Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

The final chapter opens with Lewis firm in the resolve that once he fills his last empty MS book, he will write no more on the subject of his mourning. He observes about the process that while he had set out to describe a state of sorrow and detail a map that could be used to recognize grief by everyone who read it while they themselves were in that state, he discovered instead that it is a process with no discernible end. Rather than having some moment at which he could emerge and therein stop his writing, he discovers new things to write every day. Instead of being on a linear journey, he finds himself tucking back in on his old route at arbitrary points out of order in which he first came across them.

On the day of his opening...