In response to my post on PRISONER OF NARNIA, two friends wrote by email. They have given me permission to quote their email here.

Sharon Gallagher, editor of Radix Magazine, wrote:

I just read the Gopnik article this week and was
unhappy with it. I'm not surprised that Gopnik likes the A.N. Wilson
biography. He takes Wilson's interpretations of Lewis's faith and
sexuality and presents them as fact. Other biographers came to
different conclusions. He also adopts Wilson's condescending attitude
toward faith.

In my Radix (31:3) interview with Norman Stone, the director of the first Shadowlands,
Norman is quite clear that Lewis's faith sustained him during Joy's
illness and death. (Norman had talked with people who knew Lewis at the
time.)

I wish that The New Yorker had given this assignment
to either John Updike or Malcolm Gladwell--two of their superstars who
would have handled the material with more understanding. (I've been a
big fan of Gopnik's other writing and even bought his book about Living in Paris.)

Ginny Hearn wrote:

The quote in your blog from Adam Gopnik (11/20) ended like this, in his discussion of CSL's A Grief Observed: "Lewis ended up in a state of uncertain personal faith that seems to the unbeliever comfortingly like doubt."

Hmmmmm. It's been many years since I read AGO, but this statement is
apt to be read as "In his life, Lewis ended up in a state of uncertain
personal faith . . . ", which is not accurate. I recall that this book,
written in a journal-like fashion in the several months following the
death of Joy, expressed CSL's understandable, terrible anguish at her
loss after their brief marriage--but Lewis did NOT end up in the doubt
[or unbelief in Christianity] that this statement might imply to an
unbeliever looking for "comfort" in his or her doubt.