Into the Wardrobe

I'm surprised I didn't come across this quote sooner- I've been reading Lewis for some time now- but does anyone know what book/essay/letter the quote "You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body" comes from?

Much obliged for any help on this...

We've actually had this question a few times. It's not a Lewis quote, although it is frequently misattributed to him.

It is found in A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller.

Thanks, Leslie! I was wondering why I couldn't find it...any other famous "Lewis" quotes to look out for?

Ha! Well, okay then. I'll send the same memo to our President.

checked out/bought Miller's book on Amazon- looks like a fascinating read! Hopefully I won't miscomprehend it! (pokes John)

It'll seem pretty dated now. It's considered a seminal work of science fiction, but...meh.

Well, dated ... yes, it's about the world after a nuclear catastrophe, so you get terms like fallout, and concerns with strontium and cesium - but although we give that a low priority these days, the possibility hasn't gone away. More seriously, it assumes that Latin will continue to be the language of the Catholic Church. Otherwise, however, it deals with some serious issues, such as the transmission of knowledge, the responsibility of scientists, "mercy killing" and that thar old Problem of Pain - among other things. It also has a number of well-drawn characters, and a certain amount of humour, and it reads pretty fluently. Try it sometime.

I just found it really heavy-handed. But then I'm not a science fiction fan. I felt the same way about Stranger in a Strange Land - yeesh.

At the risk of turning Karen inside out, I'll say that I would put Miller's CfL right up there with Brideshead Revisited. It is a simply terrific book. We just re-read it aloud a couple months ago and it was as good as ever. (in fact, as I think about it, it really does have some of the same sort of ironic humor as Waugh has in BR -- hmm...curious. I can think of some of the conversations between the abbot and Thon Taddeo and others that strike me as having a similar tone to those between the priest and Rex Mottram)

--Stanley

My d-d-d-dear, we shall just have to agree to disagree, agreeably.

I'm not fond of most science fiction either, but I like Canticle for Liebowitz a lot. I first read it for high school English, and I reread it regularly.