Wednesday, November 02, 2005

A Severe Mercy

My noontime walk today took me up Congress Street in the direction of Cunningham Books. As I walked, I talked .. to Dad on the cell phone as I hadn't talked to him in a few days. We got to talking of CS Lewis. Apparantly he hasn't been able to find a used copy of "A Grief Observed", so I thought I just ought to take a look at Cunningham's, as I can almost always find what I want there. Not to long ago I picked up his "Letters to Children" which is a very good read. Many children wrote to him about his characters in Chronicles of Narnia. Some of the letters were children asking some pretty good moral questions of Lewis, which he answer so simply, without condescention.

I didn't find "A Grief Observed", but I did find A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, which is a marvelous story of Sheldon and his wife, who shortly after they get married dies of cancer. The book includes 18 letters from CS Lewis to Sheldon, as Sheldon attempts to deal with his wife's death. The book was written before CS Lewis was married and thus before Lewis faced the same tragedy. So - I bought the book at $6.00 (a hardcover in great shape!) and inside of 30 minutes had it packaged, addressed and mailed! The joys of working downtown....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard that books great, but I haven't read it yet? I assume you've read it?

Dana Perkins said...

Yes I have -- and if you want to borrow it, I can loan it to you when you come up Thanksgiving.

The book raised a lot of questions for me -- and I need to read it again. It is a book well worth reading.