Sheldon Vanauken

Sheldon Vanauken, or Van, is the protagonist and narrator of this story. He is a passionate student of literature and poetry, as well as sailing and music, and a lover of beauty in all its forms. He is a romantic and an intellectual who, at the beginning of the story, is a confirmed and happy pagan, thinking pleasurable and fair living with the acknowledgment that all that is must have been created by an intelligent being, or moral theism, the wisest course. Over the course of the story, though, he is confronted with the undeniable superiority of the Christian scriptures and the appeal of a life shaped after the person of Christ. He, with the guidance of several Christian authors as well as the wise friendship of Christian thinker C.S. Lewis, becomes a partner in faith with his wife, Davy, and with countless other excellent Christian...