A GRIEF OBSERVED

Lewis wrote this near the end of his life after a dramatic and unexpected romance that ended in the death of his new wife from cancer. The work stands in contrast to THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, which he wrote twenty years earlier. The contrasts are striking, both in style (clinical in PAIN, transparently personal in GRIEF) and listenability. Containing much that is difficult to follow audibly, Pain lends itself much more easily to being read and pondered, while Grief exhibits Lewis’s ability to capture the ear, as demonstrated in his many radio broadcasts. Ralph Cosham gives a fluid and evenhanded reading to this soul-baring exposé of emotion itself and the man who wrote about it. S.M.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 06]