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Joy and C.S. Lewis
Joy and C. S. The Story of an Extraordinary Marriage
184 pages, Paperback
Published March 17, 1994
23 people want to read
About the author
Lyle Wesley Dorsett
41 books26 followersLyle W. Dorsett received his B.A. in history (1960) and M.A. in history (1962) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Missouri-Columbia (1965). He began his teaching career at the University of Missouri, moving briefly to the Univ. of Southern California and University of Colorado at Denver, before he joined the history department at the University of Denver.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 24, 2018
(1) Joy and C. S. Lewis - by Lyle W. Dorsett
Sub-titled The Story of an Extraordinary Marriage
I had never heard of Joy Davidman. She is the heroine of this story - a genius who nevertheless went from one state of bigotry to another - from a belief in the infallibility of Stalin to that of Christianity.
If you can be so tolerant as to overlook the absurdities of orthodox Christianity - its primitive theme of human sacrifice (as if Iphigeneia wasn’t enough!) and its daydream of eternal life and reunion with loved ones - then you can empathise with the sorrows and joys of these two great people.
(Basically what moved Joy to revere Jesus was his character - and I can go along with that all the way to the border of the supernatural. )
And for a romantic like me, a great love story is everything, and this is it.
Also it meets my most important need - it's highly readable.
Sub-titled The Story of an Extraordinary Marriage
I had never heard of Joy Davidman. She is the heroine of this story - a genius who nevertheless went from one state of bigotry to another - from a belief in the infallibility of Stalin to that of Christianity.
If you can be so tolerant as to overlook the absurdities of orthodox Christianity - its primitive theme of human sacrifice (as if Iphigeneia wasn’t enough!) and its daydream of eternal life and reunion with loved ones - then you can empathise with the sorrows and joys of these two great people.
(Basically what moved Joy to revere Jesus was his character - and I can go along with that all the way to the border of the supernatural. )
And for a romantic like me, a great love story is everything, and this is it.
Also it meets my most important need - it's highly readable.
September 6, 2024
The cover of my copy of this book has a banner "as featured in the film shadowlands", which incidentally is a brilliant film but in this context is a slight push as while indeed the subject matter is the same these are two very different accounts.
This book , shortish at some 147 pages, covers the marriage of Joy Davidman to C.S Lewis. It looks at her background, early life and political / religious beliefs, moving from Communism to Christianity and some of her work. It is less a biography of either her or Lewis in which respect it is distinctly lacking but the marriage, which is fair enough to a degree given the book is "the story of an extraordinary marriage" but it just feels too short and skirting over matters both chronologically and in themes.
It does presuppose knowledge of C.S Lewis and his works (beyond Narnia) , all in all I found this book to be underwhelming.
This book , shortish at some 147 pages, covers the marriage of Joy Davidman to C.S Lewis. It looks at her background, early life and political / religious beliefs, moving from Communism to Christianity and some of her work. It is less a biography of either her or Lewis in which respect it is distinctly lacking but the marriage, which is fair enough to a degree given the book is "the story of an extraordinary marriage" but it just feels too short and skirting over matters both chronologically and in themes.
It does presuppose knowledge of C.S Lewis and his works (beyond Narnia) , all in all I found this book to be underwhelming.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews