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Which book delivers best on that front?

Gresham: I think probably the George Sayer one and the Walter Hooper one.

Gresham (right) and his brother David with Lewis and the family dog, Susie

You've said, "Jack was the finest man and the best Christian I've ever known." Why do you feel that way?

Gresham: Jack was a man who was always available, and I think this is the crux of Christianity. We all tend to read complex Christian books analyzing the Scriptures, analyzing the various doctrines. And all that does is complicate the issues. God sent down all his rules and regulations; they were ignored. He sent the prophets; they were ignored. Jesus came down himself to tell us how to live real human lives, and he was ignored. Since then, scholars have written critical and analytical things about the Scriptures. But C. S. Lewis wrote in his books, This is how to do what Jesus taught. His message is, "Stop talking about it, stop studying it, just get out there and do Christianity." Jack did it.

How? Tell me what that looked like.

Gresham: A guy approached Jack on the street one day and asked him if he could spare a few shillings. And Jack immediately dove into his pocket and brought out all his change and handed it over to this beggar. And the chap he was with—I think it was Tolkien—said, "Jack, you shouldn't have given that fellow all that money, he'll just spend it on drink." Jack said, "Well if I had kept it, I would have only spent it on drink."

Jack would give to anyone who asked him. He was sufficiently conscious of the need for good stewardship to be a little careful in some areas, but if he found out that someone was in need, he would give. He was a man who had been brought up to fear going into poverty. All his life he had this almost pathological fear of penury, and yet he gave away about two-thirds of his earnings.

At the end of the movie Shadowlands, there's a scene that makes everybody weep, the scene with Jack and you in the attic, crying together over your mother's death. Is that scene pretty accurate?

Gresham: Yep. It was very distinct. When Bill Nicholson was writing it, he had no idea that anything like that had ever happened. It actually did happen—in the common room, not the attic. I was writing Lenten Lands at the same time. We swapped manuscripts and I was staggered to see that Bill had written that as a fictional occurrence and he was staggered to see that it really happened.

Many of us have read A Grief Observed, but what can you tell me about observing Jack's grief after your mom died?

Gresham: Well, Jack was observing it from inside. I was only observing it from outside. He was, for the most part, pretty stoic, pretty strong. But if someone started to talk about my mother, he would weep. For an English school boy—I was 14 at the time—nothing more embarrassing could possibly happen than to be caught crying in public. But when he wept, I would. Which is why in A Grief Observed he says he can't talk about our mother to us, because we acted as if he had said something obscene. But it wasn't because we felt anything of that nature at all. It was because we knew he'd burst into tears if he did talk about her.

Gresham as a young boy, when he was living with Lewis

But Jack mostly kept his grief to himself. There's an extraordinary story of Donald Swann, who was writing a libretto for an opera about one of Jack's books. He had an appointment to visit Jack, and when he arrived, it was one of those beautiful summer days in England. Jack said, "Let's chat about this while we walk around the garden." So they started discussing the libretto and whatever else they were discussing, and when they were done, Jack said, "Well, you'll have to excuse me now. You see, my wife died last night." And blinded by tears, he stumbled in to the house.

The man's courage was superb. He could fulfill this obligation because he committed to it, despite the fact that he was being destroyed by the grief from his wife's death the night before. An amazing man. Most of the time he kept his grief in check. But sometimes I'd come into a room and I would see Jack just completely bereft, weeping his heart out, and I would just back silently away and leave him to it.

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Related Elsewhere:

Narnia Comes to Life	Printer view
Douglas Gresham has dreamed of seeing Aslan on the big screen since he was a little boy. Now that his dream is about to become reality, C. S. Lewis's stepson talks about the new movie, and his role in it. (Part 2)