The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

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Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Monday, September 17, 2007

well well well

Ould Staples.
Blooming CS Gas.
By these epithets I mean the writer CS Lewis.
Who would have thunk it?
After all this time I've finally been forced to read some of his work.
I'd steered clear of him at school because the Hitler Jugend at Oldbridge College used to like him.
Now just three years ago Padre Peter gave me a collection of his books for Christmas.
Not the Narnia rubbish.
Writings about Christianity.
It's only taken me three years to start reading them.
The Padre kept asking how far I'd got and my generalisations along the lines of "he's good isn't he?" were no longer enough to head him off.
And lo!
A completely new experience...
I've at last found a writer who is better than me.
I always say life is worth living bold readers, even at the worst of times, because if you keep going, life will repay you with wonder.
Normally I don't really expect to find this sort of wonderment in the arts.
Wonderment that makes life worth living.
Consider the accredited masters of English literature.
Shakespeare, Keats, Enid Blyton...
All very worthy but clearly none of them my equal.
I have voyaged so far in life.
What a gift to find one whose achievement I cannot touch.
When I contemplate ould Staples' Christian writings I just grin ruefully and shake my head.
Like finding fresh water after years in the desert.
I can never write like this.
It's such a relief not to have to try.
Someday he will be the first Anglican to be made a doctor of the Catholic church.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Heelers.
I only wish I was half the writer you are.
Best regards,
Clive Staples Lewis

9:25 PM  
Blogger Genevieve Netz said...

I've read a bit of Lewis on Christianity. His logic -- and his ability to explain his logic -- are unusually fine. Christianity should be proud to claim him as an author.

3:22 AM  

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