Tonight’s examination of the next factor in C. S. Lewis’ original falling away from the faith will be relatively short, for the simple reason that there really isn’t much to say about it–legitimately, at least. So, I’ll have to clam up after the explanation part of the discussion. It has to do with Jack’s pessimistic outlook and how he came about acquiring it. It is covered on pages 63-64 of Surprised by Joy.
Lewis notes that already at the ripe age of thirteen or fourteen, he had become convinced that the world was predisposed to making things difficult for its inhabitants, and that his pessimism was “much more of intellect than of temper.” In short, he had difficulty believing that there was any significant power in the universe that wished anyone any good. He had trouble communicating the idea, as it appeared to him ridiculous as he looked back on it, but at the time it was quite weighty glory. For all his apologizing, I think his approximation quite good:
Perhaps I had better call it a settled expectation that everything would do what you did not want it to do. Whatever you wanted to remain straight, would bend; whatever you tried to bend would fly back to the straight; all knots which you wished to be firm would come untied; all knots you wanted to untie would remain firm.
And that line of thinking, of course, would make Christianity seem more absurd by the day. What hope had a negative universe of producing a positive savior or of sustaining a loving God?
The point of his life that he had reached with the writing of Surprised by Joy had given him some perspective, and there is a notable tone of embarrassment to his explanation. After all, he is explaining why a boy, well-fed, well-provided for by his father, living at a good school that gave him many advantages, could look around at the universe and complain that it was being “unfair.” Certainly the Eton collars they all had to wear were something to complain about (he did so, after all, by implication in the opening to The Magician’s Nephew), but there was nothing particularly significant in that. All Jack could do in Surprised by Joy was apologize and insist that the feelings were, in some manner, very real and very effective in changing his outlook on his faith.
In this section Jack describes two factors that he thinks led him toward such a pessimistic view of life. First, and perhaps most obviously, there was the loss of his mother at such an early age. She had loved and provided for him, and her loss shattered his world, removing the supports he had expected to last forever. Even before than that, though, he references his problems with his thumbs that made him clumsy as both a child and an adult. It added another layer of difficulty to everything he tried, and, it may be that contributed to an expectation that everything must be out to get him.
All of that, of course, sounds perfectly reasonable. And there, for now, at least, I think I must leave that point. The historian in me constrains further wanton speculation for the simple reason that this is an entirely internal matter, entirely inside Jack’s own head. It isn’t even a larger question of abstract truth–he isn’t arguing that he had proof for his pessimism, only that he felt it. Therefore, the only evidence we can rely on is Lewis’s own explanations. Anything more is simply uncalled for. We should make no claims to know a man better than he knows himself, especially when so much time has passed.
As I progress, I can come back to this as new data becomes available–I can weigh Jack’s own words against one another; I can weigh his words against his actions; I cannot allow myself to weigh Jack against my own biases or against what I would have wanted him to be.
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” –Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
Mere Lewis 