C.S.
Lewis is easily my favorite author, and it’s entirely possible I over-reference
him. I often find myself prefacing such references to friends and family alike
by saying “I know I used a Lewis quote last time, but it really, really applies.”
It may not be the same for everyone—nor do I expect it to be—but something
about how Lewis thinks and communicates resonates deeply and effectively with
me.
As
a result of this, I’m always happy to find that there’s more Lewis out there as
yet unread by me. Some years ago I was running my eyes over the books in a
bookstore and saw “The Pilgrim’s Regress” by C.S. Lewis. I was very intrigued.
Now, I have never read Pilgrim’s Progress (to my shame. It’s on the list) but I
know the story from various sources: children’s books, general Christian pop
culture, and—believe it or not—an old radio program called “Adventure’s in
Odyssey.” Eventually I bought “The Pilgrim’s Regress” and told myself that I
was not allowed to read it until I had read the Bunyan book, that I might
better understand them both.
My
discipline failed, and this last year I broke down, skipped ahead and read “The
Pilgrim’s Regress.” Twice. This is not one of Lewis’ more popular books…and understandably
so. It is very obscure. But I love it and come now to advocate on its behalf,
despite the fact that it is very particular and thick. Lewis himself
wrote an afterword in a later edition marking the presence of “needless
obscurity and an uncharitable temper.” He added to it summaries of the
allegorical intent and explanations of certain terms which were clear to him,
but became unknown to later generations, so that the meanings would be rather
more accessible to the readers.
There
is, in fact, a helpful manual for this book which does much to clarify it…but
it is not “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is “Surprised by Joy.” “The Pilgrim’s
Regress” is essentially the story of Lewis’ conversion to Christianity…allegory-style.
The obscurities are due to philosophical musing and encounters that Lewis
personally experienced, and which are not necessarily universal, or currently
widespread in education. The book also has much Greek, Latin, and French and
draws upon a greater body of literature and philosophy than I may ever hope to
consume in my entire life. There are a few unfortunate metaphors used by C.S.
Lewis which smack of Euro- and Ethnocentrism (though, I think, not as badly as
some might suspect), and several references to specific trends of the 1920’s
and 1930’s. Thus, this book was something of an effort.
But
it was worth the effort, and I feel compelled to explain why.
THE
TALE
Told
as a dream—dreamt by an unnamed narrator—the story follows John, starting from
his youth in the land of Puritania (Which is traditional Christianity or
perhaps, more accurately, nominal Christianity) and on to his travels
throughout the land depicted in the map below:
A
few major things define John’s youth: 1. the fear of the Landlord (God as
described by parents and clergy alike) and of the great “Black Hole” (Hell as
described by the very same), 2. The hypocritical behavior of the Puritanians,
and…3. Something which he calls “The Island” or “Sweet Desire.” Sweet Desire
comes when one day he looks out and sees an Island which fills him with such
longing that, if nothing else in all the world, he longs to long for it.
The search for this Island leads him away from the rote Christianity of his
youth and towards many dead ends: lust, sensuality, and sentimentality.
It
leads him further through many of the beliefs and philosophies of both the current
age, and of all ages, as John tries to capture his Sweet Desire through
Romanticism (Called “Mr. Halfways in this story…ostensibly because he only gets
you halfway there?), as it is nearly killed by Freudianism which attempts to
distill us down to very much less than the sum of our parts, then as John (and
his Desire) are subsequently rescued by the armor-clad woman Reason,
cultivated by the old man Wisdom—father of many philosophers—informed by the
hermit History, and finally brought face-to-face with the fact of God, forced
by Reason to follow the path towards him. (Of course he could have fought reason,
but then he knew he would have fallen with her.)
John’s
traveling companion for the majority of his journey is a man by the name of
Vertue whose allegorical office lies explicitly in his name. Vertue stands in
intended contrast to John. John is driven by desire. Vertue is driven by moral
will. The two are often at odds and drawn in different directions, and John
parts with Vertue on occasion. John is less concerned with the Landlord’s rules
(God’s Law/Morality), and more concerned with finding his beautiful Island.
Vertue doggedly, calmly follows the rules, knowing them to be written in the
skin of the earth. The only time when Vertue falls—at which time Virtue must be
carried by Desire—is when he witnesses the coming nihilism of the peoples of
“Marxomanni—Mussolimini, Swastici…”
This
book was published in 1933, but Lewis did not feel any express need to heavily veil
with metaphor the danger he saw posed by the “revolutionary sub-men of the Left
or the Right.” He portrays them as a return to barbarism, causing Vertue
himself (itself) to take ill.
The
allegorical style gives great room for analysis of philosophy, theology, and of
Lewis’ very specific intellectual and spiritual path towards conversion. There
is so much being said, that I will not try to get it all down here—rather I
will simply examine a few of the driving points in the story which most struck
me and encouraged me to read ahead the first time despite “Pilgrim’s Progress”
and read the entire thing aloud to my husband the second time, and to now try
and convince as many of my family members and friends as possible to read it,
so that I can discuss it with them!
THE
VERY SHARPEST EDGES
Sweet
Desire:
For
anyone who has felt that piercing, painful Sweet Desire, the drive John feels
to seek it out will easily be understood. Unlike Vertue, who seeks to do right
for right’s sake and disdain’s the idea of obeying on behalf of punishment or
reward, John is swayed by this desire both below and above Vertue. When Vertue
sees Savage Nihilism and falls ill, it is John who must carry him—though he was
always the weaker and less willful of the two—for Desire has not died by
hearing of depravity.
The
trouble with Sweet Desire is that we so easily mistake lesser things for its
satisfaction. Then we often become disappointed and confused that the “Desire”
has failed us, or wasn’t all it seemed it should be in that moment.
But
“It comes from the Landlord (God),” old man History tells John. “We know this
by its results. It has brought you to where you now are: and nothing leads back
to him which did not at first proceed from him.”
Reason
Defeats Freudian Philosophy:
One
of the darker sections of the story occurs when John and Vertue part ways, and
John finds himself imprisoned by a Giant. Having had his hopes disappointed by
Mr. Halfways and his daughter, Media, John realizes that Romanticism is not
quite the solution to his question about the Island. John then runs into
“Sigismund Enlightenment” (or New Enlightenment) who explains to him that all
his desires are merely wish-fulfillment dreams. New Enlightenment claims that
“the Island was the pretense that you put up to conceal your own lusts from
yourself.”
John
is imprisoned by this philosophy which causes him to see himself and his fellow
man as nothing more than their innards and sinews and fluids, for the Giant who
holds them hostage makes everything “transparent.” The Philosophy desires to
ever “uncover” us to our basest, rawest form and, in so doing, makes each man a
horrifying concoction of parts to one another and dark or meaningless to himself.
John decides that, though he had doffed the belief in a Landlord and a Black
Hole, this new philosophy—if true—makes all the world a Black Hole and all men
and women residents in it, whether they know it or not.
Then
comes Reason: “…a woman in the flower of her age: she was so tall that she
seemed to [John] a Titaness, a sun-bright virgin clad in complete steel, with a
sword naked in her hand.”
The
Giant bids her pass out of his land with all haste. But she will none. She asks
him three riddles that, because of his philosophy, he cannot answer. Then she
plunges her sword into his heart and defeats him.
She
proceeds then to explain to John that the New Enlightenment makes three grave
errors of reason. First they say that higher things are the copies or covers of
lower things (love a copy of lust, or sweet desire a veil for lust). But how
can they tell which is the copy and which is the original? Is not the original
normally the higher? An oil painting is better than a print, and lamplight much
dimmer than sunlight.
Second,
she explains the trouble of our foul-looking innards, which so bothered John
and made him feel that all was base and vile forever: “He [The Giant”] showed
you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible…But
in the real world our inwards are invisible…the warmth in your limbs at this
moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in…these are the reality:
all the sponges and tubes that you saw in the dungeon are the lie”
(John
is unconvinced): “But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.”
“A
man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you
would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly. But
the Giant made you believe that life is ugly.”
Though
she reminds John of some truth mixed in the Giant’s trick—for here our innards
represent both themselves and our basest thoughts and desires—“it will do you
no harm to remember from time to time the ugly sights inside. You come of a
race that cannot afford to be proud.”
Reason’s
final killing blow against the Giant is simple. He believes in the doctrine of
wish-fulfillment while failing to acknowledge that, for many, the idea that
there is no God, no moral law, and no hell would be the wish, and
Freudian enlightenment the fulfillment. New Enlightenment does not wish to
apply to itself its own doctrine.
And
so, by aid of Reason, John passes through “Darkest Zeitgeistheim” and the
chains of the Spirit of the Age are broken off of him.
John
and Vertue
Lewis
makes a point that John and Vertue must ultimately travel together. John, it is
implied, comes of Pagan blood…thus the Landlord reaches out to him with Sweet
Desire, and images of an island (images that are often, sadly, turned into
Pagan idols). Vertue is hinted to have come of the “Shepherd People” (the
Jews). Since the Shepherd People were able to read, they were given rules,
rather than images.
“But
who wants rules instead of islands?” asks John.
“That
is like asking who wants cooking instead of dinner,” explains History, who is
an old Hermit retiring from the world. He says that the Shepherds were made to
begin at the right end, rather than suffering through cycles of mistaking
images for reality, and feeling desire followed by despair.
“But
were the Shepherds not just as bad in their own way? Is it not true that they
were illiberal, narrow, bigoted?”
“They
were narrow. The thing they had charge of was narrow; it was the Road.
They found it. They sign-posted it. They kept it clear and repaired it…”
History
tells John that he must swear blood-brotherhood with Vertue for each the Pagan
and the Shepherd is only half a man without the other, and only one—the
Landlord’s Son—can reconcile them. So John and his Desire must be reconciled
with Vertue and his Moral Will.
Nihilism
as three steps North of Humanism
A
short but valid point that is as relevant now as it was almost eighty years ago
when this was written: John meets in his travels North, a certain fellow named
Humanist. I agree with the assessment that Lewis puts forth that Humanism is an
intellectually dishonest philosophy. It goes almost all the way along
the road of eschewing religion, faith and origins of moral principles (other
than “society” or “self”). It wants to get down to the bare essentials of
humanity and live at that, but does not want to acknowledge that under
such principles as have just been mentioned humans are simply animals, and have
every freedom to act as such.
Though
the Humanist of Lewis’ day was certainly colder and harder than his current heirs,
Lewis says something very powerful and very true when he places Mr. Humanist
only a few steps away from total Nihilism, even calling it more foolish
than nihilism. Humanist attends the needs of posterity? “And who will posterity
build for?” Asks Savage nihilism. “If all men who try to build are but
polishing the brasses on a sinking ship, then your pale friends [Humanist and
his two friends, Neo-Angular and Neo-Classical] are the supreme fools who
polish with the rest though they know and admit that the ship is sinking. Their
Humanism and whatnot is but the old dream with a new name. The rot in the world
is too deep and the leak in the world is too wide. Better give in. Better cut
the wood with the grain. If I am to live in a world of destruction let me be
its agent and not its patient.”
And
but for the fact of the Landlord, Savage would indeed be right.
Northern
and Southern Diseases of the Soul
The
aforementioned Savage resides in the extreme North of the allegorical land. It
is a place of frigid, barren rock. To the extreme South live the witches and
magicians, and it is a festering swamp. The “North” of this story and the
“South” of it represent two equal and opposite falls from Grace. Lewis calls
them the Northern and Southern diseases of the soul. I found this aspect of the
story so poignant that this is actually the second time I have mentioned it in
this blog. Briefly, both John and Vertue have to fight the Northern and
Southern dragons after they have together taken the plunge (given themselves up
for Christ). John must fight the Northern dragon because John has the Southern
disease in him, as he was always driven by sensation and feeling, and was
weak-willed. Fighting the Northern dragon will gain him toughness of mind and
body which he desperately needs to keep to the road.
Vertue
must fight the Southern dragon because he suffers from Northern pride and
rigidness. If the “Southerners” sink wholly into the flesh, the “Northerners”
try madly to scrape it all off to the bone. By fighting the Southern dragon
Vertue gains fire—passion and raucous joy. These are the things regarding which
his moral will was so wary, but now he may freely enjoy.
In
summary, the extremes and follies of mankind are not new, they are old, and
both are falls. They are not thought up, they are reacted to:
“Widespread drunkenness is the father of Prohibition and Prohibition of
widespread drunkenness,” Lewis claims in his afterword.
“With
both the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ a man has, I take it, only one concern—to
avoid them and hold the Main Road. We must not ‘hearken to the over-wise or to
the over-foolish giant’. We were made to be neither cerebral men nor visceral
men, but Men. Not beasts nor angels but Men—things at once rational and animal.”
If
it sounds like Lewis wants to have his cake and eat it too, I think that’s
exactly correct. The crucial point is that he also claims there is only one
means by which such a thing is possible…and in order to do that thing, one must
first give up the cake, the eating of it, and everything else: the self’s
desires and the self’s will.
Last
Note: Why is it the Pilgrim’s Regress? It refers chiefly to what happens
after conversion…to living in the world and traversing back through it, only
now seeing it with the veils lifted.
