C. S. Lewis was a broad-minded man -- except when he wasn't. So, too, with this reference guide.

Let's face it: Author Colin Duriez is clearly a more conservative Christian than Lewis, probably an evangelical, and there are times when it shows. He just doesn't quite get Lewis's point.

Still, this is a fascinating guide, because it doesn't just concentrate on Lewis's writings but on Lewis himself. The other Lewis guide I have, Ford's Companion to Narnia, is formally more complete in its coverage of the Chronicles, but it doesn't really let us see C. S. Lewis the man. Duriez tries to supply that, giving us (for instance) a long section on Lewis's notion of friendship, and a bit of a look at Lewis's idea of "transposition."

This is truly useful, because Lewis certainly doesn't supply a complete education on Christianity. His mythology is a hotchpotch (talking beasts make a possible mythology. Centaurs and satyrs make another. But both in the same books? J. R. R. Tolkien was right -- it won't do). Lewis didn't know nearly as much science as he thought he did, and some of what he did know, he got wrong. And yet -- he was, in his way, a genius. Although it would be better if it were written with less of an evangelical axe to grind, this book makes that genius more clear. ( )