This postGoodness, I completely forgot that today is C.S. Lewis’s birthday! (Thanks to Bruce Edwards for the reminder and also for the tribute he wrote.)
So, C.S. Lewis. He’s my favorite author, one who has influenced me in so many ways I can hardly keep track of them all. It was because of Surprised by Joy that I started studying Latin on my own each morning. It was largely because of reading Lewis that I wanted to become a writer. My childhood was Narnia, and both the feeling they evoked — the Sehnsucht Lewis talked about, the longing for (a heavenly) home, the knowledge that there’s more to life than meets the eye — and the Christian symbolism got etched deep into my heart. Later in life I branched out and began reading his apologetic works, his letters, his literary criticism. Sure, I didn’t agree with everything he said, but the resounding majority rang true to me — and still does. I keep coming back to his books over and over and over again. The way he writes often gives me goosebumps. I’ve recently noticed, too, just how much of him is in my writing, both fiction and non. He is my mentor, the way George MacDonald was to him. (But alas, the analogy falls apart there, since my feet are far, far too small to fit into either Lewis’s shoes or MacDonald’s. But I can’t wait to find Lewis’s “successor,” so I can read their books. :)) Oh, and Shadowlands is one of my favorite movies.
To celebrate, I think I’m going to dip into Lewis’s letters for a while after work today. Mmm. :)
