Do You Remember Where You Were the Day C. S. Lewis Died?

Almost everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. However, if you ask people where they were and what they were doing the day C. S. Lewis died, they do not remember, at least not until you remind them that JFK and C. S. Lewis died on the same day-November 22, 1963. Even then some people cannot remember who C. S. Lewis was.

I remember November 22, 1963 very well, even though it has been thirty years, and I was only seven at the time. I was in school. Miss Peck was called out of our second grade classroom, and when she returned she told us that the president was shot and we were to go straight home.

On the way home, we ran, laughed and kicked leaves about. We did not understand how serious a day it was. We were just happy to get out of school early. When I got home, however, I began to realize that something was terribly wrong because even my father, A Baptist minister who strongly opposed Kennedy, was grieved.Although I had always understood, even as a child, how terrible that November day was, it wasn't until two more decades had passed that I began to realize the depth of the other loss that day-the loss of C. S. Lewis.

Lewis was a college professor and a writer with more than forty books to his credit. He was also a literary critic and Christian apologist. I had seen some of his books kicking around our house when I was a child. I can remember leafing through The Screwtape Letters and thinking what a strange book it was. My mother had read the book, and she told me a little bit about it and its author, but I wasn't fully introduced to Lewis until I began working on my B.A. in English in 1984.

Lewis was already out of favor in many university English departments, even though he had been a first-rate scholar. He was considered too traditional, too religious, too white, too male. Fortunately, there were a couple of brontosauruses in the English Department at the University at Albany who gave me the opportunity to read Lewis' A Preface to Paradise Lost and a selection from The Allegory of Love, two important critical works.

Besides literary criticism, Lewis wrote a sci-fi trilogy and a couple of other novels for adults. He dabbled in poetry, but he is best known now for writing children's books. My wife read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to our sons when they were little. The book is about four children, sent to the English countryside to escape the bombing of London in World War II. While exploring the old professor's house where they are billeted, they discover an old wardrobe. One of the children hides in the wardrobe and discovers that it leads to a land called Narnia, where it is "always winter but never Christmas" because the land is under the spell of an evil witch.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a magical book that Lewis followed up with six other magical books about Narnia, some of which have been transformed into film and shown on PBS.

Lewis meant for the Narnian series to be a Christian allegory. For example, Aslan the lion, who freed the land of Narnia from the curse of eternal winter, represents Jesus. The very subtle nature of allegory, however, often makes it impossible for the reader to see the allegorical aspects of the book.

During the early part of his career, Lewis could not have written The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because he was an atheist. After Lewis' conversion to Christianity, a conversion took place over several years, he went on to write not only books in which his religion was only implied but also several works that were overtly Christian, including such classics as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters and The Problem of Pain. These books, along with Lewis' radio addresses over the BBC, were enormously influential in his time. Even today they are quite popular and are reprinted often.

Trends in literary criticism change as often as trends in fashion, but when it comes to religion, people never stop asking the same questions. Is there a God? If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world? Is there really a purpose for my being on this planet? Is this life all there is?

Lewis attempted to answer some of these questions. He never completely succeeded. Who has? Nevertheless, his answers have brought comfort and hope over the years, not only to Christians of various denominations, but to non-Christians as well.

Lewis died quite peacefully of natural causes. There are no bloody images of his death, no Zapruder films, no conspiracy theories.

It is understandable that most people will continue to remember November 22, 1963 as the day President Kennedy died. I will too, but I will also continue to remember it as the day we lost a great scholar and writer, a scholar and writer who even now is influencing a generation of readers who cannot remember November 22, 1963.