First Encounter with C.S. Lewis?

[Adam Linton]

I thought that I would ask Wardrobians of their first encounter with a writing by Lewis.

Mine is probably a little unusual: Out of the Silent Planet. The year was 1965; I was eleven years old. My father had taken me to the old Tides bookstore in Sausalito, California with the promise to buy me any one book that I wanted (within reason). He somewhat encouraged me to choose something which would stretch my reading a bit. I found the Space Trilogy paperbacks, was interested -- and attempted, unsuccesfully, to make the case that since the three were a set, they could be counted as one. A single volume it would have to be. After wandering the Tides for a while to make sure what I wanted, selected my book. It was the rather greenish cover with the spherical vessel on the front. I read and enjoyed it. A year or so later I started on the Narnia Chronicles.

I didn't continue with the Space Trilogy until college; just as well, as I wouldn't have been ready when younger. My experience of Perelandra then (1973) was one of my most significant reading experiences ever.

Other stories?

Adam Linton

[john]

3rd grade, when my teacher read the class The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Never thought of it again, however, until I two years later when my parents bought me the complete set for Christmas. I read it three or four times during my childhood, then was reintroduced to C. S. Lewis in a university class I took called Philosophy and Religious Thought where we read Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce.

[Bill]

[Crusader]

I have mere christianity and screwtape letters under way.

I was looking for christian books and came a cross with C. S. Lewis, it feels like destiny now. :)

[Karen]

I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was about 11. I liked it, but didn't get any of the Christian allusions, and proceeded to the next book, which bored me to tears. I never gave Lewis another thought until I was almost 40 and beginning to explore Christianity. I bought Mere Christianity, was bowled over, and have since read a great deal of his nonfiction. Needless to say, Lewis was a major factor in my becoming a Christian.

[.Ælfgifu.]

My Dad read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe aloud to myself and my brother when I was about seven and my brother five. I ran away in the middle, because I felt so horrible about what Edmund was doing when he scribbled on the face of the stone lion in the Witch's courtyard. It wasn't until a couple of years later when our uncle gave us a beautiful set of hardbacks with the Pauline Baynes illustrations all the way through, that I started reading them again and loved them. Later on when I started borrowing my Dad's Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke he told me I ought to read the Space Trilogy and sounded so keen that I eventually did so. After that I borrowed and bought every other Lewis book I could get my hands on.

[magpie]

I was given a copy of The Screwtape Letters when I was in graduate school. Shortly thereafter I "fell in love" with The Great Divorce which, along with Mere Christianity, greatly helped me sort out some very difficult issues in my personal life. I only read CoN at a much later date after I saw an animated versionn of LWW on TV.

[Guest]

I was 21 when I read Lewis for the first time, but that's because I did know much about him. As I walked through the science fiction section of the library I kept encountering a green hardcover book with gold lettering on the side called "The Cosmic Trilogy" by some Lewis fellow, but never picked it up. I was also (I was in Primary School still) looking for the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander which I really wanted to read but kept running into more books by this Lewis fellow, a box-set for some place called Narnia and I though "Wrong Chronicles". And idea of them falling through a wardrobe was not (so much for blurbs) was not encouraging.

I then went through a puritan "all fantasy is evil phase" and avoided all things fantastic. Then, while going through a Christian bookshop one day with my friends, I came across the Narnian Chronicles again in the fiction section. I did not know Lewis was a Christian and the idea of such a Christian book shop having fantasy was strange. A year later I bought "The Screwtape Letters" and "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" and began my CS Lewis binge. I bought my single volume of the Chronicles and took them on a vacation with me, reading them. I checked out the green volume of the "Cosmic Trilogy" and began reading the it after I tired a bit from Narnia. I read "Out of the Silent Planet" and began Perelandra and got so darn confused that I gave it up and began reading "That Hideous Strength". After that I returned to Narnia and finished "The Silver Chair" and "The Last Battle". I ended my CS Lewis binge with "Surprised by Joy" which I love and think about often. From there I went on to Chesterton. :D and some other reads that I enjoy.

Not long after finishing "The Chronicles" and "Surprised" I joined the Wardrobe. What a great year 2002 was...

[Leslie]

[Colleen]

I encountered Lewis twice in the years between becoming a christian at 12 and going off to college at 18. I'm not totally sure of the chronology of the two encounters, but I believe the Chronicles came first. I was at a summer christian camp. The minister who was the director announced that he would be reading a book called The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to any interested campers each evening after dark. I couldn't resist a story; it turned out to be one of the best I'd heard.

I can't remember how long it took me to discover the rest of the Chronicles. Did I search for them right after camp? Or was it when I was a newly married secretary who had time to read at her desk that I finally read the series? I'm not sure.

I am sure that I found Mere Christianity in our high school library, along with several other good apologetic books. Much of MC was beyond me, but the basics were clear and convincing.

Thank God for Reid, the camp director, wherever he is today. And for whoever put those christian books in the school library.

In grace,
Colleen

[pjb0015]

[AslansGirl]

[A#minor]

[Colleen]

[ECM]