I’d like to believe it is not a reflection of my single status that, after Elif Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love, I found myself picking up another book on love—this time, non-fiction. The much-celebrated writer of children’s and fantasy books, C.S. Lewis, penned the short non-fiction work, The Four Loves, where he shares his philosophical outlook on the different kinds of love in a human’s life. Through thought experiments (drawing a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is explored to think through its consequences), Lewis tries to detangle the perplexing equations of love—affection, friendship, eros, and charity.
To many, it may feel like someone simply yapping, but it is a yapping that makes a lot of sense and kept me engaged for the most part. While Lewis does brilliant work delving beneath the surface of love in the forms of affection, friendship, and eros, by the time he reaches charity, the occasional mentions of religion and Christianity take over completely. The Christian apologist in him becomes too visible to ignore. If we’re being fair, it makes sense that religion becomes more prominent in the chapter on charity, because, after all, charity has a significant essence in all religions worldwide.
Lewis doesn’t lose focus if we focus on the earlier chapters, where religion and Christian faith are mentioned now and then but remain related to the love being discussed. Here, it becomes apparent that Lewis studied philosophy in college and solidly understands psychological concepts.
One particularly striking instance of his strong opinions on love formed clearly through thought experiments, is when he says:
“Those who say, ‘The more I see of men, the better I like dogs’… will be well advised to examine their real reasons.”
Here, he conveys that, many times, humans prefer an animal’s company over that of other humans because animals depend on them in ways that humans never will. In this way, he draws attention to the downsides of need-love in human relationships and encourages us to evaluate it.
While one can’t question his credible attempt at drawing the Four Loves in comprehensive structure, at the end of the day, it seems that the ultimate purpose of this book for C.S. Lewis was not only to discern the different kinds of love but also to show how they relate to God and reflect His characteristics.
At the same time, I would like to address another point by mentioning that many readers have found some parts of the text problematic, to the extent of believing that Lewis questioned women’s intellect and place in society. However, I did not find anything in the book that suggested this—though it is possible I may have missed it.
But overall, I liked the book and would probably pick it up again someday to grasp things I may have missed.
So, have you read it yet? What did you think of it?
