The Four Loves

"What were the women doing meanwhile? How should I know? I am a man and never spied on the mysteries of the Bona Dea." I first read this light-hearted quote from The Four Loves in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien back in 1986. But in all these years, I had never come across a copy of this book by C. S. Lewis until April this year at Waterstone's bookshop in Ayr. Several Lewis books had been reissued in new paperback editions. I decided to buy two of them: The Four Loves and Surprised by Joy. I read the latter first. It was a bit heavy at times but on the whole I liked it. I began to read the former in May and had been reading it on and off until yesterday. After looking forward to it for years, I found it a bit disappointing. Too much rambling and padding to state the obvious in some cases; too didactic and dictatorial in others. Lewis talks a great deal about marriage. As in some of his other books, marriage is seen as an important institution that he compares with the relationship between Christ and the Church. And yet he later married Joy Davidman so that she could remain in England, telling a friend that "the marriage was a pure matter of friendship and expediency". Hardly a suitable role model for his readers. I find it hard to understand the purpose that this book serves, although I do understand the original intention behind it: to analyze how we relate to different people in different ways and put labels on these relationships. The premise is good and he tells us that with other people we have Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. He talks of simple pleasures, such as seeing the word GENTLEMEN above a door when nature calls. But these amusing notes dwindle as the book progresses. There are some passages that make the reader pause for consideration. For instance, he warns against refusing to love in order to protect yourself: "There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal" (Pg. 147). But for every such nugget, there is too much padding and imposition from the author. It may be that the book is a bit above my head and that I just find it hard to follow his arguments because I cannot match him in intellect. He seems to be treading too fine a line as he stumbles through the definitions he is trying to make and the labels he creates for them. The words "of course" are used a lot, as he lays down the law. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I expected I would. Maybe a collection of quotations from it would go down better. The next Lewis book on my list is Mere Christianity. Here's hoping...