Into the Wardrobe

Hello,

I've been looking through several books trying to find something I remember Lewis having written about his taste in literature. Essentially what I recall is that he said that he used to be a literary snob. He read "the classics," and would have thought it beneath him to read popular or "fluff" fiction. However, he came to believe that one should read what one wants to read, without any pretensions getting in the way.

Does anyone know where I could find this quote? I've been looking through On Stories and An Experiment in Criticism, but no luck yet.

Thanks.

He wrote to Arthur Greeves on the 14th of June 1916:
"... And you ought to rely more on yourself than on anyone else in matters of books- that is if you are out for enjoyment and not for improvement or any nonsense of that sort..."

You'll find it in Letters of C.S.Lewis, Edited by Walter Hooper.
I hope that is what you are looking for!

I agree with Lewis about not being a "book snob", but then I've sometimes started a book with snobbish motives only to find that I really like the book for itself and that I find it very enjoyable. Shakespeare was like that for me, and Milton.

One might like to have a huge hardback illustrated antique edition of 'The Iliad' sitting on one's coffee table for all the company to see, but it's no good unless one has actually read it and has actually enjoyed reading it.

Read on, book snobs! Read on! You'll grow out of that snobbishness eventually.

Remember that he also spoke of not reading 2 new books in a row without reading an old book in between them.

It doesn't pertain particularly to literature but there is something to that effect in Letter 13 of the Screwtape Letters. I find myself of much the same 'snobbish' mentality. There are so many classics to get through. And each classic offers the authors' own influences to seek out later. For example now I have to read all of George MacDonald's books. And I'm sure MacDonald will lead me to someone else. I just don't have time to read contemporary fiction.

In chapter 7 of Surprised by Joy Lewis writes:

"I was, for example, a great reader of Shaw about the time I went to Wyvern, but I had never dreamed that reading Shaw was anything to be proud of. Shaw was an author on my father's shelves like any other author. ... But how his reputation stood in the literary world I neither knew nor cared; I didn't know there was a "literary world." ... It was the same with all my other reading; no one (thank God) had ever admired or encouraged it."

This passage goes on to tell how, in what he likens to a fall from innocence, he became "a Prig, a High-Brow" about his literary tastes.

But I get the impression that he always read only for his own enjoyment, without regard for an author's reputation. For example, he says at some point that he enjoyed the novels of Rider Haggard, which were in some circles considered "low-brow" reading, but I can't recall where this was.

Might be a bit late, but I just finished reading a chapter in the "C.S.Lewis Essay Collection" entitled "High and Low Brows" that discusses the classification of literature.

Surely High and Low Brows fills the bill, Liz.
Welcome to the Wardrobe, btw.

Thanks everyone for your replies! I haven't been around home much lately, but I'll look some of those up as soon as I get the chance. I have a lot of Lewis' works lying around.