A Review of C.S. Lewis’s “A Grief Observed”
I learned about C.S. Lewis’s, A Grief Observed, the way I often do when it comes to books about grief, someone mentioned it in an online forum as a book that comforted them after a devastating loss.
I’m a big fan of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles — the series of seven books that begin with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe which, as it turns out, is actually an allegory about the bible (a fact I didn’t know or care about when I read the books as a secular Jewish child).
Even so, I was hesitant to read his book about grief because I’m not religious and was worried it wouldn’t resonate with me (or worse, that I’d somehow feel preached to or offended because I didn’t share Lewis’s belief in god). I put my doubts aside and chose to read the book because I love Lewis’s writing and I was curious about his approach to writing about his own grief. I’m really glad I did.
A Grief Observed was originally published in 1961 after the death of Lewis’s wife, Joy Davidman, who Lewis refers to as H. throughout the book (her full name was Helen Joy Davidman). Ms. Davidman was an American poet who was considered a child prodigy, graduating from high school at age 14 and earning her Masters at Columbia University at the age of twenty. Lewis met Davidman late in life (he was nearly sixty and she was forty, divorced and with two sons of…
