The Four Loves Paperback – 5 June 2002

It is one of the best book to gift someone. It has all the norms that makes us to read it again and again..Great Book under affordable price..Thank You

If you want to understand love in its various forms, read this book. I love the writings of C.S. Lewis. Recommended to all book lovers

First of all, reading Lewis is an amazing experience. His writing is very enjoyable to read. Secondly, the content in this book is very rich and intellectual. It exceeds expectations. This book is so amazing that it will change your perspective about love and life itself. It is a must read and get it as soon as possible.

Author's views

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Love is a subject that is as old and as deep as the sea. Much has been said about it but still much more will be said about it, so it seems. It is a subject inexhaustible and captivating of our hearts. It is something that we crave to have and to give. It seems to be inseparable from our being. If we are deprived of love, psychology tells us that we are screwed. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is such a tragic story. Love seems to have such healing power. But Lewis warns that love, having become a god, becomes a demon; carried in them are the seeds of hatred. Its nature and power we do not seem to fully understand.Lewis helps us categorise what he calls “natural loves”. He distinguishes it in two different levels. (1) He distinguishes Gift-love, Need-love and pleasures of Appreciation. (2) The four loves as the title of the book is called: Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. Lewis is patient in defining each for us. These definitions are most interesting as language is the first step to enable thinking. The nature of love at these two dimensions can cross, giving a matrix of love with many nuances. Yes, it is a complicated matter.From our own experience, it is not hard to see that we can idealise love which can go very wrong. We hold out with such high hope of love as if it is answer to our troubles, but only to find ourselves cheated or vexed by it when it does not deliver its promise. Lewis describes these loves for us, what they are supposed to be and how they could go wrong. We can relate to those descriptions in our own personal lives – this is where Lewis is at his best. He warns us how loves can sour. Why? Where have they gone wrong? His book tries to prove the maxim that “love begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god. This is where it goes wrong. Therefore to keep love sweet, we need to understand that it originates from God and in turn, where its real splendour lies.- The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even remain themselves and do what they promise to do without God’s help (p.144).- Even for their own sakes the loves must submit to be second things if they are to remain the things they want to be (P. 144).- By subjecting their authority to His, gives [a human heart] for the first time a firm basis … Left to themselves they either vanish or become demons (p.144).- [We need to tell our loved ones] that your love all along had a secret reservation – ‘under God’ or ‘so far as a higher Love permits’… Indeed, a real disagreement on this issue should make itself felt early enough to prevent a marriage or a Friendship from existing at all (p.152).- We must try to relate the human activities called ‘loves’ to that Love which is God a little more precisely than we have yet done (p.152).- The doctrine that God was under no necessity to create is not a piece of dry scholastic speculation. It is essential (p.153). God , who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them (p.154). Divine Gift-love – Love Himself working in a man – is wholly disinterested and desires what is simply best for the beloved…. Divine Gift-love in the man enables him to love what is not naturally lovable… Finally, by a high paradox, God enables men to have a Gift-love towards Himself (p. 155). [We] can freely offer it back to Him…. That such a Gift-love comes by Grace and should be called Charity, everyone will agree (p. 156).- [This point is so true.] There is no good applying to Heaven for earthly comfort. Heaven can give heavenly comfort; no other kind. And earth cannot give earthly comfort either. There is no earthly comfort in the long run (p. 168).- All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His (p. 168). By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do… God is our true Beloved.While clearly beneficial to have read this book, there is a sense that it could have been better and more precise to the point. There is also a sense that it could have been further developed in some areas. Furthermore, Lewis’s description of Friendship could be read as sexist by many these days, and he probably would have been forced to apologise!! Just be clear that I am not offended, because I think he is sincerely describing what it was in his days. Reading Lewis these days is a breath of fresh air, to hear the almost forbidden language which gets us think if we have progressed or regressed. I am grateful for the publisher to make this classic available to us at an affordable price. This time my copy is of a smooth edge instead of a rugged one which sometimes happens with this series.

Why am I giving a C.S. Lewis book one star? Simply because this is not a book by him, its literally a 4 page biography of the author that has been copied and pasted from the internet.The selling of this 4 page fake for £2.30 is a travesty. Don't be fooled and don't buy it. I'm reporting to Amazon in the hope they will take it down.

The book does have a sort of introduction, but it thrusts the reader straight into Lewis' argument making it more like a first chapter than an outline of what the book is about. He wrestles a little with different types of loves as he defines them. He then goes on to try and break these down in relation to the likings and loves for things which are not human, with a particular focus given to the notion of patriotism.The bulk of the book, though, is concerned with the 4 particular loves which the title implies. Namely, these are Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity.Each of these is quite tightly argued by Lewis, very much in the same style as he wrote The Problem of Pain. They are also slightly surprising. In other writings from Lewis, he had always come across as very conservative, yet this collection has smatterings of some refreshingly liberal thought, particularly when it comes to sexuality.The essay on friendship is the longest, at around 40 pages, with each of the others around the 30 page mark. It's not easy to summarise each one, so I won't try. But I'd recommend them to you. They are by no means holistic, but they are immensely thought provoking; for that alone, they are well worth the price of the book.Yet I couldn't help feeling that the last chapter was a bit of a let-down. Through the first three essays, Lewis was keen to emphasise that for all the good that these loves are and do, that there is a risk of them `becoming gods' in our lives, which was leading up the last chapter where all would be subjugated under charity. Yet the chapter seemed to lack coherence and the argument seemed to fall apart.That said, there is plenty of good, thoughtful writing here and I would recommend it. It's just that I had extremely high expectations and it fell short of it, like a high jumper failing to get over the pole vault bar.

Great book by CS Lewis on the different types of love. Brilliant for anyone seeking to deepend their understanding of various types of attachment and love as categorised by CS Lewis. For anyone new to CS Lewis, like myself, may be helpful to note that the book is written from a Christian perspective, which I personally rather liked despite not ascribing to the faith myself. I personally found that the Christian references were relevent to the content of the book, and really weren't overbearing or overly intrusive to the extent that it became annoying. See my five star recommendation! I would go so far as to say this book should be highly recommended as essential reading for anyone over the age of 16 as a good introductory text to the topic.

This book was an excellent buy. I used it to study the academic explanation of the word “LOVE” in order to help me untangle the present worldview’s confused interpretation of this human emotion which is such an essential ingredient to a happy life experience.