I'm having great fun with Letters of C. S. Lewis. It's been savagely edited by Lewis's brother. This might disappoint a serious fan, but with the dross removed we're left with witty, perceptive observations on books and life. This is from a letter to his brother dated December 12, 1927:
I have done very little reading outside my work these last months. In Oman's Dark Ages I have come up against a thing I had almost forgotten since my school days — the boundless self-assurance of the pure text book. "The four brothers were all worthy sons of their wicked fathers &mdash: destitute of natural affection, cruel, lustful, and treacherous" — Louis the Pous was "a man of blameless and virtuous habits" — tho' every other sentence in the chapter makes it clear that he was a four leter man. "Charles had one lamentable failing — he was too careless of the teachings of Christianity about the relations of the sexes". It is so nice too, to be told without a hint of doubt ho was in the right and who was in the wrong in every controversy, and exactly why everyone did what he did. Yet Oman is quite right; that is the way — I suppose — to write an introduciton to a subject. . . . I am almost coming to the conclusion that all histories are bad. Whenever one turns from the historian to the writings of the people he deals with, there is always such a difference.Posted by Ben Brumfield at February 9, 2007 06:31 AM