I found Lewis' story of his own development as a person and as a Christian helpful for articulating my own thoughts and my own life experiences. If you want to learn a bit more about the man behind the Chronicles of Narnia, read this book! - Josh Havens ( )

C. S. Lewis can hardly do anything wrong in my mind, but despite that, I believe this is a very worthy update or addition to The Pilgrim's Progress. ( )

An autobiographical allegory inspired by John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress that describes Lewis’s journey from atheist to Christian. It centers around the idea of a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, which you might recognize from a well-known quote from Mere Christianity. There were a lot of characters and situations that represented different schools of philosophy which I didn’t really understand, but the parts that talked about the Landlord (God) all made sense to me and I just read the rest as a journey story at surface level.

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Title: Pilgrim's Regress
Series: ----------
Author: C.S. Lewis
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Allegory
Pages: 256
Words: 52.9K

Synopsis:

From Amazon and Me:

Here is the story of the pilgrim John and his odyssey to an enchanting island that creates in him an intense longing -- a mysterious, sweet desire. John's pursuit of this desire takes him through adventures with such people as Mr. Enlightenment, Mr. Mammon, Mother Kirk, and Mr. Sensible and through such cities as Thrill and Eschropolis -- and through the Valley of Humiliation. John must then return to his home and head to the Landlord's Castle, which is the Mountainside of the Island. On his way back John sees everything he saw upon his journey but through new eyes.

My Thoughts:

This was a very hard book to get into or to get anything from. I lumped this in with my non-fiction even though it is allegory. Most of the references in the book, to various philosophies and “isms” of his day, are veiled or are written with an expectation that the reader will be fully aware of said philosophies and be able to pick up on Lewis's broad hints.

It had some interesting bits but overall I found it a bit dry and more circuitous than I preferred. If I were to ever re-read this, I'd probably go much slower and write notes down on paper.

★★★☆☆ ( )

The first book written by C. S. Lewis after his conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress is, in a sense, a record of Lewis' own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction that eventually led him to Christianity.