Part of why this is so late is that I have been dragging my feet on wrapping this book up. Trust me, I am ready to skip this all together and get started into “Fountainhead”. But, sometimes we must do what we must. I must put everything aside and give my honest opinion.

I remember reading “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in 6th Grade Language Arts. I was a big fantasy reader as a youth at least through high school. It was part of my Dungeons and Dragons phase. I read “Lord of the Rings” as well as the “Hobbit” as well as some pretty weird stuff as well. My favorite fantasy series was actually written by Terry Brooks call “The Elfstones of Shannara”.

Narnia was definitely not my favorite fantasy series. I found it a little tame in that I wanted sword fighting and fireball spells. I don’t think I read any farther than “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” from Lewis but at least it was adjacent to the subject matter I was interested in. It was certainly better that reading Tom Sawyer again.

A large part of why I stopped reading fantasy was because I was so tired of poor writing. That includes names that you couldn’t recognize talking about events that had no context and seemingly disconnected story lines. I know that elves are not real but come on, what is with the rites of the fourteen moons of Fortuna? Maybe I am just dense.

Getting back to Narnia, it was well established that C.S. Lewis was a literature powerhouse in the 1980s. Of course when he has something to say, it might be worth trying to figure out if it was of some value. It was many, many years later that I realized Lewis was more than a fantasy writer. In fact, for me it was the fact that he was a recognized author that made me investigate his theory on religion in the first place.

OK, enough beating around the bush with Lewis related items. My take on the on the book is forthcoming. Nothing real earth shattering here, it is a biography about Lewis’s early life. I think what he was trying to portray was that it seems logical that when bad things happen to you, your outlook darkens. The surprised part of the title has to do with his dark outlook seemed to self heal.

I will try not to sound too boorish but I really didn’t enjoy the book at all. It was a gift, from my son for Christmas. I am pretty sure that he saw me reading “Mere Christianity” and then saw this. I had higher hopes about this book based on my previous reading but what I am trying to say is that I didn’t seek this out.

There were a couple of things that I found interesting even if I did not care for the book. The first was the whole culture of being a student in Britain. I went down a complete rabbit hole trying to understand what in the world Lewis was talking about when he talked about that stuff mid-book. I really had no concept how ridiculous the rigid social boundaries were in that environment.

The second thing I found interesting how many classic works of literature were referenced and how many I have actually read. I have to say that most of them I did not care for so it was no form of validation for me. I guess what I thought was the interesting part was that it seems like Lewis did enjoy reading most of those works. It could be possible I am just too dense to get it. I have also mentioned in the past when I was reading Dante that it is possible that there were so many less choices back then that whatever survived was considered a classic. It does make me do a double take on whether I am in a right frame of mind.

I said that I didn’t care for this book, but why? If you were interested in reading a biography of C.S. Lewis, then I would say this fits the bill. But, if you were looking for some epiphany moment or even something to look for or work to go from Atheist to Christian you are going to be out of luck. I would go as far as saying Lewis used his status as a Christian to sell a biography, It is good business but really sets the wrong expectations. It could also be that Lewis was badgered to tell his story and so he reluctantly did. But then what is the point?

End Your Programming Routine: Look, not all of them can be winners. I feel like I have had more losers than winners over the last couple of years. That is not all bad because discriminating taste has to be critical to be of any value and not simply like or approve everything. I still respect Lewis as an author, but I am pretty sure that I am done with him now.