Trivia: Beatrix Potter and C.S. Lewis
Can you guess the book?
Did you know that a Beatrix Potter book features in the conversion story of C.S. Lewis?
You can see the answer here, or read on for more clues. (Amazon affiliate link)
In Surprised by Joy, Lewis describes repeated episodes of intense joy and intense longing mingled together, experiences that showed him there was more than just the material world. Around age six, he encountered Beatrix Potter’s books, and “here at last, beauty.” One in particular struck him. In Lewis’s words:
The second glimpse came through [see name here], through it only, though I loved all the Beatrix Potter books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened…. And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, ‘in another dimension.’
- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, Chapter 1, “The First Years”
Never doubt the formative power of the stories read in childhood.
“Beatrix Potter "Three white water lilies" 1906” by Plum leaves, CC BY 2.0
Some years ago I made the mistake of putting our Beatrix Potter collection in a beautiful decorative basket, and didn't wake up until years later to the fact that doing so had completely removed them from our reading circulation. I've spent the past year doing my best to remedy that, and so now that basket sits next to my bed so that I can easily reach one - and our littles are being reintroduced to Potter.
"Surprised By Joy" is one of my favorite faith conversion stories, and I identified with it so much - especially the issue of otherworldly longing/joy. Love it so much - and Lewis in general. We named our last bunch of cats Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton, to immortalize three of the greatest writer-theologians. :)
I love the Beatrix Potter stories! As a child, I'd only heard of Peter Rabbit, but as a mom, I've sought out the other stories, and they are wonderful! I especially love The Roly-Poly Pudding (I read this one aloud with voices for as many characters as I can muster) and Two Bad Mice.