My mind works less like a plane circling a city in pattern waiting to land, and more like a compact car trapped in a round-about trying to exit. "Hey kids, Big Ben." Right when I think I'm getting somewhere someone blows a horn, speeds past, and I am forced back into another turn around the circle. Some people might say I'm slow to learn. I say I'm just having trouble merging into to traffic. Nonetheless, because of it I sometimes find myself chasing a thought to a maddening end. A friend once called it the "paralysis of analysis." I think that is why I so appreciated this book by CS Lewis.
A Grief Observed is really not a book. It's a collection of writings from Lewis' journal penned about a month after his wife died. It is extremely raw and deals with his journey though the process of mourning. But he comes to conclusions near the end that are less like answers and more like resignations. Not the desperate sort of resigning oneself to facts that cannot be changed, but the kind of freeing resignation like quitting a job of 30 years, I imagine, would be. It's bittersweet, but no less bitter, no less sweet.
I honestly did not expect to connect well with this volume. I ended reading the whole darn thing in one evening. Lewis' musings do not just deal with his greif alone, but serve as a vehicle into the human mind and soul and our issues with attachment and loss. I personally loved the book because here, we see one our great apologists of Christianity honestly doubting the faith and the goodness of God. He yells at Him. He cries. He blames Him. He adresses His distance. He is honest with Him.
This text is a good therapy session for anyone and, as is natural to Lewis intellect and ability, the author has brought the psycology down from the mountain to us all. I've always thought a true stroke of genius was measured by how well a person could make me understand some rather complex thing. Lewis always had that gift.
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