Genealogy Books - Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: It's an Autobiography
Comment: The book clearly states that it is an "autobiography of C.S. Lewis's stepson". What part about that
do some of you readers not get?!! If you ever saw the movie, "Shadowlands", you would definitely
enjoy this book! I was left wondering what happened to Joy's little boy at the end of the movie
and I found this book breathtaking to hear what he did with the rest of his life. No, maybe he
didn't do anything "extravagent" (whatever that means to different people), but he did become a
christian and is living his life following Jesus. THAT is what is important!!

I
loved the book! And whether you are a C.S. Lewis fan or not, you can enjoy and appreciate the
writings of Douglas Gresham because he in fact was closer to C.S. Lewis than any of us!!

Customer Rating:

Summary: a real story
Comment: Like several previous reviewers, when I started Lenten Lands, I expected more about Jack and Joy
Lewis themselves, but found that Lenten Lands is actually Doug Gresham's autobiography. But unlike
several previous reviewers, although I am an ardent Lewis fan, I found Lenten Lands to be a touching
story and would recommend it heartily even if it contained no reference to Lewis at all. Gresham's
writing is open, honest, and straight from the heart. It is very real and full of anecdotes that
make you laugh, incidents that make you cry, and scenes that contain a bit of both.
I also
felt that Lenten Lands had a perspective on Lewis, even if it wasn't a central part of the book,
that I do not get from other biographies. Gresham saw a personal side of his stepfather that other
biographers don't have.
I can't recommend this book enough, whether you are a Lewis fan or
simply looking for a good read.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Douglas or Jack or Joy...
Comment: Whomever the book is about... The title clearly indicates, but does tend to make most think it is
primarily about Lewis and Joy. At any rate, it comes across as readable but dry. It seems to be
about a boy lost in a confusing life filled with loss who then seeks desperately for his own worth.
Sadly he seems to find his worth mostly in who his mother and stepfather were. If that is the sort
of story you seek, then this is your book.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A charming story.
Comment: Unlike some reviewers, I found Lenten Lands well-written, poignant, and honest, though it dies a bit
towards the end. (As auto-biographies often do -- if the author doesn't die first, like Moses.) I
am not sure why some reviewers complain that Douglas chose to tell his story, even if his memories
of Lewis were not as full, say, as George Sayers, and he has lived a fairly simple, even blue-color,
life at times. Greshem's descriptions of growing up, the houses he lived in, taking the boat to
England, London and Oxford, and the Kilns, were all interesting to me, though as a fan of Lewis I
was of course anticipating scenes of his life. Greshem brings nature, his feelings, the drama of
watching his mother come to love C. S. Lewis and the love returned, then her death, to life. The
scene in which his dying but still fiercely defensive mother confronts a trespasser with a shotgun,
C. S. Lewis standing alarmed at her side, and yells, "Get out of my line of fire, Jack!", and the
scenes that follow, made me laugh for a fair chunk of an hour.

I didn't expect this book to all
be about Lewis; hasn't he had enough pure biographies already? I was pleased to learn much more
about Joy, whom Douglas and "Jack" both greatly loved. (Having read her Smoke on the Mountain, I
agree she had talent and insight -- though Douglas' claim that she was an intellectual match for
Lewis should be described as filial, I think.) Lenten Lands seemed to me an honest and thoughtful
story, and I found myself reading it very quickly.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A decade with C.S. Lewis, up close and personal.
Comment: No true die-hard student of C.S. Lewis can pass on a reading of this book, and here's why:

Lenten Lands provides a perspective of Lewis that you can get nowhere else... the perspective of
a stepson.
There are many books about Lewis the academician, Lewis the lay-theologian... Lewis
the prolific author/poet... but a first-hand account of Lewis the around-the-house stepdad? Trust
me, you will find THAT nowhere but here!
And it's an important perspective, this day-to-day life
at the Kilns in Oxford, because many misconceptions about Lewis are cleared up in the midst of
Douglas Gresham's recollections.
As other reviewers have noted, this is technically a biography
of Douglas Gresham rather than of C.S. Lewis. The opening chapters are of the Gresham family in
Staatsburg, New York. Then, in 1953, as a child, Douglas met Lewis for the first time in Oxford. By
this time, Joy Davidman (Douglas' mother) was already acquainted with Lewis. Three years later
(1956) the two were married in the Registry Office, but not before Joy's illness was already fairly
advanced. The following year (1957) their vows are re-instated by the Rev. Peter Bide in
Wingfield-Morris Hospital. Three years later Joy dies from cancer.
Then, three years after this,
on a somber November evening while eighteen-year-old Douglas is still digesting the fact that
President Kennedy has just been assassinated, he receives the news that Lewis has died.
"On that
day... there was a bitter stillness about the world; for the second time in my life everything I
knew, everything I held dear and the one person I loved had been swept away." I found this portion
of the book to be especially moving.
The following year (1964) Douglas' birth father commits
suicide.
A few final chapters tell of Douglas' own marriage and settlings in Tasmania and
mainland Australia.
But the bulk of Lenten Lands consists of Douglas' decade of knowing C.S.
Lewis. A very well-written book, the title being borrowed from a phrase in Joy's epitaph, written by
Lewis.
As I read Lenten Lands I was reminded of something C.S. Lewis said long before ever
knowing the Greshams. In his "Abolition of Man" (published 1943) he said "I myself do not enjoy the
society of small children... I recognize this as a defect in myself."
Again, in a private letter
to his friend Arthur Greeves (December 1935) Lewis commented "I theoretically hold that one ought to
like children, but I am shy with them in practice."
Yet Douglas concludes that his decade of
knowing Lewis was a "privilege"... "a gift of education and experience greater than some of us gain
in a lifetime."
His statement confirms my own suspicion about Lewis... that he was a man of such
inner greatness, that he proved to be good even at the things he was not good at.

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