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Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2005), xaxii-xxiii:

In most children but in relatively few adults, at least in our time, we may see this willingness to be delighted to the point of self-abandonment. This free and full gift of oneself to a story is what produces the state of enchantment.

But why do we lose the desire–or if not the desire, the ability–to give ourselves in this way?

Adolescence introduces the fear of being deceived, the fear of being caught believing what others have ceased believing in. To be naive, to be gullible–these are the humilitations of adolescence.

Lewis seems never to have been fully possessed by this fear. . . .

One could say, then, that Lewis remained in this particular sense childlike–that is, able always to receive pleasure from the kinds of stories that tend to give pleasure to children. . . .

Surely Lewis himself would have said that when we can no longer be “wide open to the glory”–risking whatever immaturity thereby–we have not lost just our childlikeness but something near the core of our humanity.

Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss.

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