A Shiver of Wonder Review

A Shiver of Wonder: A Life of C S Lewis by Derick Bingham is a biography of the life of Clive Staples Lewis, the very famous Christian apologist and prolific writer.

I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars. I found this book rambling, irritating and a bit confusing at times. There seemed to be a mix of needless information tossed in with the important. Or, if it was important, it was not written in a clear enough manner for me to see it. What made it confusing is that sometimes he would reference having just shown us points x, y and z, but I would stop and say “what” and “I didn’t get that from what he said”. The writing style just didn’t fit the content; it felt like he was writing non-fiction with a fiction style. It felt off and wrong and unhelpful, in fact hindering my gleaning of the information I came to the book for.

He also often quoted other poets and authors and sources. Usually that would be a good and fascinating thing to see (how others saw Lewis and how Lewis affected other people’s lives, etc.) but that is not what he used most of those quotes for. At least half of the time they were just inserted, I think, because the author liked them and he could somehow connect it to what he was talking about (sometimes relevant information and sometimes needless).

Ages were rarely mentioned and the time line felt a bit jumpy. He would be talking about one time in Lewis’s life, but then reference something that would take place in the future (like: Lewis couldn’t have known at this time that he would eventually do x, y, and z). I find that I prefer a linear look at someone’s life. I want to know about them and what they went through in chronological order, getting a view of their life similar to what they would see looking back in memory.

Of what I already knew about Lewis, I was really looking forward to a deeper look into his life. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really appreciate or enjoy this reading. I don’t feel I learned as much as I could have or got as much out of this piece as I wanted. Due to the writing style, the content I was looking for was harder to pull out of it and took extra effort from me while reading, and then didn’t included as much detail as I was hoping for (at least not about Lewis himself).

I am sorry to say that this has been the worst biography I have ever read, which is extra upsetting since it was about a man I greatly admire. I guess I will just have to read Lewis’s autobiography and leave it at that (unless I am directed toward a very good supporting biography).