C.S. LEWIS: A Life

Why a new biography of C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) now? White, who has written a biography of Lewis's friend Tolkien, offers no satisfactory answer in this pedantic and lackluster study of the author of the Chronicles of Narnia and other works. Relying on no new archival information, White retells the facts of Clive Staples Lewis's life, already well known from the hands of previous biographers. Born in 1898 in Belfast to a solicitor and his wife, the young Lewis escaped often into a world of fantasy, re-creating his own fictional world in stories. White recounts Lewis's university days, including his famous friendship with Tolkien and others, his early struggles to get appointed as a lecturer and his prolific writing life. White also records Lewis's youthful struggles with relationships, as well as his eventual amatory success in his famous marriage to Joy Davidman (chronicled in the book and film Shadowlands ). White attempts to offer critical interpretations of Lewis's writings—from his novels to his Christian apologetics—but succeeds primarily at offering summaries. Moreover, the book's sluggish prose ("apart from his brilliance, Jack was a man like any other"), lack of critical insight and dearth of new or startling information about Lewis renders it superfluous. (Oct.)