Not a Tame Lion by Terry Glaspey

Author:Terry Glaspey [Glaspey, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

As Lewis grew older, his love of reading did not ebb. His early correspondence with his friend, Arthur Greeves, is largely taken up with the discussion of the books which each of them were reading. It was only natural that several of the stages on the way to his conversion were inaugurated by the reading of a book that greatly affected him. As he later wrote, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere.”2

Many of these traps lie in those old books which have so profoundly affected our world. Lewis greatly valued the classics. He believed that it was the timeless books which are best able to deal with the real issues of our own time. “The more up to date the book is, the sooner it will be dated.”3 For that reason, Lewis suggested spending the bulk of one’s reading time on those books that had established themselves as truly worthy of attention. Instead of the latest additions to the bestseller lists, he recommended spending our reading time with the time-honored greats. Many people steer clear of the classics for fear that they are irrelevant or too difficult. But the classics are neither. Granted, many of the classic books require a little more concentration than the latest fiction bestseller, but it is a concentration that will pay real dividends in terms of understanding. Not only do the great books help us to understand the past, they also awaken a deeper understanding of the present. That is why Lewis was adamant about people making the classics a part of their personal reading program. “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one for every three new ones.”4

One of Lewis’s passionate convictions about books was that the very best books need to be read and reread throughout one’s life. It won’t do to make your way through a book such as Dante’s Divine Comedy and then check it off your list as an accomplishment on the way to being “well-read.” Lewis believed that we lose a great deal by only reading a book once. We must revisit the great books again and again throughout our lives, for they will always have something new to teach us. As he wrote, “The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argument against reading a work…. Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty, or thirty times during the course of their life.”5

Lewis approached his reading as an adventure of discovery. He did not content himself with a cursory scanning of the pages, but instead carefully studied the books he read, marking significant passages and pausing to thoroughly understand their arguments. This was especially helpful with a more difficult book.

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