CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed is a stunning portrayal of grief - incisive, anthropologically dead-on and as keen as Lewis ever is. Except for one thing, and it’s always bugged me. Talking about how he expected to find certain places reminded him more f Joy than others, Lewis comments
“Her absence is no more emphatic in those places than anywhere else. It’s not local at all. I suppose if one were forbidden all salt one wouldn’t notice it much more in any one food more than another. eating in general would be different, every day, at every meal.”
Three words, Jack old bean: Hard boiled eggs. I am fond of salt in general and miss it if it is not around, but the slight passivity of, say, a tuna casserole unsalted is nothing compared to the tantalising horror that in an unsalted hard boiled egg. It is worse than useless. It may as well not exist. I realise Lewis was grieving the death of the love of his life and all that, but surely he cannot have been unaware of this simple fact? Perhaps it is simply proof that even his great mind suffered from the shock after all.