What do you know about C.S. Lewis? I saw this last nite:

[Smarmie Doofus]

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/theater/reviews/23freud.html

Maybe I really mean "What do you *make* of CS Lewis?"

Freud's Last Session. 2-man show. Basically 90 minutes of Lewis vs. Freud in Freud's London study toward the very end of Freud's life, 1939.

Less political than philosophical, psychological, theological.

But everything's political in the final analysis... if you'll excuse the expression.

Brilliant production.

I think they're taking it on the road soon.

So..... you were about to tell me about CS Lewis.

[dipsydoodle]

1. In the US,

assuming cinema goers actually bother to read film credits , he's most likely to be known as the author of The Chronicles Of Narnia.

[toddaa]

2. Not in evangelical circles

He's most famous for his theological writings. He's the source of the bogus "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" trilemma.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Religiously sort of... "peripatetic"?

I think that means something like "all over the map."

The wiki readout has him as leaving Christianity for "atheism" at 15 and then coming back to Christianity at age 33 or so.... with a big flourish. But during his "atheism" period he dabbled in witchcraft.... as whatsername might have put it.... and the occult.

Is that "atheism"?

[toddaa]

6. Mere Christianity documents his conversion from "atheism" to Christianity

It's quite amusing to think that Christians consider it so highly as a defense of their beliefs. If you read it, you quickly come to the conclusion that he was never really an atheist and he never took a class in rudimentary logic. His "atheism" amounts to little more than rebellious youth.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Pretty much my supposition.

And I thank you for sparing me having to read "Mere Christianity" to get there.

>>>>His "atheism" amounts to little more than rebellious youth.>>>>>>>


Re. logic: Much of the play revolves around faith vs. reason.... Freud hammering away at Lewis' irrationality and Lewis coming back at him with "the limits of reason" argument.

On the whole, the play... as I saw it.... is sympathetic to Lewis, however.

[rug]

16. Yes, he was born in Ireland not Scotland.

[fishwax]

8. well, the chronicles of narnia have their share of theology

and evangelicals tend to love the series. (Not all evangelicals, of course, but overall--Christian groups were a key part of the promotion of the film version, for instance ...)

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Exactly. One of many hats he wore.

Writer of children's books, epigramist, aphorist, religious apologist.... other stuff too.

Starting with Narnia.... he goes to a place of inaccessibility for me. My mind does not work the way his does.

But other things he says... while wearing the other hats.... interest me.

[ananda]

3. I hope they make it into a film.

That would be so great.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. A tough one to get on the big screen.

Not impossible but tough. Someone in the q and a , post-performance, compared it to the (imo) lethal My Dinner with Andre.

I'd rather they didn't try ... if that's going to be the result.

[dsc]

10. watch Shadowlands

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108101/

Great film about CS Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and Joy Gresham (Debra Winger). They have a love affair with Joy becoming terminally unwell. It gives some insight into Lewis.

[Smarmie Doofus]

13. I saw it years and years ago.

It... as i recall .... is *great*. ( I can't get it from netflix; apparently they don't have it.)

That actually initially sparked my curiosity re. Lewis.

In the post play q and a, someone asked the "Lewis" actor if he'd seen Shadowlands. He said he deliberately did NOT. because 1. He didn't want to have Hopkins in his head. and 2. He was playing Lewis at 42 not at 62. For the same reason he read everything that Lewis had written up til 1939, but nothing written thereafter.

i .e. He wanted to portray faithfully the *1939* Lewis.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The talibornagains adore him.

I've never been a big fan. His books never really appealed to me. I'm more of a Roald Dahl fan.

[littlewolf]

12. I liked the screwtape letters ...

[jbnow]

15. So did I! That's what came to mind. My kids loved Kion, Witch and

Wardrobe (is that right?) and others in series.

It has been years since I read screwtape letters. Decades in fact...
that was a demon writing to his nephew Wormwood(?) advising him on attempts to "win" a human to Satan/hell? I don't even recall why I liked it so well but I feel amusement in my memory.

[DemoTex]

14. Lewis died the same day as JFK: 11/22/1963

As did Aldous Huxley

FWIW

[Mrs. Overall]

17. He was a close friend of Tolkien--both taught at Oxford--

and Tolkien was highly critical of Lewis' use of Christian allegory in his writings. Tolkien thought that Lewis' use of Christianity was too obvious and over the top. They would often critique each other's work, but I don't remember what Lewis thought of Tolkien's fiction.