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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Overrated.  mebrock | Jun 28, 2008 |  A great story of love and redemption. This is a great book. I had to read it for a college class, but I would have read it anyway. (  ) w_bishop | Dec 9, 2007 | This memoir is a book about life, marriage, friendship, and faith. Vanauken tells the story of how he and his wife's relationship changed from an intense, romantic love to one controlled by their Christian beliefs. That is not to say that their love wasn't intense or romantic after their conversion, but it did change significantly. He also details his wife's illness, death, and his own grief process afterwards. Most interesting to me were the letters exchanged between the Vanaukens (mostly Sheldon) and C.S. Lewis. The couple met Lewis while at Oxford and kept up a healthy correspondence with him after they moved back to the States. Lewis is my favorite author, so it was interesting to hear his viewpoints on a much more personal level. These exchanges were my favorite parts of the book. (  ) 3M3m | Nov 9, 2007 | Collection of letters C.S. Lewis wrote to his friend, Sheldon "Van" Vanauken, when he developed a serious illness. gnbclibrary | Oct 5, 2007 | Among all the books I've read, A Severe Mercy easily ranks among the top ten best. In my first reading some 20 years ago it profoundly impacted me intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. It is a compelling account of the author's and his wife's search for spiritual truth, their passionate love for each other, her untimely terminal illness and death, and their mutual relationship with the venerable C. S. Lewis. This is one I will return to for inspiration time and again through the years. ( ) deanc | Aug 9, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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While studying at Oxford, Sheldon and Davy develop a friendship with C.S. Lewis, under whose influence and with much intellectual scrutiny they accept the Christian doctrine. As their devotion to God intensifies, Sheldon realizes that he is no longer Davy's primary love--God is. Within this discovery begins a brewing jealousy.
Shortly after, Davy acquires a fatal illness. After her death Sheldon embarks on an intense experience of grief, "to find the meaning of it, taste the whole of it ... to learn from sorrow whatever it had to teach." Through painstaking reveries, he comes to discover the meaning of "a mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love." He learns that her death "had these results: It brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealously of God. It saved her faith from assault. ...And it saved our love from perishing."
Replete with 18 letters from C.S. Lewis, A Severe Mercy addresses some of the universal questions that surround faith--the existence of God and the reasons behind tragedy. --Jacque Holthusen
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400)
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