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Title: The Four Loves ISBN: 0-8499-6372-9 Publisher: W Publishing Group Pub. Date: 12 May, 2004 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (29 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Good Companion to Aristotle
Comment: There have been many good things and helpful reviews already written about this book so there's no reason for me to go on about how wonderful and insightful it is. My comments are more directly related to those who have a wish (or are assigned) to read Aristotle's work "The Nichomachean Ethics". I read the Ethics for a philosophy discussion class my freshman year and was intrigued by mush of what Aristotle had to say about love and human behavior. While it is a very insightful work, the Ethics is extremely difficult to read, and takes much time and pastience.
About a month after completing the Ethics, I happened to pick up Lewis's "The Four Loves" in my college's bookstore, and I couldn't put it down. What surprised me most upon reading it, however, was that much of Lewis's understanding of the human loves came directly from Aristotle. I went back and reread the Ethics and found (not surprisingly since Lewis was a classics scholar) that for his understanding of friendly and passionate love (for Aristotle philos and eros), Lewis's arguments followed Aristotle's very closely, and were much more clear and easy to understand. On top of this, his additions of affectionate love and agape or godly love (a Greek thought to be sure, but not in Aristotle's time), expanded upon the notions of love and offered a fuller treatment than Aristotle.
I say all this not to disuade anyone from reading Aristotle or thinking that Lewis was an Aristotle knock-off, on the contrary, both these these works should be read, and in opinion my opinion they complement each other very well and aid the reader in more fully understanding both works: understanding Aristotle because Lewis presents many of his same arguments only more clearly, and understanding Lewis by seeing the evolution and expansion of his thought from the Greek concepts.
And even if you don't feel like tackling Aristotle, "The Four Loves" is a work worth reading in and of itself (just don't think that you can get away with substituting this work for the Ethics, since the Ethics goes far beyond a discussion of love).
Rating: 5
Summary: What Now My Love?
Comment: Doing a book review on CS Lewis' "The Four Loves" brings forth an entire new meaning on 'a writer's block'. To expound this extraordinary Lewis' work on the four New Testament Greek "love" words - storge (natural affection), philia (friendship, love), eros (attraction, sexual love), and agape (love, charity) - amounts to nothing more than a leaky version of the Cliff Notes at best. There are Lewis' scholars who could do far more justice to this work than I.
The long and short of "The Four Loves" is this. The three "loves" (storge, philia, and eros) are stemmed from agape (God's perfect love). Each is fractured and flawed since the Fall. Underlying all that we do, in both good and not so good, are these shades of loves. All are a fragment of and a divagation from the origin. The agape. Our forms of love have fallen short and are in need of mending. Only God's love mends.
If your affectionate other were to ask after a romantic candlelit dinner, "What now my love?" Don't sing. Lean forward and cup her hand, you segue to say, "Eros makes promises. Romance must die in marriage, and that marriage requires affection." Saying this may or may not take you to places you've never been - for the better or for the worst. Your look of love, however, could only change for the better. Thanks to Lewis.
Rating: 5
Summary: If you like C.S. Lewis . . .
Comment: . . . like I do, I strongly suggest We All Fall Down, by Brian Caldwell. Like Lewis, Caldwell takes an intellectual aproach to the concept of Christianity. His novel is very much in the vein of The Screwtape Letters and The Great divorce. I highly recomend it for discriminating Christian readers.
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Title: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0060652926 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0060652969 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis ISBN: 0156870118 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 23 March, 1966 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis ISBN: 0156904365 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 09 July, 1980 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis ISBN: 0060652934 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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