Surprised by Joy

I picked this book up this morning and turned to the place I had left off about six months ago. It isn't incredibly engaging but I love C.S. Lewis and have vowed to read his entire body of work before I die. This book chronicles his journey to become the faithful Christian that he did later in life and how that changed him. It is very "British," has many cultural references that I don't quite understand and is a little dry. However, here is a list of the new words I learned in ONE page:

sycopancy: a servile flatterer
necrophily: this has something to do with the dead (I hope it isn't what I think it is)
fulminate: to utter or send out censure or invective; to condemn severly
invective: an abusive expression or speech
pother: a noisy disturbance (I like this word a lot) there are a lot of pothers in my house, regularly.

So, I feel pretty smart reading this book every now and then. Lewis has this incredibly wide vocabulary. This particular section discusses the pederasty (I'll let you look that one up yourself) that was occuring in his school. It is disturbing to say the least and I am surprised to read such things after reading Narnia which is much more innocent. But this book is about his real life and he experienced real things, some of which are not pretty. I don't know if I would recommend this book to anyone. It is hard to read, and complicated to say the least. But the language is sophisticated and there are moments of absolute brilliance and light. So, now feel smarter for having read my list of vocaulary today and skip the book.