Present Concerns

by C.S. Lewis

Book Overview

" Where God gives the gift, the foolishness of preaching is still mighty. But best of all is a team of two: one to deliver the preliminary intellectual barrage, and the other to follow up with a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156738406
• ISBN13: 9780156738408
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 108 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

New Age of Chivalry

Did C S Lewis ever write anything that wasn't thought provoking? I got this set of short stories mainly for his essay on the need for Chivalry today. It lived up to all I had read about it. We need young men who are both gentlemanly and savagely protective. If lacking one or the other character qualities, they are either "milk toast" or barbarian. The balance is needed in true manhood today.

Through the Past Darkly

With the recent Narnia movie, cranking out Lewisiana has almost become a cottage industry. With the plethora of titles, one is hard pressed to know where to begin. Some reviewers consider this book a bit of flack shoved off on the gullible public hungry to read more. I take the opposite tack. While most of the recent Lewis- related titles take his work out of its historic context, attempting to relaunch it as relevant in our own, this book goes the other way. It's firmly anchored in the era of WW II when Lewis wrote, and entirely concerned with the state and future of Britain. Thus these essays are for modern readers not "present concerns" but rather windows into the past. Each of these nineteen essays appeared in British newspapers, and most of them still hit hot buttons today. It's arguable whether Lewis wrote "down" to news readers, but he had an uncanny knack of connecting with readers even when he couldn't socialize with them. For instance, he remarked that he didn't care for the society of children, by which he meant he was uncomfortable in their social circle. But that didn't stop him writing seven of the most beloved kids' books of all time, nor of keeping up lively correspondence with them. Lewis' views on the censorship of books (he was against it) become particularly notable in context. He wrote at the time that D.H. Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterly's Lover was the subject of obscenity trials, and expressed his opinion forcefully in the essay included in this collection (He alludes briefly to this view in his excellent book about reading, An Experiment in Criticism). Like that book, this is not one of Lewis' best sellers, but readers may be surprised to find how much in our day these topics are still present concerns.

"B-Side" Lewis

This book is a slice of Lewis' mind. As a compilation of essays between 1940-1945, you would think that it would be dated. Yet, Lewis characteristically merges the timely with the timeless, which makes this tome a book for all seasons.Each chapter is an isolated essay, but all revolve around the themes established in "Abolition of Man." These include the elimination of absolute values, the effects of literature on character education, and so forth.Intermixed with these heavy and pressing topics, however, are two essays, "Hedonics" and "Talking About Bicycles." There are about mere pleasures and the simple delights of existence. You can taste and feel his sense of life and his sense of delightful please in common day things. Lewis is no curmudgeon, but something else-a mixture of rugged Elijah and tender Elisha.Lewis, as a literati, amateur historian, and an ex-pagan, has a good eye for decadence. Indeed, his was a warning voice that SHOULD have been headed. We are so far downstream that it would take several C. S. Lewises to effect a turnabout. This may be impossible, but at least we can start with ourselves.This is not the best book for Lewis neophytes. Start with the anthology "A Mind Awake," and stick with the "Five Classics," and "Abolition of Man." Then work your way through "Weight Of Glory" and "God In The Dock."

Short essays about a variety of topics

This collection of writings about a variety of topics (published for the first time in book form) was a pleasure to read. Walter Hooper has done his usual fine job of editing these essays, which partially answer the question, "Well what other sorts of things was Lewis interested in besides literature and theology?" As the title suggests, the things that caught Lewis's attention continue to be present concerns for our world today.