The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was the first book of its kind that I have read in that it was more of an essay than a standard book.
I had heard about this book many times and had it recommended to me from numerous sources, so it was quite disappointing for me to finally finish this book with the impressions I took away from it.
I personally found this book very difficult to read, no doubt I will take some of that criticism and direct it at myself for although I know that I am a capable reader, it can be hard to focus when I am not fully engaged. The wording is in plain English, but the way it is written just meant that at times I felt it was very difficult to follow. Perhaps this says more about me not having read essays before rather than anything else.
While there are some wondrous gems in this book, I found them usually encapsulated by paragraphs of text which were otherwise dull and quite frankly, irrelevant. I was happy to read in their original context the quotes I had heard so often from this book, but I realised that apart from those I wasn’t able to get much else.
All in all, it was a very short read and that no doubt worked itself in my favour. I would still recommend this because of the gems it does contain, but perhaps I will have to re-read and revisit it in the future when I am older (and hopefully wiser!).