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Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

C.S. Lewis

4.04 · Rating details · 58,694 ratings · 2,123 reviews

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is a partial autobiography describing Lewis' conversion to Christianity. The book overall contains less detail concerning specific events than typical autobiographies. This is because his purpose in writing wasn't primarily historical. His aim was to identify & describe the events surrounding his accidental discovery of & conseq ...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Nathan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

C.S. Lewis, the man that "thought his way to God" (according to the back of the book), isn't really all man - he's part reading machine. Everything, every sentence, in his spiritual autobiography is laden with some classical allusion to a work that the normal person hasn't read in Greek or Latin.
After the death of his mother in his youth, Lewis enters a long lasting period of atheism. Although he knew epistemologically that God didn't exist, he still felt that there was something else "out there ...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Mike (the Paladin) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, christian-theology

Okay, I started this today and finished it today, and will probably reread it. This has happened with many of Lewis' books. I've read The Four Loves several times and am getting ready to reread Miracles. There often seems to be a lot that I don't get first time through.

This is a wonderful book with some less than wonderful parts. By that I mean discourses on difficult or unpleasant events and/or topics. I won't try to go over this volume in any kind of detail. I suspect it will "strike" differen ...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Laysee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Many of us are familiar with The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and perhaps even Mere Christianity, but I suspect few readers are acquainted with their author, C. S. Lewis, often regarded as one of the most influential writers of his day. In fact, I never knew what the initials in his name stood for. I spent three invigorating days getting re-acquainted with the early life that shaped the literary talent of Lewis, indisputably an intellectual giant of the twentieth century. This is Many of us are familiar with The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and perhaps even Mere Christianity, but I suspect few readers are acquainted with their author, C. S. Lewis, often regarded as one of the most influential writers of his day. In fact, I never knew what the initials in his name stood for. I spent three invigorating days getting re-acquainted with the early life that shaped the literary talent of Lewis, indisputably an intellectual giant of the twentieth century. This is a re-read and yet it was as if I was reading this partial autobiography for the very first time.

Clive Staples Lewis (1898 – 1963) was born in Belfast to a solicitor and a clergyman’s daughter. He had an older brother with whom he shared a close relationship. His parents were bookish people, and Lewis developed an early love of reading. It was interesting to trace the beginnings of his literary gift. Lewis took to writing stories when he was just a child. He said, “You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.” and ”... in mapping and chronicling Animal-Land I was training myself to be a novelist.” Lewis had the privilege of access to excellent tutors in boarding school who provided prodigious exposure to the classics and cultivated in him a love of good literature. His happiest school years were spent under the tutelage of Kirk, affectionately known as ‘The Great Knock’, who taught him Homer, German, and Italian. That Kirk recognized Lewis’ talent was evident in this communication to the latter’s father, ”You may make a writer or a scholar of him, but you’ll not make anything else. You may make up your mind to that.” (Apparently, Lewis was appalling at Math.) Kirk was right. In 1917, Lewis went on a scholarship to University College, Oxford, graduated with a First in Greek and Latin Literature (1920), a First in Philosophy and Ancient History (1922), and a First in English (1923). He eventually became a distinguished writer and a professor at Oxford University and later at Cambridge University.

The heart of this memoir is Lewis’ conversion to Christianity and his lifelong search for Joy. It was fascinating to read about his conversion, his apostasy, and his conversion again. Lewis became a believer when he went to boarding school in Belsen for the very first time. His tutor, Oldie was a pupil-spanking tyrant and a bit insane. In his recollection, ”Life in a vile boarding school is in this way a good preparation for the Christian life, that is, it teaches one to live by hope.” Poor child. He attended a high Anglo-Catholic church. Here, he ’heard the doctrines of Christianity…taught by men who obviously believed them.’ Then followed a period of apostasy in the Preparatory School years at Wyvern when he gave up the faith and became an atheist at age 15. You have to read and find out why. Years later, his friendship with chiefly J.R.R. Tolkien and several others led him to critically examine his life and beliefs before his conversion to Theism in 1929. In Lewis’ own words, he was "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." I have to admit that the systematic process in which Lewis read, argued, and figured out the existence of the Absolute and the true definition of Joy is one I could not fully fathom. His training in philosophy and dialectics seemed to have led him logically and soundly to not just Theism but eventually Christianity.

More enjoyable than the chapters that described his faith journey are those that depicted life in British Public Schools. Lewis wrote about fagging, a traditional practice whereby younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to the oldest boys. Then there were the Tarts (not dessert served at tea) at Wyvern College, which I found quite shocking. Lewis was bored and fatigued in school, the stress coming from fagging and having to pretend to like the things the in-group enjoyed like clubs and sports. His being clumsy meant he was not involved in sports and could never gain popularity. His sanctuary was the Gurney, the school library, wherein ”the meanest boy was ‘unfaggable’ once he was inside the Gurney.” Loveliest of all was the tribute Lewis paid to his teachers. I love what he said of his form master at Wyvern College, Smewgy:

”He was honey-tongued. Every verse he read turned into music on his lips: something between speech and song... He first taught me the right sensuality of poetry, how it should be savoured and mouthed in solitude.’ ‘... to be in Smewgy’s form was to be in a measure ennobled. Amidst all the banal ambition and flashy spendours of school life he stood as a permanent reminder of things more gracious, more humane, larger, and cooler. But his teaching, in the narrower sense, was equally good. He could enchant but he could also analyse. An idiom or a textual crux, once expanded by Smewgy, became clear as day.”

I would be remiss if I did not at least mention Joy since it featured so prominently in the title of this autobiography. Here are a few quotes on Joy:

”Joy.. must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again...But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.”

”Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.”

”I had been... wrong in supposing that I desired Joy itself. Joy itself, considered simply as an event in my mind, turned out to be of no value at all. All the value lay in that of which Joy was the desiring. And that object, quite clearly, was no state of my own mind or body at all.”

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is unlikely to be everyone's cup of tea. However, if you have a penchant for elegant writing (even grandiloquent writing), a wide esoteric sweep of the classics (the references to them were astounding), or if you are interested in how an atheist with one of the most formidable minds became a convert, then this book may just turn out to be a fountain of joy. ...more

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May 26, 2009 Mark Adderley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: spiritual

There's not much to say about this book, as it is famous, and has been reviewed many times. It's about C. S. Lewis' conversion from atheism to Christianity. He identifies a quality which he calls "Joy," which occurs in what he describes as "a stab of joy." This is the a moment of perfect happiness occasioned by . . . well, it differs. Lewis explains that he got three stabs of joy in his youth: once from the a model garden in a biscuit-tin lid that his brother had made, once while reading Beatix There's not much to say about this book, as it is famous, and has been reviewed many times. It's about C. S. Lewis' conversion from atheism to Christianity. He identifies a quality which he calls "Joy," which occurs in what he describes as "a stab of joy." This is the a moment of perfect happiness occasioned by . . . well, it differs. Lewis explains that he got three stabs of joy in his youth: once from the a model garden in a biscuit-tin lid that his brother had made, once while reading Beatix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin, and once catching a phrase from Longfellow's poem The Saga of King Olaf. Lewis contends that these stabs of Joy are glimpses of the divine, and that they guided him inevitably to the Christian belief that characterized his later life.

What's truly amazing about this book, to me, is how closely it follows my own life. If I could identify three stabs of Joy that I've experienced, I'd say, first of all, from Lewis' own Narnia books, particularly the episode when Lucy is reading from the magical book in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; second, oddly enough, from the James Bond movies--I know that sounds weird, but something about the atmosphere of Goldfinger, especially encapsulated in the music, really caught me; and thirdly, from Star Wars--the 1977 film, not any of the subsequent movies.

Like Lewis, I subsequently fancied myself an atheist, and for much the same reasons. Lewis explains that he received a mature stab of Joy from the idea of Northernness that he got from the Norse mythology in Wagner; I, on the other hand, got that stab of Joy from T. H. White's book The Once and Future King. Lewis followed up on this by investigating Norse mythology more closely, and subsequently stopped receiving stabs of Joy from it when it became an academic investigation isntead of something he did for pure pleasure. Likewise with me and the Arthurian legend.

Like Lewis, I struggled against becoming a Christian but, like Lewis, books (in his case Chesterton and MacDonald, in mine the medieval Arthurian romances) and friends (in Lewis' case, a plethora of friends including Owen Barfield, J. R. R. Tolkien and other college friends, in my case, my wife) prevailed.

So, what really made me enjoy this book was recognizing the truth of what Lewis was saying in it. And I recognized this truth, because his story pretty closely resembled my own.
...more

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Feb 28, 2009 Douglas Wilson rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography

Great. Finished yet again in November of 2017. And again in January of 2018.

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Oct 11, 2015 Madelyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: autobiogrophies

"Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back....everything is different."

I can easily mark this as my favorite autobiography. It didn't drone on and on as most others do. Starting out in his childhood, spreading through his years at Oxford and when he served as professor, and ending shortly after his conversion to Christianity, there was insight for almost every season of life. I've been a long-time reader of many of the classic Lewis works (Mere Christianity, Narnia, e ...more

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Jan 13, 2020 Cori rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, faith, real-life

Second book down of my 2020 reading challenge: read all of C.S. Lewis's published works.

I chose Surprised By Joy as one of the first to read this year as it is, in many aspects, essentially an autobiography. I was hoping to learn more about the author to see how his life and upbringing influenced his writing.

Jack, Jack, Jack. The more I read about him, and from him, the more I feel a connection in my soul. This dude says, in the simplest ways, things I feel personally. Even things I never real ...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Brittany Petruzzi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: theology, non-fiction, biography

Considering all the things we’ve studied at New Saint Andrews—and the way it keeps coming back to one thing—I find it highly interesting that it was essentially C.S. Lewis’ love of story that brought him to Christ. If you think about it, story is what all of his experiences of Sehnsucht have in common. Most of the Sehnsucht took place while reading poetry or literature, and if not, it was because it transported him to the places in those stories. For example, looking up at the night sky took him ...more

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Aug 08, 2021 Matthew Ted rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, religion, lit-british, 20th-century, auto-biography-memoir, read-2021

82nd book of 2021.

Told by the lady at the desk that purchasing only the small and rather beaten Oxford Dictionary in my hands was not enough to use my card, I picked up Lewis' Surprised by Joy. At times, I've been intrigued by some of his non-fiction work such as Mere Christianity or more pressingly, Grief Observed, but this one gave itself up to me. That day, with more urgent things on my list, I began reading it.

Lewis writes surprisingly: in place of the dogmatic prose I imagined, I found wa 82nd book of 2021.

Told by the lady at the desk that purchasing only the small and rather beaten Oxford Dictionary in my hands was not enough to use my card, I picked up Lewis' Surprised by Joy. At times, I've been intrigued by some of his non-fiction work such as Mere Christianity or more pressingly, Grief Observed, but this one gave itself up to me. That day, with more urgent things on my list, I began reading it.

Lewis writes surprisingly: in place of the dogmatic prose I imagined, I found warmth. The books middling rating from me is mostly reflecting its problem with proportions. Lewis uses a great deal of the book's length to describe his early years; he writes importantly on the death of his mother and a physically defective thumb which narrowed his talents in sports, but also spends a great deal of time describing the schools he attended, the boarding, the teachers, etc. Having attended English schools my whole life (including an all-boys high school), these held little charm for me. I also felt cheated by Tolkien's name being mentioned only 3 times in the 277 pages, for I am a Tolkien fan far, far above I'm a Lewis fan. In fact, I'd hardly identify myself as a Lewis fan.

What I know of him has come from reading Narnia as a boy, though I can't remember which ones, watching the movies that were about in my boyhood and more recently, hearing P. Quinn at C. University lecturing on him. Quinn being the master of fairy stories, sarcasm and tangents (he would give footnotes to his own sentences, turning his head away and speaking like Gollum to Smeagol, most of the time inaudibly to all those but the front row), a man of great cynicism, no doubt, though I didn't know him well, didn't appear to care for Lewis (though liked him better than Rowling). True or not, he berated the supposed philosophy that surfaces at the end of the Narnia books to do with Susan and Heaven. So I suppose it is down to Quinn that I entered Lewis' memoir here with caution, expecting a barrage of didactic rambling. And partly by my own feelings, having been raised a loose Christian of sorts, becoming a little more serious around my early teenage years before then turning away from it.

The little more serious manifested in my attendance of TGIF, a church youth-group. Thank God It's Friday, meetings held on Fridays. It was a fairly easy-going social construct, so I remember it, with moments to sit down and read the Bible and discuss. Anyway, tonight, finishing the last pages of Surprised by Joy in the garden, in the dark, and reading Lewis' description of the "moment", I was reminded of a moment(?) of my own one night with the TGIF group. We were at someone's house for a BBQ and it was freezing cold. I was without layers and sat in my chair shivering. However, surrounded by the bustling group, eating, talking, laughing, I felt suddenly far bigger and at the same time far smaller: being part of something bigger than myself but understanding that the thing bigger than myself was in turn still tiny compared to the universe, reality, whatever. So reading Lewis I was thinking back and asking myself if younger me felt that shiver (of both cold and of epiphany) was something religious, some understanding of Him, or simply one of those profound moments that comes from the self without any need/recognition of God. I won't count this as a spoiler because we know that Lewis becomes a Christian, but if you wish to keep his "moment" unknown, don't read the following which is Lewis' own epiphany of sorts:

I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional.

Frankly, the best chapter in the memoir recounts, briefly, Lewis' time in the army from 1917 around the time he had started at Oxford. There were small and sad reflections that I found profound, 'In my own battalion also I was assailed. Here I met one Johnson (on whom be peace) who would have been a lifelong friend if he had not been killed', or, 'I think it was that day I noticed how a great terror overcomes a less: a mouse that I met (and a poor shivering mouse it was, as I was a poor shivering man) made no attempt to run from me.' But even when Lewis turned his attention to belief and to 'Joy' (by his own definition), he never changes his tone, perhaps because he would be a hypocrite if he did considering he was once a young atheist, and claimed, 'I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.'

I won't spoil much more of Lewis' own thoughts. A fairly dull middle, sandwiched between an interesting start and an interesting end. I'll be reading his other works now. What I find so appealing about him is how he accepts his long and hard-lined atheism but also shares his "conversion" with as much interest and intrigue as we read about it. Lewis himself appears, still, surprised. Surprised by it, surprised by Joy. At one point in the book he writes, 'A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.' I wonder if he is warning us here or if he is almost daring us. ...more

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Feb 13, 2015 Courtney Carlson rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

This was interesting, but considering the very lengthy and detailed set-up, the denouement was hasty and disappointing. It barely brought together any of the varied strands he'd investigated; especially, his final treatment of “Joy” is relegated to one brief paragraph on the final page, and he fails to explain how Christianity satisfies/fulfills this feeling.

He believes it does, as he says in Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logic ...more

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Aug 06, 2020 Lynne King rated it it was amazing

The life of C S Lewis is edifying and such a delight to read. He has substance and that's wonderful! ...more

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Aug 08, 2019 Anna Mussmann rated it really liked it

Such a wonderful read! A few thoughts and quotes:

-I was delighted to see that Edith Nesbit and Beatrix Potter had a significant impact on Lewis’ childhood.

-I appreciate Lewis’ discussion of the difference between “wonder” fantasy, and “fantasy” that’s focused on wish-fulfillment. “When the boy passes from nursery literature to school-stories he is going down, not up. Peter Rabbit pleases a disinterested imagination, for the child does not want to be a rabbit. . . but the story of the unpromisin Such a wonderful read! A few thoughts and quotes:

-I was delighted to see that Edith Nesbit and Beatrix Potter had a significant impact on Lewis’ childhood.

-I appreciate Lewis’ discussion of the difference between “wonder” fantasy, and “fantasy” that’s focused on wish-fulfillment. “When the boy passes from nursery literature to school-stories he is going down, not up. Peter Rabbit pleases a disinterested imagination, for the child does not want to be a rabbit. . . but the story of the unpromising boy who became captain of the First Eleven exists precisely to feed his real ambitions.” When it comes to modern fantasy novels, some fall in one category and some in the other--many of them definitely appeal to the reader’s inner desire for power.

-Wow. The HORRIBLE things that happened in British prep schools! I wouldn’t have believed in them all if they showed up in a modern novel. No wonder the British upper class had a reputation for being a little dysfunctional.

-When discussing the things that caused him to doubt Christianity as a youth, Lewis says, “One came from reading the classics. Here, especially in Virgil, one was presented with a mass of religious ideas; and all teachers and editors took it for granted from the outset that these religious ideas were sheer illusion. No one ever attempted to show in what sense Christianity fulfilled Paganism or Paganism prefigured Christianity. The accepted position seemed to be that religions were normally a mere farrago of nonsense, though our own, by a fortunate exception, was exactly true. The other religions were not even explained, in the earlier Christian fashion, as the work of devils. That I might, conceivably, have been brought to believe. But the impression I got was that religion in general, though utterly false, was a natural growth, a kind of endemic nonsense into which humanity tended to blunder. In the midst of a thousand such religions stood our own, the thousand and first, labelled True. But on what grounds could I believe in this exception?”

-This quote struck me: “It is difficult for parents (and more difficult, perhaps, for schoolmasters) to realize the unimportance of most masters in the life of a school. Of the good and evil which is done to a schoolboy masters, in general, do little, and know less.” Honestly, I think this is a good argument against putting one’s child in a school just because the teachers are Christians/Lutherans. The other students and their families matter quite a bit, too.

-“The greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.” I agree, but how are we to do this? Which subjects should be tabled or cut?

-It’s startling to realize that Lewis would not have been able to attend Oxford if it weren’t for a law exempting ex-Service men from having to pass the mathematics test!

This is another book I will want to re-read in the future. ...more

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May 16, 2011 Justin Wiggins rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

My favorite work of non-fiction by C.S.Lewis used to be Mere Christianity because it played such a huge role in my conversion from Agnosticism to Christianity years ago, and I really found it fascinating how Lewis wrote about the harmony between reason, faith, imagination, and one's own personal experience all coming together by grace.
I recently re-read Surprised by Joy for the fifth time, and it has become my favorite work of non-fiction by Lewis- his personal story is more of a powerful book My favorite work of non-fiction by C.S.Lewis used to be Mere Christianity because it played such a huge role in my conversion from Agnosticism to Christianity years ago, and I really found it fascinating how Lewis wrote about the harmony between reason, faith, imagination, and one's own personal experience all coming together by grace.
I recently re-read Surprised by Joy for the fifth time, and it has become my favorite work of non-fiction by Lewis- his personal story is more of a powerful book to me than Mere Christianity, which is a classic, and it still deeply moves me every time I read it.
Lewis writing poignantly about his childhood in Northern Ireland, the sad loss of his Mother, hellish experiences in WWI, embracing of atheism, his friendships at Oxford, intense experience of the 'Sehnshuct' mystical joy roused by Celtic and Norse mythology, George MacDonald's writings, landscape, music, and art, and his journey to embracing faith in Christ from atheism , is such a fascinating story. My favorite part in the book is when Lewis writes about his mystical experience of joy when reading the great Scottish writer MacDonald's book Phantastes, which is a very strange and beautiful fantasy book, and another favorite part is when Lewis states that his experiences as a literary scholar convinced him that the first century Gospels were historical, and the story of Jesus of Nazareth's Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection is "the true myth."
The book reminded me of my own experiences of Sehnshuct- the music of Jon Foreman, Frederic Chopin, Celtic and Nordic music, the mountain landscape of my native state North Carolina, the landscape of Oxford, England, the season of Autumn, memories made in coffee shops, bookstores, and pubs; the poetry of John Keats, Wendell Berry, the writings of J.R.R.Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Madeleine L'Engle, George MacDonald, and Lewis of course, and rich memories I made in Oxford, England. I already want to re-read this book again. I thank The Great Artist for giving the world such an amazing Irish writer! ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Olivier Delaye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

C. S. Lewis, one of J. R. R. Tolkien's best friends and creator of the Narnia Chronicles, among others. Pure genius. Period. ...more

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Apr 24, 2013 John rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir

This book wasn't what I was expecting. At first, I had expected it to be the story of how Lewis met his wife, Joy, as was portrayed in the movie SHADOWLANDS with Anthony Hopkins. Upon learning that such was not the case, I then expected it to be a straight-forward autobiographical account of Lewis' life. Wrong again. Actually, SURPRISED BY JOY is a memoir about Lewis' formative years. More specifically, it deals with Lewis' early rejection of Christianity and the manner in which he eventually re ...more

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May 19, 2014 David Sarkies rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Christians and Literature Lovers

Recommended to David by: Some guy at church

Shelves: christian

Not quite an autobiography
24 May 2014

It is a little difficult to categorise this book since while in part it is an autobiography, Lewis goes to great pains to exclaim otherwise. One could also suggest that it falls into a category of Christian literature known as a testimony: a story that is told by the author as to how they became a Christian. However this particular book sort of does not follow the two forms that that type of literature takes, which are:

1) I was a really, really, really bad p ...more

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Jan 16, 2016 Morgan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-ve-read-in-2016

Interesting to read immediately after The Pilgrim's Regress. I could see how the latter was an allegorical representation of his own conversion. I only wish he'd written a regular autobiography as well, for I'm very interested to hear of his later life in his own words.

Recommended for: Ages 15 to Adult (mentions of sinful behavior by the other boys at school, and mentions of certain temptations)

Many years ago, I read the first few chapters of this book as research for a speech on C.S. Lewis. I Interesting to read immediately after The Pilgrim's Regress. I could see how the latter was an allegorical representation of his own conversion. I only wish he'd written a regular autobiography as well, for I'm very interested to hear of his later life in his own words.

Recommended for: Ages 15 to Adult (mentions of sinful behavior by the other boys at school, and mentions of certain temptations)

Many years ago, I read the first few chapters of this book as research for a speech on C.S. Lewis. I simply didn't have time to read the whole thing then, but I think I'm glad I waited until now. I don't think I would have quite understood the purpose of the book in the frame of mind I was in at the time, and without having read The Pilgrim's Regress.

Lewis covers his childhood much in the way that any man might cover his childhood in an autobiography, relating the general atmospheres of his home and schools, notable events, and particular memories. But he also has a slightly different focus. He always tells of the flashes of what he called Joy, sharply distinguished from both Happiness and Pleasure, a thing which becomes more apparent as the book progresses. Having just come out of The Pilgrim's Regress, an allegorical representation of Lewis's journey to Christianity, I recognized his Joy as the real life basis for John's Island. I would recommend reading those two books one right after the other, though I'm not sure if the way I happened to do it is best, or if you'd be better going the other way around.

His school experience was interesting. His first boarding school was terrible in basically every way, his second not so bad, though he was bullied somewhat, and his time at that school did not last long. Wyvern is why I give an age caution on the book. While he was never involved himself, he does address the fact that there was some homosexuality between the older and younger boys. Yet during his time at Wyvern, despite how horrible it was, he managed to find Joy through the books he discovered.

Post school is really where he starts focusing on the specifics that affected his religion. He called himself a reluctant convert, and it's easy to see throughout this book how that was so. But it's also easy to see how inescapable God's calling is. Lewis resisted, but it is impossible to ignore that God was calling him. Even which authors he discovered point back to God's calling.

What I find interesting is how logical Lewis was. He really thought things through. It may be more difficult to see in his fiction, but it's very apparent in his nonfiction. And logically, he could not make himself adhere to his teenage and young adult atheism. "A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." This was certainly true in Lewis's case. And it was very interesting to see how someone with Lewis's background could grow to become one of the most influential Christian writers of his time.

For more reviews from me and my sisters, visit www.shirereviews.blogspot.com ...more

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Nov 11, 2018 Becca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies-autobiographies-memoirs, nonfiction, reviewed-by-me, well-written, books-for-everyone, thought-provoking, favorites, library, 2018-favorites

That was an epic read! I feel as though I come away with a much greater understanding of C. S. Lewis, and therefore am better suited to understand the Chronicles of Narnia (which I have still not finished...)

The theme woven through this book, bringing harmony to Lewis's autobiography, is a recurring experience he referred to as Joy. Here is his description of it:

"It is...an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical ter ...more

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May 09, 2014 Dennis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, favorites, nonfiction, biography

"Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side." C.S. Lewis should know, he was one.

It is a rare thing to find a book that speaks to you so thoroughly and on so many levels. This was a complete surprise, something I rather stumbled upon because of a reference to it in another book. And what a surprise! Reading each chapter, each paragraph, each sentence, felt much like catching up with an old and dear friend, someone who understands your "Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side." C.S. Lewis should know, he was one.

It is a rare thing to find a book that speaks to you so thoroughly and on so many levels. This was a complete surprise, something I rather stumbled upon because of a reference to it in another book. And what a surprise! Reading each chapter, each paragraph, each sentence, felt much like catching up with an old and dear friend, someone who understands your thoughts and perspectives like few others ever could.

This book reads also much like a bibliography of important books which affected the author most as a youth during his unwitting journey to faith and enlightenment. He tells of an upbringing in northern Ireland and touches upon such sad episodes as losing his mother early in life, and the subsequent unraveling of his relationship with a more mercurial father. Lewis describes the two like ships passing parallel to one another but in opposite directions, with his father never quite able to grasp or identify with his thoughts and motivations.

I love C.S. Lewis's gift for conjuring imagery, and now have clearer insight into the foundations for his writings rooted in an early love for Norse and Celtic mythology as well as for Wagner. I resonated with his account of a public school education, what with its inexplicable emphasis on "playing games" (sport) and the social stratifying hierarchy preparing youth for the exact same thing that awaits them in public adult life. I admire his ability to have navigated through those exhausting years with a stoicism that enabled him to face the shenanigans of adolescence (such as the "fagging" system, in his case, with elder Bloods at the English boarding schools) all while retreating into a fertile and robust imagination where ideas could be cultivated and a keen intellect refined largely unscathed.

The primary subject of the autobiography, of course, is the author's faith journey from early encounters with religion to a decided godlessness following his mother's death, then an eventual acquiescence to theism and in time a full embrace of Christianity. All throughout these early years Lewis seems to have maintained intellectual honesty which allowed him to experience epiphanies and recognize the shortfalls of a life governed by doubt. With nothing either sentimental or sophomoric about his account, the expression of depth and sincerity of thought ring true and are refreshing.

This book was not only a surprise, it was also a joy! ...more

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May 23, 2021 Julicke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction-biographies-memoirs

This book definitely isn't for everybody, but to me at least it was brilliant. Lewis' recounts the comings and goings of his imaginative and intellectual life in deeply personal and lucid prose. Different phases of his thoughts, convictions and temperament unravel and entwine like a tapestry, with the thread of Joy in the center.

The many references to literary works might put off some people and for me many went over my head as well, though some spoke vaguely to memory and others to imagination ...more

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Nov 01, 2014 Michael Perkins rated it liked it

I first read this book around age 20. I proceeded to read most of the Lewis "canon" after that.

The problem with much of his canon is that Lewis changed his mind about many things later in life, especially his approach to apologetics. And then a final wave of change from a real life Joy, came late in life.

There are many references, and complaints, in the reviews here of Lewis constantly citing literary references in his memoir. I think it's a reasonable assumption that he had his friends and col ...more

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Sep 12, 2018 Nick Imrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, boarding-school, biography, non-fiction, religion-christian, religion-conversion

'I never read an autobiography in which the parts devoted to the earlier years were not far the most interesting.' C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy

'This book is written partly in answer to requests that I would tell how I passed from Atheism to Christianity […] The book aims at telling the story of my conversion and is not a general autobiography, still less 'Confession' like those of Augustine or Rousseau. This means in practice that it gets less like a general autobiography as it goes on.' C.S. Lew ...more

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Mar 28, 2018 Lydia Therese rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-reads, nonfiction

Surprised by Joy is by C.S. Lewis.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked learning more about C.S. Lewis's life. I have enjoyed most of the books I have read that are by him, and I enjoyed reading his conversion story.

Many of the references to literature were lost on me, though. He compared an event in his life to some ancient poem that I had never read, and so most of that side of the book was lost on me.

However, even if I didn't understand a lot of the references, I still liked reading the book ...more

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Jun 20, 2015 Demetrius Rogers rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, memoir

I love The Chronicles of Narnia. I even like The Screwtape Letters. But, I haven't really connected with Lewis' essays as much. I've never really been able to follow his train of thought. Maybe it's his brittishness, or perhaps his discursive mind, but I just can't seem to hang with his discourse. However, I love his imaginative works! And oh man, I love his Till We Have Faces. Anybody who can write such literature deserves further investigation. Well, after reading this autobiography, I'm even ...more

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Mar 14, 2020 Lori rated it did not like it

Shelves: nope-waste-of-time

Surprised by Tedium! Wow.....that’s 7 hours of my life I’ll never get back! As a teen I read and reread the Chronicles of Narnia...... wonderful books everyone should read........later on I read and enjoyed the Screwtape Letters. But this tedious, boring and over inflated autobiography was painful to read. If it wasn’t a book club pick I definitely would not have finished it!
Perhaps I’m just not smart enough to get all the dropped obscure literature references. I also didn’t understand the poin ...more

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Jul 21, 2014 Katy rated it really liked it

This was a very intellectual engaging book for me. I am amazed at the range and quantity of books that Lewis read (and in original languages at that). Had to even look up a few words to get at what he was trying to communicate to the reader. I don't think that one needs to be a Christian to enjoy this book. His search for truth and joy is something that all humans can understand. ...more

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Nov 08, 2010 David Mosley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Read in the following years:
2007
2010 (31 May)
2012 (19 September-3 October)

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Dec 28, 2019 ValeReads Kyriosity rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, biography-memoir

I read this in high school (discovered a four-leaf clover pressed in it that probably dates from then), but I can't recall if I've ever reread it. I know I couldn't possibly have understood much of it then, and even though I followed relatively more closely now, Lewis's philosophizing and literary copiousness leave me in the dust. Heck, the size of Lewis's brain would leave Jeeves's in the dust. And yet, once he got past his adolescent priggishness (there once was a boy called Clive Staples Lewi I read this in high school (discovered a four-leaf clover pressed in it that probably dates from then), but I can't recall if I've ever reread it. I know I couldn't possibly have understood much of it then, and even though I followed relatively more closely now, Lewis's philosophizing and literary copiousness leave me in the dust. Heck, the size of Lewis's brain would leave Jeeves's in the dust. And yet, once he got past his adolescent priggishness (there once was a boy called Clive Staples Lewis, and he almost deserved it [ooh, look...I can do literary allusions, too!]), his humility, too, leaves me in the dust. Lewis is always reliable in his understanding of human nature, but maintaining such a keen eye when looking in a mirror is an especially rare skill.

Once again, I was too busy about the house to interrupt my listening much for noting and sharing commonplaces, but I managed to grab this one: “When the boy passes from nursery literature to school stories he is going down, not up. Peter Rabbit pleases a disinterested imagination, for the child does not want to be a rabbit, though he may like pretending to be a rabbit as he may later like acting as Hamlet; but the story of the unpromising boy who became captain of the First Eleven exists precisely to feed his real ambitions.”

I think this tells us what Jack would have thought of Harry Potter, which is very much of the British school story genre. Not to mention vast swaths of self-indulgent American middle grade/y.a. literature. OK, OK, so HP isn't the very schooliest of school stories, but I do think it fits the bill in the basics. And what's more, the school stories of Jack's youth couldn't possibly have included neeeeearly as much whiiiiiining!

Once again, Ralph Cosham (Geoffrey Howard) is a sturdy narrator. So sturdy is he in my experience that I was quite startled when he stuck an extra syllable into quiddity, which he pronounced quiddidity. Twice. It reminded me of the fourth syllable Bekah Merkle always shoehorns into Wollstonecraft. I of course forgive them both with much affection, especially since I've many much more of such mistakes to be forgiven from myself. 😉 ...more

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Jan 24, 2019 Ian Galey rated it it was amazing

The autobiography of C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy outlines the occurrences of Joy in Lewis's life and how these accompanied him from his childhood to his conversion from atheism (or "anti-theism" as Lewis refers to it) to theism to Christianity. Lewis defines Joy as an intense longing or desire that is itself the most desirable desire. As Lewis discovers, it is not the longing itself that he actually desired but the object of the longing which is for something far greater than and not of this w ...more

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Sep 30, 2019 Danette rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reading-challenge

Though far above my head, I enjoyed reading this book. Mostly for gems like the following.

"And so the great Angler played His fish and I never dreamed that the hook was in my tongue." pg 211

"Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side." pg 226

"I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obv ...more

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About C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge ...more