Book/Surprised by Joy

Front Cover

Opening Lines

This book is written partly in answer to requests that I would tell how I passed from Atheism to Christianity and partly to correct one or two false notions that eem to have got about. How far the story matters to anyone but myself depends on the degree to which others have experienced what I call 'joy'.

Contents

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

PREFACE

I THE FIRST YEARS

IL CONCENTRATION CAMP

IIL MOUNTBRACKEN AND CAMPBELL

IV I BROADEN MY MIND

V RENAISSANCE

VI BLOODERY

VII LIGHT AND SHADE

VIII RELEASE

IX THE GREAT KNOCK

X FORTUNE'S SMILE

XI CHECK

XII GUNS AND GOOD COMPANY

XIII THE NEW LOOK

XIV CHECKMATE

XV THE BEGINNING

Citations

But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deep-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word INTERFERENCE. But Christianity placed at the centre what then seemed to me a transcendental Interferer. If its picture were true then no sort of 'treaty with reality' could ever be possible. There was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, "This is my business and mine only."

Adversaria

Title of the book comes from the William Wordsworth line: "Surprised by joy-impatient as the wind."

Cross-References

The Blue Flower album by The Gray Havens is inspired by this book, where Lewis writes that “it soon became important” to him to become a “votary of the Blue Flower.” He does not mention the “Blue Flower” again. But the phrase is a kind of hyperlink to the Romantic tradition. The Blue Flower is an icon or symbol of Sehnsucht, the longing that becomes so central to Lewis’s account of Joy.