A Review of C.S.

LewisAn
Experiment in Criticism
Cassie McKenzie
16616161
English 001
Professor Jon Vickery
October 17, 2016

C.S. Lewis Experiment in Criticism is a novel about the dissection of

literature and reading. Lewis deconstructs the common misconceptions

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about these topics by uncovering exactly what they are at their core.

Separating people into literary and unliterary, he defines attributes of

successful reading and interpretation. Lewis states that the quality of

literature should be measured by how they are read, not by how they are

written. Therefore, to truly experience a book, one mustnt use it. One

must receive it with open arms and allow themselves to be taken on the

journey any good novel provides.

To elaborate on Lewis primary point, both Literary and Unliterary

people exist. Literary people are those whom eagerly look for reasons to

read, reread books, read for personal betterment and education, and are

able to analyze the books which they have read at least semi-accurately.

Those who are Unliterary, on the other hand, do not look for reasons to read,

tend to read for shallow reasons, and are generally unchanged by the books

they do read. These people consider having read a novel before a conclusive

argument against reading (2) said novel again. Of course this is in stark

contrast to the Literary attribute of [reading] the same work ten, twenty, or

thirty times (2) because of their nature. In a similar vein, if a Literary person

is a true reader, they must read in a similar manner to that which the

author wrote, like reading a funny book lightheartedly, and a crime novel

seriously. However, one must be careful to avoid becoming a literary

puritan (10), who associates reading with work or feels that they are

superior to those who do not read high class books. These people are too

serious and unadaptable to truly understand books that are not equally

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serious. In Lewis mind, he does not necessarily assign unrelated attributes

to people automatically. For example, Unliterary people are not necessarily

lazy or uncouth. Some may be even more intelligent than Literary people.

The assignment of a label simply looks at their approach to reading.

In rereading the novel at hand, it is evident that Lewis has a certain

style of writing that thrusts the reader into his way of thinking with many

analogies and tangents. To have the reader understand his point about

Literary and Unliterary people, he compares them to people who play a sport

for fun versus people who play for the sole purpose of physical fitness. He

writes about a man who does exercise with dumbbells and a lover of

games (9) in contrast. The purpose of this analogy was not to demean

people who play to get physically fit, instead it was to show that there are

different and valid ways of playing sports and reading. One way is simply

more fun and allows the reader/athlete to engage the subject on their own

terms. He makes several other metaphors and breaks off from his originally

structured novel to have several chapters on the merits and strategies of

criticizing music, which he admits he has less experience in and is not

absolute in its relevance to the matter at hand. Therefore, it is questionable

why Lewis included the chapters at all.

In contrast to his uninformed points on music and art, Lewis is very

opinionated on some topics. This bias he possesses does poison the well,

however these biases do not effect his other arguments or their validity. An

example of his bias is his view on morals and reading. According to Lewis, if

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you are an immoral person, reading tends to be for looking better or being

accepted by scholars/society. The opposite is typically true for moral people,

in his view. Lewis is of the opinion that there are certain kinds of people who

are harmless in their enjoyment of bad material. He believes if someone is

moved by the meaning or idea behind a work then the actual quality of the

work isnt significant to their enjoyment. Finally, as the writer of a popular

childrens series, he is convinced that people who think fantasy is for children

alone are ridiculous and contemptible. He insults the process of aging, as

[losing] the taste for marvels and adventures is [comparable to] losing our

teeth, our hair, our palate, and finally, our hopes(72) in dramatic fashion.

To Lewis, bad taste doesnt exist. No person enjoys reading a novel for

the sole reason that it is sub-par in quality, the work will be enjoyed based on

the journey it takes its readers on. And such is the thesis for Lewiss work; A

true reader must allow a book to take them on a journey, to experience all

the emotions the book makes them feel, and interpret the novel in a similar

way to that which the author intended.

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The novel in question throughout the entirety of this review was

An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis, Cambridge University Press,

1st Ed: 1961

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