Jane, Jane, Jane

A defense of C.S. Lewis, for my reactive sister.

She calls him two things...

1. A Brilliant Character
2. An Accessible Theologian

Let's go beyond theologian, however, and say that he is also an accessible philosopher.

If a man takes a complex idea and expresses it accessibly, surely this takes some skill. If he does this consistently, to the benefit of thousands, it means that he does it very skillfully. If he is able to distill the highest ideas of many generations into concise, readable, and enjoyable prose, with an ear for a memorable phrase, and a true religiousity to boot, what can we say about him? That he is a great prose-writer. And so he is. To claim otherwise is absurd.

And David is correct. I said prose-writer, not fiction writer. I did set the whole thing up using Abraham Lincoln as my prime example.

prose--ordinary form of written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry and verse.

Historians can be extraordinary prose-writers. For that matter, I do not think Paul Johnson would make my list. I have not read Eudora Welty. From Jane's list, I considered Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. I like the Bronte's, but not for their prose style, per se.

I am talking merely about the way a writer puts words and sentances together.