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David C. Downing. Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2005.297 pp. $17.00.
C. S. Lewis, by his own estimation, was not a mystic. The forthright admission of this fact is not enough to stop David C. Downing, professor of English at Elizabethtown College and author of two very useful works on Lewis, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy and The Most Reluctant Convert, from writing an entire book on Lewis and mysticism. To accomplish this feat, Downing must maintain the thesis that "Despite this disclaimer, Lewis must certainly be one of the most mystical-minded of those who never formally embarked on the mystical way" (p. 33). Evidence for this claim is found in Lewis's experiences of "joy" or "sweet desire," his "vivid sense of the natural order as an image of the spiritual," his...