J. Aleksandr Wootton's Reviews > The Abolition of Man

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
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really liked it
bookshelves: best-of, childhood, grad-school

Hard to start, easy to finish.

Lewis apparently presumed his audience would be fellow academics, or at least persons educated in a common curriculum - an assumption which makes the opening pages difficult to follow. I was about 10 the first time I read this, with no background in "the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall" or "dulce et decorum est" (and no Internet to quickly look them up with). But over the first dozen or so pages Lewis finds his stride, and as the book's discussion moves from abstract subjectivity to "trained emotions" to morality and eugenics, that characteristic Lewisian clarity carries the reader forward.

Abolition of Man is a short book. I've read it four times now, and I'm looking forward to reading it again.
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Reading Progress

Finished Reading
November 12, 2008 – Shelved
December 6, 2017 – Shelved as: best-of
August 13, 2019 – Shelved as: childhood
April 21, 2020 – Shelved as: grad-school

Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)

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message 1: by AnnMichelle (new)

AnnMichelle If you love C S Lewis, who is one of my favorite humans as well as essayist, you must try G.K. Chesterton. His writing is denser and you start to wonder where he’s going with it all, but then he brings it all together with a glorious finale. Lewis, though, is like listening to a best friend talking about ideas that just click and sometimes makes you chuckle.


J. Aleksandr Wootton Chesterton is brilliant! I've started reading him relatively recently - here is my review of Heretics & Orthodoxy.


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