Was CS Lewis an Aspie?

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I read a (poorly written) article about him today that mentions 1) he had a nearly photographic memory 2) he was clumsy to the point he never drove a car, and 3) He was both an odd fellow and didn't handle money very well.

Doesn't that sound rather like someone with aspergers?

http://rachelreadingnthinking.blogspot. ... lewis.html

This review says he might have been.

I find this idea EXTREMELY interesting. I have several ideas about ASD and the Christian faith, and the idea that CSL may have been on the spectrum is very interesting in light of that. I could be very very wrong.

Was C.S. Lewis an Aspie?

We will never know.

Why is it that nearly every famous historical person has had the "Aspie" label attached to him or her?

Are some aspies really so desperate for validation that they will slap the label on a dead person - who has no means of denying the claim - just to be able to say "A famous dead aspie did something really special, so I must be special too because I am also an aspie"?

True, and the comments on the linked article make the same point.

For me, I don't look at it as "Dead aspie was special, so I'm special" but "Maybe if this person was an aspie and achieved something with their life, there's hope that I might be able to achieve something of substance, and not just get smashed into the ground for not fitting".

Also... what did they do to achieve their successes? What parts of that could I emulate, that might help me do better in life?

I'm curious about your ideas about ASD and Christianity.

I'm pretty sure that one of the things that C.S. Lewis did not do was to obsessively speculate about the perceptive disorders of others.

Aye... but I'm not the OP, and I've never gone looking for "historical" aspies, I just find the idea that CSL may have been on the spectrum interesting.

It's kind of a half-written blog post in my head at the moment. It could also just be something about the way I'm wired and not generally applicable.

I might try and explain more when I'm not at work

He's character Eustice seems like it but Eustice was supposed to be an annoying little boy and I don't think CS Lewis would write about aspie traits in such a way if he related to them. Rather, he probably just knew somebody and turned them into the character of Eustice.

He would have been an interesting character though, that CSL.

I'm getting a bit tired of speculation about what dead famous person might have been autistic. It's like you can't be brilliant or remembered for your brilliance if you weren't autistic.

When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

I knew someone whose partner was BPD. They were sure everyone with some emotional imbalance was also BPD.

Although, given "our" trait of paying attention to specific details, I think it's not hard for some of us to see it everywhere, even when it's really just that we share some common personality traits with person X (dead or alive).

You failed to notice I was asking and not claiming.

I think there was a cardinal somewhere between 15 and 18 hundred who may have been on the spectrum.

I try not to speculate that everyone had it and I think I'm good at this.

I'm listening to surprised by joy by CS Lewis and in his description of his childhood there are a myriad of things that today would be viewed as symptoms of ASD!