She's alive! She's alive!

[owl]

I have been quiet lately, but not a lot has been happening here. I have just finished reading the early letters of CS Lewis. What strikes me was how much he had read and how articulate even at the age of fifteen or sixteen. I'm afraid if he met me he would think me very badly-educated, or badly-read at the least. One point is he would have been able to understand my Ulster accent!
But I remember that Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength had had an education neither classical nor scientific, but merely 'modern', and how scorned it was, and I hope that my own training in physics and mathematics would be as effective in teaching one to think as being able to read Latin and Greek. Although of course it would be nice to be able to do both, but life is not only finite but short and crowded.

Comments

[marionravenwood.livejournal.com]

Have you read Surprised by Joy? I need to reread that; it's been a long time.

I've read several collections of Lewis's letters, but I don't think I've ever seen a book of early letters. I wonder is it available in the US?

But I remember that Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength had had an education neither classical nor scientific, but merely 'modern', and how scorned it was

Surely you think your own education is scientific, if nothing else! Good grief, if you're not well educated, I hate to think what the rest of us are. (Although I feel compelled to point out that there are many ways to get an education, school only being one of them.) And anyway, it's not like Lewis liked the educational system of his era either: that was probably his point.

[owl]

Yes, I've read my copy of Surprised by Joy so many times it's falling apart.

I'm pretty sure my education counts as scientific rather than 'modern', at least the last four or five years of it. And I have read lots of English.

[emmy-roo.livejournal.com]

I don't think Mark's education was quite like yours. He probably learned how to run a lot of numbers and write a lot of essays without ever questioning the theories behind all of it. At least, that's the impression I get of his character. I've read That Hideous Strength twice now, and both times it caught me by surprise. In ninth grade, because it was densely packed with new ideas that I'd never experienced before, and in twelth grade because I realized that those ideas surround me in my everyday life, and I just never notice them. That scared the socks off me. ;)

[owl]

THS is pretty hardhitting. It's more dark and complex than the first two books in the trilogy.