The Pilgrim's Regress

Title: The Pilgrim's Regress

Author: C.S. Lewis, 1933

Pages: 161

Started: 1/29/09

Finished: 2/1/09

Submitted by: Bob

This is C.S. Lewis' apology for why he became a Christian. It's the first book he wrote after his conversion in 1933. It wasn't a huge seller. In fact, there seems to be some animosity toward it, but it is now one of the C.S. Lewis classics and I am ashamed to say that I have never read it until this year.

It's an allegory; and he's deliberately copying the theme of the more famous Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. It's less general than Bunyan's allegory because this is really a personal testimony in which C.S. Lewis strives (and admits later, fails) to generalize so that his story matches the experiences and thoughts of other converts. 

It "fails," I think, because most people simply don't think as much as C.S. Lewis did. One critic said that today's readers could not get as much from it because they don't start their pilgrimage like John (the character in the story) in a dry, doctrinally-correct church environment, the town of "Puritania." The thought struck me that it could apply to many second and third evangelical and fundamentalist people. In fact, I found many things that he talked about being the kinds of thoughts I have had and wrestled with. I couldn't help but thinking that though I am not as brilliant as C.S. Lewis (in fact, very dull), I do have the same kind of disposition that is prone to think, and think, and think. Everything that I believe I have wrestled to believe. Thus, for me, it was almost medicinal to read this book. I felt sometimes as I was looking in a mirror.

The story starts when John born in Puritania is told to obey the Rules of the Landlord. The Landlord is very good, but they always talk about him as if he was harsh and ready to destroy. They, in fact, don't know the Landlord, but they talk about the Landlord more than anyone and they know him more than anyone else in the world. The tragedy is that since they don't know the Landlord they don't love him and John grows to hate him, but he is given a vision of an Island. The Island is desire.

He pursues desire in all the wrong places: sensuality, philosophy, agnosticism all of which have very interesting and revealing names. For example, John gets lost for awhile in Zeitgeistheim (an obvious play on words with zeitgeist) where it is ruled by a giant, Spirit of the Age, and had places like "Eschropolis" (greek city of filth and obscenity) and where everybody for the most part had psittacosis (parrot disease). It is Lady Reason who leads John out and saves his life. I found this part to be a fascinating section.

Mister Parrot who has psittacosis the worst says truthfully a revealing fact to John about the zeitgeist of "Halfways" (people who want to play with "the little brown girls" -- lusts -- but keep the dignity of apparent thoughtfulness, etc.): "Argument is the attempted rationalization of the arguer's desires."

Wow. The attempted rationalization of the arguer's desires. Lady Reason would help John to see that disbelief in the Landlord was actually a "wish-fulfillment dream." But there is a desire in a man (I would add "the man God chooses", but Lewis was not Calvinist!) that ultimately gnaws its way to constant attention. As one character says:

A man says, "I have finished with rules: henceforth I will do what I want': but he finds that his deepest want, the only want that is constant through the flux of his appetites and despondencies, his moments of  and of passion, is to keep the rules.

John's path is westward and will ultimately lead him back to Puritania, but by a route that meets the Landlord on the other side of a huge canyon, Peccatum Addae (Adam's sin). On the north and the south are two extremes of thought to intensifying degrees depending on how far they are from the main road. To the north is the emphasis on cerebral philosophy and to the southern extreme is more visceral and emotional philosophy. It's the people John meets immediately north and south of the main way that are so dangerous.

To the north is "Sense." It's scary how much he sounds like so many Christians today, nominal Christians. He is not very religious at all, but finds it useful. To the South is "Broad." He sounds like nominal Christians too. He is more religious but finds Sense to be very reasonable. And on it goes north and south. To the extreme north is the animalization of men by philosophies who become tribes of inhumanity called "Marxommani" and "Swastici," etc. You can see where that's going (particularly in 1933).

Anyway, I've read a number of books in January, but this had to be my favorite and I promised myself that I would read it again. So many brilliant quotes are highlighted I'm going to have to use another color next time!

But what made it special to me is this. It was the character "History" that ultimately helped John the most. That is my own story as well. History's lectures were fascinating to me and I could not put the book down until I had finished what he told John. 

C.S. Lewis is not easy to read and there were a number of things that made me stop, browse my library, go on the computer, research, and think about before I could go on or I would totally miss out on what was being said. Lots of latin and greek to deal with too, but thanks to a latin translator online I did perfectly fine!