"All Joy Reminds"- Heidi Naylor

In Surprised By Joy, Lewis states: “All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be’” (78). Lewis grew up in Ireland with his mother, father and brother, but his mother died of cancer when he was still young. From this point on, Lewis recalls his father becoming withdrawn, and the settled happiness and security disappearing from his life.

Soon after his mothers death, he went to school for the first time; a place he called “Oldie’s”. Oldie was a man who loved power and no one was allowed to speak to him as an equal, not even his wife. He often whipped the boys at his school for no apparent reason and taught them absolutely nothing. This time away at school was utterly horrible for Lewis, but he did not know any different and did not know how to explain all he was experiencing to his father. When Lewis went home on holidays from Oldie’s, his father seemed to be furthering into his ruin. Lewis remembers feeling as though all security was taken; that there was no solid ground beneath his feet. This same feeling continued onto his next schooling experience at Wyvern.

The first strong stab Lewis felt of joy (since his time as a young child) was when his eyes came upon an illustration accompanied with the line, “the sky had turned round” (72). He describes this moment as being engulfed by pure “northernness”, and seeing a “vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer” (73). This moment brought him back in time, and gave him a feeling that he had once known joy, long, long ago. It was from here forward, that he went in search of this joy.

He went in search of this joy (from “whatever it is”) in nature and books. Lewis often looked for Wagnerian scenes in nature and read all he could about Norse mythology, with each receiving a stab of joy. But, Lewis seems to make a big distinction between the stabs he experiences of joy and the source of the joy itself. The joy he believes, is a longing for something more- it’s not the joy itself. Lewis spent many years after these monumental experiences in his life starving for Joy and seeking its origins, which ultimately lead him to his conversion. Most important were these times in awakening a desire for joy he had long since forgotten.