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Title: Embarrassing
Review: This story of C. S. Lewis is told essentially as by a nurse (Wilson) to parents (we) about a problematical small child (Lewis). Wilson appears to be never in doubt that he understands his subject better than it ever understood itself. His cocksureness is the more inviting since he pretends to be rescuing Lewis from a perceived danger of becoming a "plaster saint"; it is the more embarrassing since he is incredibly careless in his use of the sources and has a proclivity for the very basest forms of gossip. If some Lewis devotees have lacked interest in the real man, Wilson has clearly surpassed them on this score. This biography is eminently readable; but its appeal is vitally rooted in the author's cocksureness, sloppiness and bad faith.
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