think Superman lives in the apartment upstairs, and for anyone allergic to the color blue.

My daughter died days before Christmas 1994, just weeks after I got out of the active duty Navy to spend more time as a father and less as a submarine sa...more A Grief Observed saved me from the support group epidemic.

In 1994, support groups were all the rage. There support groups for addicts, which do great things. But the concept had grown beyond reason to include support groups for people afraid of socks, who think Superman lives in the apartment upstairs, and for anyone allergic to the color blue.

My daughter died days before Christmas 1994, just weeks after I got out of the active duty Navy to spend more time as a father and less as a submarine sailor.

Everyone told me I must -- MUST -- join a support group for former submarines who've lost a child to diabetes. They told me that spending an hour saying the Rosary and praying in church was unhealthy, that I needed to spend two hours a week with a dozen people who've been grieving for a decade or more.

I secretly tried a support group one night. I refused to let one unspeakably painful tragedy destroy my life. I refused to be drawn into the perpetual self-pity the support group engendered. I refused to let my daughter's death win.

The next day, I found A Grief Observed at Catholic Supply in South St. Louis. I read it that day.

I cried so hard, sobbing so violently, that once I thought my heart would stop.

Did the book "cure" me? Hell no. But it prepared me. It spoke to me, as much as I hate that phrase.

Clive Staples Lewis was every bit as contemptuous for Western Civilization's death rituals as I was. He mocked those who say, "Oh, look how wonderful she looks," as they peer at the decaying corpse in the casket. He pitied the sad sots who went to "visit my Emily" in the cemetery every Sunday. "She's not there!" he shouted in his mind.

Everyone, I suspect, who's lost a child or a spouse feels these feelings. But the support group mentality prohibits them. At least, the support group I visited. This book is for those who want to, eventually, get on with their lives. It's the only thing that worked for me.

A final note, I think this book is best for those who are ACTIVELY GRIEVING. Buy it in paper, not the ebook. Put it on your shelf, but DON'T READ IT until the pain and horror and agony of the loss drives you toward a support group.

Then read it, and the cleansing will begin.
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Dec 25, 2011 Elliot rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion

The death of my sister has never so much haunted me as the fact that I have virtually no recollection of life with her. My most impressing sensation of grief differs wildly from Lewis's; the past 9 years of my family life have so strongly felt her absence, but the tears that slip from my eyes beside her grave each year are tears for the deep pain I know my family feels, and for the loss of normalcy, and for something near self-pity because I do not feel the ineffable sorrow nor do I sense the wo...more The death of my sister has never so much haunted me as the fact that I have virtually no recollection of life with her. My most impressing sensation of grief differs wildly from Lewis's; the past 9 years of my family life have so strongly felt her absence, but the tears that slip from my eyes beside her grave each year are tears for the deep pain I know my family feels, and for the loss of normalcy, and for something near self-pity because I do not feel the ineffable sorrow nor do I sense the world as fundamentally skewed as any mother who outlives her daughter must.

But this book discusses not Grief but A Grief, and C.S. Lewis's journals make an excellent companion through any traumatic experience. Heartbreak, loneliness, of coures death. Loss of any sort. Whatever unwelcome upsets remind us of our smallness and frailty, and of the absurdity that we could ever imagine ourselves as those capable of being Great. Lewis does not claim expertise, and his writing is less instructive as it is revealing. It puts words, beautiful words, to a sensation that chokes so many of us. It provides no answers -- there are none, of course.

Lewis is an unconvincing theolgian but a marvelous poet, and he displays the best of his gift for composition in these four brief ruminations on the Christian god, pain, loss, and love. Lewis did not write A Grief Observed as a didactic theological text, so I won't bother with a discussion of the various flaws in his arguments for his particular interpretation of the Christian god. His god serves as the starting point for a number of truly powerful musings on fate and the definition of goodness, and his invocation of his god only jars the nonbelieving reader in the final chapter (which the work could've done without). Douglas Gresham's otherwise satisfactory introudction also would be improved by removing the two bizarre and out-of-place references to Satan, and his rather bold assertion that there is an immutable path from atheism to agnosticism to theism to Christianity.

I still highly recommend this short read to anyone. C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite writers. His elegant prose spins across my mouth, and he is infinitely quotable. I like him here, in his most unprotected, personal moments. This is a work that his Muse wrote in sporadic bursts, relentlessly, sometimes with contradiction, but never (or, if we include the last chapter, almost never) a slip in wisdom, energy, or an apt ability to put words to the wordless. I know that I will be returning to this work often.(less)

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Nov 16, 2011 Rachel Rueckert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religious

A Grief Observed is one of my favorite works by C.S. Lewis. I feel like Lewis’ honesty is what makes it so meaningful. Death and coping with grief is no easy challenge in this life, yet, it is a part of it. Watching my best friend lose her younger brother last December, being with her at the hospital, I remember feeling so completely helpless to ease her pain. I could just be there—be there and let her know that I was there for her. I ended up buying her this book before I had even read it beca...more A Grief Observed is one of my favorite works by C.S. Lewis. I feel like Lewis’ honesty is what makes it so meaningful. Death and coping with grief is no easy challenge in this life, yet, it is a part of it. Watching my best friend lose her younger brother last December, being with her at the hospital, I remember feeling so completely helpless to ease her pain. I could just be there—be there and let her know that I was there for her. I ended up buying her this book before I had even read it because I thought it would be spiritually uplifting. I didn’t realize until reading it for the first time this week that it is a lot more than that.

What I find most refreshing about this grief observed is that it does not pretend that religion is a magical pill that will alleviate all of our pain in this life. Lewis highlights this well when he says “talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand” (25). The Atonement of Jesus Christ is a miraculous healer, but it does not work overnight. I like to think that time and Jesus heal all, but that does not necessarily mean we have perfect enough perspective to not be devastated by death. It should help, but it will not make it easy.

And yet, I think that is okay, especially within my own religious tradition as a Latter-day Saint. As Lewis says later in this book, perhaps this is a part of life and learning to become better, though doubts might creep in. But if we look to the Bible we see that Jesus wept for Lazarus even though He knew He could raise him from the dead. In the Pearl of Great Price we see God crying over the wickedness of his creations. Even watching President Hinckley and how he dealt with his own wife’s death was heart wrenching because his sense of deep loss was so apparent.

It is okay to weep. It is okay to mourn for what was and seems lost. It is okay to question at times. It is okay to doubt sometimes as well. The important part is that we work through those doubts and try to remain close to God throughout the process, even if it might feel like the last thing we want to do at the moment.
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