© 1990 Don W. King

A version of this review first appeared in World 5 (May 19, 1990): 14-15.

C. S. Lewis: A Biography, by A. N. Wilson. Norton, 334 pages, $22.50.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that "we learn from Freud and others about those distortions in character and errors in thought which result from a man's early conflicts with his father." This curious statement, since elsewhere Lewis expresses contempt for Freud, could serve as the thesis for A. N. Wilson's C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Indeed, Wilson goes out of his way to give us a Freudian reading of Lewis' life and attempts to demythologize a man he says has been made into "a saint in the minds of conservative-minded believers."

Wilson's Freudian analysis of Lewis' life is evident when he comments on Lewis' adolescence juvenile sexual pre-occupations: "Like many sexually naive people, Lewis supposed that if he eliminated the consciously erotic elements of his sexuality from the surface of life, he would be able to dispel the habits and characteristics of which these [sado-masochistic] tastes were a mere symptom." In addition, he makes much of how the death of Lewis' mother when he was nine upset his emotional balance and caused him to bottle "up within himself" feeling throughout his adult life. Furthermore, Wilson argues that Lewis' relationships with Mrs. Jane Moore and his late marriage with Joy Davidman indicate that "the quest for his lost mother dominated his relations with women."

Lewis' love-hate relationship with his father is also given a very close Freudian analysis. Wilson notes this when he writes: "Presumably there is no paediatrician or child psychologist in the world who would recommend that a nine-year-old boy, within a fortnight of his mother's death, should be sent away from home. . . . to a school run on harshly unfeeling lines. But this is what happened to C. S. Lewis." That his father would send him away from the security of his home in Little Lea into the brutal world of the English public schools was enough to create a long-time disgust within the boy for his father, according to Wilson.

Especially damaging was Albert Lewis' failure to come to the emotional aid of his son during times of crisis. For example, Albert neglected to see his son off to the trenches in France in 1917, and, perhaps more disturbing, he did not visit his wounded son during his recovery in an English hospital. At one point Lewis wrote in a letter: "Haven't heard from my esteemed parent for some time; has he committed suicide yet?" Wilson culminates this part of his biography in a chapter entitled "Redemption by Parricide," where he argues that Lewis' ability to support himself financial without his father's help and his father's death in 1929 both freed and haunted him. Twenty-five years later he wrote: "I treated my own father abominably and no sin in my whole life now seems so serious."

Readers will accept Wilson's Freudian reading of Lewis' life according to their own pre-suppositions; at times his claims are laughable while at others he may be close to the truth. What is certain is that he makes an earnest if misguided attempt to portray Lewis as a believable man, "warts and all." Wilson does not hesitate to note Lewis' brusque manner during tutorials, his enjoyment of bawdy stories, his "English binges" (evenings he hosted for his pupils in which the object was to get drunk), his love of verbally assaulting and bullying colleagues with whom he disagreed, and his almost certain sexually illicit relationship with Mrs. Moore.

Of the latter, Wilson writes: "While nothing will ever be proved on either side, the burden of proof is on those who believe that Lewis and Mrs. Moore were not lovers." Indeed, according to Wilson Lewis' relationship with Mrs. Moore dominated his life after the death of his father. About Lewis' relationship with Joy Davidman, Wilson has little new to add although he does an effective job of revealing the depth and extent of Lewis' grief when she died.

From a literary point of view the book is strongest when Wilson analyzes Lewis' writings. He is a perceptive literary critic and does an excellent job of showing how Lewis' books are an accurate reflection of his beliefs. A case in point is Wilson's analysis of The Discarded Image, a book he calls "perhaps the most completely satisfying and impressive" one Lewis ever published. Wilson shows how Lewis re-educates a modern audience so that it can appreciate the thought, imagery, and metaphor of an ancient book. However, Wilson is less credible when he claims that the scene when the children pass through the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe can be viewed psychologically as an "unconscious image of the passage through which Lewis first entered the world from his mother's body." Indeed, Wilson does a real disservice to his own cause when he moves into such speculative and unsubstantiated intrepretation.

Near the end of the book Wilson takes pains to show that two separate groups of Lewis devotees have perhaps gone too far in their reverence for Lewis as "lay defender of the faith." The first is represented by the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College which he says attempts to keep "alive the image of an evangelical Lewis" while the second is represented by Walter Hooper's C. S. Lewis Society in Oxford "where a High Church, celibate C. S. Lewis is reverenced." Both views are mistaken to some degree, says Wilson. Indeed, his biography argues that "we do Lewis no honour to make him into a plaster saint. And he deserves our honour." Once again Wilson does his own cause disservice since he provides little real evidence to substantiate his charges against either the Wade Center or Hooper.

This is the fourth important Lewis biography since his death. Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper's C. S. Lewis: A Biography (1975) is a scholarly though bland study and suffers from Hooper's constant interjection of himself into Lewis' life. William Griffin's Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life (1986) is interesting but is limited since it attempts to tell Lewis' life in a month-by-month, year-by-year format through the use of Lewis' already published writings. George Sayer's Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times (1988) is competently written and throws some new light on Lewis' life, especially his Oxford experience (Sayer was both a pupil and later colleague of Lewis).

Wilson's biography goes beyond all these; it is not definitive, but because Wilson uses newer sources (for example, the unpublished Lewis Papers) with greater frequency than the other biographers, his book offers a more comprehensive and forthright picture of one of this century's greatest Christian writers. It is worth a fair reading. However, his Freudian reading of Lewis' life necessarily limits the value of this biography for Wilson only assumes what he cannot prove.

Don King, PhD.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs/Professor of English

Montreat-Anderson College

Montreat NC 28757