A Grief Observed
Ratings42
Average rating4.1
Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is a beautiful and unflinchingly homest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.
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As per usual, I love C.S. Lewis' writing. This raw look at grief its impact it has on Lewis's faith is a beautiful example of how we all handle loss a bit differently and how grief itself evolves. I love his analogy of trying to understand loss and asking God questions with no response, to asking questions like “how many hours in a mile?”. We often get angry when we don't hear from God, and we forget to wonder if we could even comprehend the answer or if we are asking a question that has an answer to give.
This is obviously a short book, but one I think anyone could benefit from. If you've lost someone close to you, this may serve as a way to put your emotions into words. If you've been lucky enough to not experience this yet, the ideas may help to give you greater empathy for those who have and give them the space and love they need to work through their own grief.
Chilling, heart-wrenching & absolutely beautiful. It's basically all of my favorite things — intelligent and nuanced discussion of faith and religion, self-discovery + the concept of grief & despair & the ways in which it impacts our daily lives — put together in one book. Suffice to say, I completely fell head-over-heels in love with it. Pick any one quote from this book, and it is probably somewhere on the list of tattoos I'll never get. Case in point: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Honestly, nothing I could say / write would do this book any justice at all. BUT if you need more convincing, please know that I decided to read this for three hours, instead of studying for my über important science exam tomorrow. All I can say is, I'm definitely going to be reading this again after finals is over. (Just to let the whole thing sink in, y'know ;) also YES, that is how much I adore it. Y'all know I don't do re-reads.)
Initially I thought that it may be worth 3 stars because of how philosophical he was in talking about his own grief but the more I listened, the more disappointed I became. While his writings never appealed to me, this specific book in which he wrote, “I have always been able to pray for the dead and I still do with some confidence” was pretty bad. Personally, as an Evangelical, I can't endorse some of his beliefs such as purgatory.
Yes, this book may be interesting to read, surely not for someone who deals with loss and grief at the moment. As a person who had friends and family members passing, I can understand something of what he's writing but should I have experienced grief right this moment, this book would not be of any help to me. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be of help even later but it's an interesting read. My book club picked up this book so chose to read it. It's interesting, though not good- if you like philosophy. If you're after comfort, wisdom and good, sound Biblical insight, that you won't find here.
