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It is astonishing how little attention critics have paid to Story considered in itself. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Lewis was a great scholar and critic, immensely well read in several languages and with remarkable powers of analysis and reflection. Above all, though, he had the combined gifts of astonishing imaginative receptiveness, a luminously clear and direct prose style, and clear-headed common sense. He makes literature live in his writing because it lived for him. He had the ability to convey his thoughts and feelings, however subtle, delicate and unexpected they might be, in a clear, vivid way that makes reading some passages in these essays almost as thrilling as reading a gripping poem or novel.
His reflections on criticism and taste in reading and his thoughts on the special value and power of different kinds of fantasy fiction are cogent and illuminating.
To aid readers, in this review I've listed the works in this collection, with notes indicating other collections they have appeared in. Where a work has appeared under more than one title, I give both titles separated by a slash.
Table of Contents:
"On Stories" / "The Kappa Element in Romance" (1), (2)
"The Novels of Charles Williams" (2)
"A Tribute to E. R. Eddison" (2)
"On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1), (2)
"Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said" (1), (2)
"On Juvenile Tastes" (1), (2)
"It All Began with a Picture ..." (1), (2)
"On Science Fiction" (1), (2)
"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1)
"The Hobbit" (2)
"Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings'" / "The Gods Return to Earth" & "The Dethronement of Power" (2)
"A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers" (2)
"The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard" / "Haggard Rides Again" (2)
"George Orwell" (2)
"The Death of Words" (2)
"The Parthenon and the Optative" (2)
"Period Criticism" (2)
"Different Tastes in Literature" (2)
"On Criticism" (1), (2)
"Unreal Estates" / "The establishment must die and rot ..." (1), (2)
Notes:
(1) also published in "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories"
(2) also published in "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces"
Recommendations:
I don't really recommend this book as a first choice.
What do I recommend?
In general, to anyone interested in Lewis's shorter works, my best advice is to get "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces", which, as of the time of this writing, is available from Amazon UK but not Amazon US. That collection consists of about 130 short works by Lewis. Although the works in that collection are mostly Christian, they also include almost everything in this collection, plus Lewis's short science fiction and fantasy from "The Dark Tower and Other Stories".
If your interest in Lewis's shorter works is restricted to literary criticism, and your budget or enthusiasm does not run to "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces", then my second-best advice is to go ahead and get this collection, and possibly "The Dark Tower and Other Stories" as well (Lewis's short science fiction and fantasy).
Fans of Lewis's science fiction who are on a really tight budget may prefer my third-best advice, which is to get "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories", which contains about half of this collection plus the best of Lewis's short science fiction.
Finally, those interested in Lewis's literary criticism will be interested in the following collections, neither of which overlap with each other or have significant coverage in "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces":
"Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature"
"Selected Literary Essays"*
* ...very hard to come by, but it largely consists of essays unavailable in any other collection.
fantasy and science fiction stories. Many of the essays contained in this volume originally appeared in the magazine
Time and Tide, while others appeared in a variety of regional magazines. The nineteen essays cover such topics as
fairy stories, juvenile fiction, period criticism, and science fiction, plus the writers E. R. Eddison, H. Rider Haggard,
Dorothy Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.
The title essay sets the tone for the bulk of the essays in this volume.
Lewis takes issue with the critics who downplay the genre of Romance and instead
prefer realism and character development in their novels. While excitement
is important in this genre, Lewis notes that elements such as atmosphere,
ideas and imagery are equally important or more so. Lewis argues these other elements
are what cause people to re-read the classic Romances; the initial excitement is gone, but the
other facets of the story provide opportunities for discovery and wonderment for the reader.
His reviews of the writers mentioned above, while glowingly positive and supportive, are balanced
in that he also notes their shortcomings. For example, while he praises Haggard for being a
mythopoetic storyteller, he notes the man could not or would not write, and worse yet, he tried
to philosophize. With Tolkien, he saw problems in the opening chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, and
notes how all the characters can be split between good and evil.
In other essays Lewis lays out rules he feels reviewers should follow. One of the most
important Lewis argues is that the reviewer must like the subject he is reviewing. Hating
a subject does not allow one to do an objective review. Lewis also feels that it is improper
for the critic to play amateur psychologist since s/he has not had the opportunity
question the author directly, nor are they trained psychologists.
Other important criteria are: 1) honesty in the review; 2) giving formal cause
on why something is "bad"; 3) using words and language properly.
This is an intelligently written book that is a welcome relief to much of the
literary criticism being produced today. Lewis writes in a clear,
elegant style, and does not hide behind jargon.
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