An Experiment in Criticism: Why Lewis' Non-Fiction is Way Better

 C.S. Lewis is one of the great essayists.

Not one of the great essayists of the 20th century, nor one of the great essayists of Christian apologetics. C.S. Lewis is one of the great essayists to practice the form. Aristotle gets better press because he came first, and there is an awful lot to being first to the party.

I really do not care for Lewis' fiction. I have more than once used the simile that I feel like he is beating us to death with allegory; that we lie supine before the point he is obviously making, whimpering "no, please, I understand!" only for him to strike the point home again. That Hideous Length is not so much a novel as a commentary on the state of modern society, hidden behind thinly veiled metaphors; like a  particularly fire-breathing Theodore Dalyrymple essay wearing a science fiction skinsuit.

I do not care for his fiction, and perhaps that is a fault of impatience in me; the same fire that burned with rage at cutesy--or worse, clown!--illustrations in my childhood math books, which felt grossly patronizing and which would trigger me to go on strike. Its the same thing--well, one of many things--I hate about Dickens: Here, hold still, let me spoon feed you this moral message I have for you in the bluntest and most ham fisted style imaginable. There are other, more contemporary, authors who are guilty of this sin as well, whose works I will not longer touch, no matter how many times recommended.

But on reading An Experiment in Criticism, I forced to recognize that Lewis' (and probably Dickens) know what they are doing, even if I still abhor their style.

Lewis, in a chapter that is actually on Poetry, and how we should indulge the young to cultivate their love of the art says one of those simple and profound things that he just drops so casually in his non-fiction:

For there are no variations except for those who know a norm, and no subtleties for those who have not grasped the obvious.

First of all, what a beautifully concise and elegant turn of phrase, but in the second place, what extraordinary incision. Like an idea I have groped at blindly, but have never been able to resolve with such clarity.

And so it is almost certain that the man who wrote the above knows that he is wielding a blunt instrument with his fiction, because he is setting norms and grounding people in the obvious. He is a better teacher than I could be in this regard, because where I hold the simple and direct in some kind of weird animosity, he embraces it and uses it. I might even allow that the hack artist, Dickens, is doing something similar.

And so, you might think, "perfect! Now Patrick will return to Lewis' fiction with new eyes!" But no, my darlings, I have read his fiction canon numerous times. He is not for me, and I am not for him. I cannot enjoy the clown math book that is The Last Battle despite several returns. In this regard, his fiction is not like some of the other books that I read in my youth, did not care for, and adore now. Moby Dick, The Remains of the Day, and Henry IV have taken on new life.

I think that Lewis gives us the key to why in his An Experiment in Criticism. He insists that to judge the quality of a book, one must assess how the book is read, should be read, or demands to be read. He constrasts narrative fiction against books that require us to take a deeper dive; that challenge us, demand something of us, and require us to open ourselves to them to get all that is there.

I think he wrote his fiction to reach the readers of narrative fiction. The ideological and religious subtext is at the same level as the narrative--the reader cannot escape it. It does not necessitate a deeper reading, as it is meant to impart its goods to those who are not accustomed to reading deeply. A noble pursuit, but it renders his work less satisfying that his exceedingly nuanced and clever non-fiction work.

If you have not read "An Experiment in Criticism" you should. Today.

It is brief, beautifully written, and a great primer for thinking about how we read books and engage with literature.

I give it a double commendation as a Christian, because, while he does not talk about engaging with scripture in the essay, and is talking about how we approach and think about literature, the things he says about how we approach and receive good literature I think should all be applied to how we read scripture, and understand our own growth in reading scripture.

And Scripture is really what proves out his model, given that it is the measure of all things: what kind of reading does scripture demand of the reader?

It demands that you surrender to it; that you engage with your imagination, that you will get more out of it the better you know it, that it changes you, the reader, in ways you did not expect.

I suspect he already considered all this, but was writing to a different audience. The man knows his audiences, after all.

An Experiment in Criticism: read it.