Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman ed. by Don W. King (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 187 Rather her obvious enthusiasm and love for the works she critiques consistently come through. Perhaps because Miller emphasizes the personal nature of her work, I was pleasantly surprised with the depth of scholarship that undergirds the book. Her knowledge of Lewis' canon is impressive, as demonstrated by her frequent references to his literary criticism, such as The Allegory of Love, The Discarded Image, and An Experiment in Criticism. She has obviously read widely about the lifeof Lewis (not surprisingly, she favors A. N. Wilson, the biographer who is most skeptical in his treatment of Lewis, over Hooper and Sayer). While Miller is wellversed in works by and about Lewis, she does not appear to have read much of the literary criticism on the Chroniclesby writers likeSchake!' Myers, and Howard. Thus, some of her critical analyses of specific Chronicles repeat observations that have already been made and supported more extensively by other critics (for example, the medieval romance elements in Dawn Treader and the fairy tale aspects of Silver Chair). While I agree that Miller's non-Christian perspective leads her to emphasize aspects of Lewis' works that may have been undervalued or missed by Lewis' Christian critics, this stance also prevents her from seeing value in the more overtly theological aspects of the Chronicles. At times, Miller handles this problem well. For example, she appreciates the picture of Asian, not for its theological symbolism, but because of his physical nature; she cites the description of Lucy and Susan's post-resurrection romp with Asian as one of Lewis' most exhilarating. At other times, however, Miller's perspective seems limiting, as when she writes off The Last Battle as the weakest of the Chronicles, quoting approvingly the novelist Jonathan Franzen's assessment that the story is "overwhelmed by its preacherly and philosophical elements" (302). It is also puzzling that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe remains Miller's favorite Chronicle in spite of its containing some of the most obvious (or blatant, as Miller might say) Christian symbolism. Finally, the omission of endnotes will be disappointing to Lewis scholars since Miller does not always identify the source of quotes, even those from Lewis, in her text. Miller has made a valuable contribution to the discussion of the Chronicles. Her book celebrates reading and the uncanny ability of authors like Lewis to create works of mythic power that influence us as readers, whether or not we agree with their underlying philosophical and religious assumptions. Gary L. Tandy George Fox University Out ofMy Bone: The Letters ofJoy Davidman. Edited and introduced by Don W King. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009. ISBN9780 -8028-6399-7. Pp. xxxiv + 387 + 9 illus. $28.00. The tale of the Jew'sdaughter Who sat in a box of bone, 188 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Windowless, lightless, deaf and blind, Spinning the silk of her spider mind Into a net to catch the wind; Christ came to the Jew'sdaughter In her dark mind alone. (219) So begins an autobiographical ballad that Joy Davidman wrote in 1954, some years before she married the man who was to make her a household name. Regrettably, many know little more of Davidman than that she became "Mrs C. S. Lewis;' but this volume is the first of three books that will hopefully correct that impression. A comprehensive biographical treatment by Abigail Santamaria is to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2011 (building on the brief 1983 account by LyleDorsett, And God Came In). And Don King is planning to release a critical study of Davidmans poetry, to be called Yet One More Spring. In the meantime, we have his Out ofMy Bone: The Letters ofjoy Davidman, which gives a fascinating insight into a remarkable life. This "Jew'sdaughter;' born in 1915,had a troubled relationship with her father, a "perfectionist" (xiv) who subjected her to "unrelenting pressure" (xv). She strove to please him and, as far as academic success went, succeeded. She entered Hunter College in New YorkCity at fourteen, got her MA from Columbia in her twentieth year and was publishing her work in Poetry by the age of 21. A couple of years...