The Screwtape Letters

 

"...you must keep him praying to it--to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him" (25).

C.S. Lewis is a name that echoes continually through the labyrinthine annals that constitute the 20th century literary canon. He was a man who wrote for children, for adults, for Christians, and for those less inclined to trust in an omnipotent spiritual figure. The Screwtape Letters perhaps straddles the gaps amongst all of these groups, as it whimsically presents the sinister intentions of two demons plotting for the destruction of an average chap navigating war-torn Britain. The demons function both literally (as Satan's fallen counterparts of ancient times) and figuratively (toying with the emotions, thoughts, and desires of a man's most hidden psychological landscape). The intrepid letters are either cynical satire or a hopeful fight against the subversive manipulative powers that inhabit the domain beyond what we can see. Whatever a reader's response to the novel, its creative conception is undoubtedly the work of a writer deeply in touch with his own personal failings, and to a greater extent, the troubles and temptations that plague each of us. The reader approaches the text hoping to easily point the finger of condemnation at others, but instead, he or she finds the inner workings of their own soul--the personal foul play that human beings are ever attempting to veil and forget. 

1. "...fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbors" (35).

Humbling reality. My mother-in-law recently read TSL, and she was horrified by it. Her response could possibly have something to do with reading the text in a language to which she is not native, but I tend to think that perhaps her sensitivity to the spiritual matters may be of a greater influence. Sometimes I catch myself nodding along to the profane wanderings of a demon's mind; the mind finds familiar ground when not actively guarding itself against the book's meditations on the theories of practical temptation. The content itself is rather benign, lacking the sensational elements of great evil, terrifying gore, or even easily identifiable hypocrisy. When "the Patient's" mother is passing undue judgement, it is easy to decide that she is the villain and can reasonably be treated with disdain. But isn't that the point that Lewis is attempting to prove? The work of the devil is to corrupt us, not necessarily to outrageous crimes of passion, but in the less obvious, everyday missteps.

I am much more concerned with a lack of horror when it comes to the personal commentary that I refuse to see. I suffer through many days entrenched in my own victimhood, hypnotized by the perceived cruelties and inconveniences that plague my interactions with those around me. But in reality? I am the one who grits my teeth at the sour taste in my mouth created by my subtle animosity for those around me. The architecture of my mind has convinced me that others have created the problems that, truthfully, can only come from within.

2. "He must have some real reason for creating them and taking so much trouble about them" (112).

The contrast. Hope is found in the truth that pours through the mind like fresh streams of cool water. One of my personal copies of TSL is inscribed with every Scripture that jumped out to me from between the lines of Satanic manipulation. As Jesus in the desert proposed verse after verse to combat the lies of the devil, so have I used this same weapon in my fight against the temptations that strike me where it hurts the most. Satan is clever, and my corruptible humanity is susceptible to the mere suggestion of selfishness. But at the end of the book, when "the Patient" transcends the reach of his demon's grasp, I see the goal of all this striving: freedom from the world's cloying grasp and eternity in the presence of the Savior.

3. "This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire t you, is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man" (186-87).

Heavenly hope. I would be remiss if I did not quote this portion of text. Reading the intellectually challenging moral war of TSL can be just as exhausting as actually living it. However, encountering a description of heaven's arms opening wide to receive the weary Christian is even more poignant when considered from the viewpoint of he who can never again approach that celestial gateway. All of TSL is striking in its literal portrayal of the "devil's advocate," but considering this final triumph from the perspective of a demon's ultimate defeat feeds some desire of the soul. There is a sense of justice fulfilled, safety and serenity absolutely achieved, and humble meditation on the rescue from a flaming plummet into unrestrained damnation.

4. "There are two equal and opposite errors...One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them" (xlvii).

Preoccupation. C.S. Lewis says it here, right at the beginning of his text, that such preoccupation with the unknowable evils of the spiritual realm can only result in spiritual sickness. Not acknowledging it at all, however, will result in a similarly negative repercussion. The author himself stated that he would not be writing a sequel to the book, as his time inhabiting the hypothetical mind of a demon had left him bereft in a strange weakness of body and spirit. There is no way, at least on this side of heaven, to know how close these imaginative letters come to the reality of what we face each day on earth. If the after-effects of reading TSL are any indication, I would say that he was supernaturally inspired to write that which is needed for us to soberly self-evaluate our willing participation in our own allurement from the path of righteous living. I agree that after spending annual time in this book, I am glad to leave it behind until the next year. The work of self-evaluation through the lens of other-worldly influences is good, but there is a reason why we are solidly grounded in the physical world.

Till We Have Faces

 

"Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back," (87).

Some of my earliest memories have no images, only sound and feeling. Lying on the floor with my eyes close, listening to the sound of my father's voice, I would be lost in the world of Narnia--the swirling sand of Calormen beneath my feet and Cair Paravel rising in the distance. Before I could read much more than a picture book on my own, I found myself well-acquainted with the mystical creatures of C.S. Lewis' imagination. This specific memory contains remnants of The Horse and His Boy, as Shasta and Bree climbed endless dunes under a burning sun to reach freedom. Before I had re-read the books for myself as an older adolescent, I could recall those written descriptions in the voice of my father.

I also grew up on the 1988 BBC version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It was in 2 parts, and I can see explicitly the scene in the woods, Lucy gaping at the snow melting from budding branches. And then the tape ends. And we had to re-wind before pulling that one out of the VHS player and popping in Part 2. We were front and center in the theater when the new version was released in 2005, and there was no more re-winding necessary, thankfully.

As a teenager, I made a list of every piece of C.S. Lewis writing that I could find. I decided that I would work my way through, book by book, until I had collected them all. I've lost count at this point, but I believe I am somewhere near the 25 mark, with several more still to go. C.S. Lewis' writing has shaped who I am, from childhood until now. This claim is one that can probably be made by many a reader. He wrote the sort of books he would have wanted to read, and it turns out that what is good reading material doesn't alter all that much, even as the outside trappings of our societies change beyond recognition. I'm guessing he understood that fact better than most.

My most recent addition to my Lewis library I is Till We Have Faces. It is the last book that he wrote and published before his death; he is quoted as saying that it his best. This review is difficult for me to write, not because I don't have thoughts, but because the thoughts are too broad. I think too much, too many things, concerning this book, and I fear that a few bullet points cannot do it justice. But that is the task that I have set before myself, and so I will attempt to craft a description that will do some small semblance of justice to the text. If nothing else, perhaps it will encourage you to pick it up and read for yourself:

1. "There stood the palace, grey--as all things were grey in that hour and place--but solid and motionless, wall within wall, pillar and arch and architrave, acres of it, a labyrinthine beauty" (149).

The fantasy. I loved the fantasy genre when I was a kid, and now that I've stepped back into that realm, I am recalling what originally drew me to it. C.S. Lewis does the fantastical and magical better than almost anyone, and I believe part of his longevity as a beloved author is his willingness to present the subtle humanity of imagination through the eyes of children. What if the trees could hear and remain loyal to the rightful heirs of the throne? What if a goat was also half-human and drank tea in his cave-like home? And what if a young, arrogant boy could fall prey to an evil witch, but his very own siblings took up the mantle and fought for the freedom of an entire country? And...what if Father Christmas was there? These are the types of dreams that we all have, but often only children are brave enough to speak them. The fairytales are only one step away from our world, with battles and simple kindnesses and the same human tendencies we see every day. However, they are also full of all the wonder that can be infused with the question, what if?

C.S. Lewis got this aspect of fantasy right, and he does it yet again in Till We Have Faces. A medievalist will always do castles and monsters right, and a Greek mythologist knows his gods and allegories like no one else. Lewis brings all of these influences into his work. As I was reading, I couldn't help but think that this work is the precursor to every modern fantasy book that I have enjoyed. There are the very real, physical dangers of wars and plagues, but the spiritual and metaphysical terrors are also ever-present. Of course, the greatest monster is always the unseen. The soaring beauty and the tragic ugliness of such a world, where all is possible and dreams or nightmares both lurk at the door, is what fantasy readers seek.

2. "What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant" (287).

The voice. The novel is written as a journaling task by our main character, Orual. She has set out to tell her tale, to revisit the events that led her to the great plight in which she now finds herself. We grow with Orual, learning to see the world through her eyes and finding the errors in her thinking. She cannot identify them herself, at least in the beginning. Letting a first-person narrator express her own flaws without realization, essentially incriminating herself without knowing it, is incredibly subversive. We, as the readers, are one with her: we are inside Orual's mind and can only see the world through her eyes. Somehow, we are led to both empathize with her desperation and simultaneously condemn her for pride and self-imposed blindness. There is a many a book wherein the author crafts a protagonist that is lacking, who is unlikable or annoying or selfish, to the point where the book is ruined. Not so with Orual. She is, for lack of a better description, human. Her entire journey to a discovery of the truth mirrors the reader's own. If she misses the mark so clearly, then what am I missing within the annals of my own mind? Have I looked in the mirror too long and forgotten what is there? Lewis thus points us inward through the coaxing thoughts of another.

3. "That ruinous face was mine. I was that...swollen spider, squat at its centre, gorged with men's stolen lives...ceasing to be...was now too hard for me" (315).

The allegory. Lewis' scholarly focus was on the allegorical work of the Middle Ages, so of course he is a master in the form. He weaves the idea of a pagan pantheon together with clearly Christian themes. How does he manage such a feat? And is it one worth doing? In his view, all of the ancient myths and stories had their roots in the one great story of humanity: God, sending His Son to die on our behalf and drawing us back into community with Himself after our violent rejection of Him. Every mythology and religion carry the same spiritual elements, just packaged slightly differently to fit the culture. The humans in Till We Have Faces shape gods who are convenient to them. The cruel and brutal Ungit resides in a dark house in the form of a misshapen stone, requiring bloody sacrifice and withholding mercy from the people. The god on the mountain, unseen and mysterious, is imagined by some as a brute and by others as majestic and beautiful.

At one point in the novel, the priest of Ungit describes the gods as being the source and the result of one another. "[S]he signifies the earth, which is the womb and mother of all living things" and the god on the mountain is "the sky by its showers [making] the earth fruitful" (308). The people are very vague and contradictory in their theology, proving that none of them really see the truth in full, only in part. They have created gods who will suit them and explain the inexplicable, and the gods have produced in them a certain way of living that promotes unity, survival, and moral character. The actuality of their deity has very little importance, in the way that the Israelite's golden calf was not really meant to replace the omnipotent God meeting with Moses on the mountain. Down below, where nothing can be seen except the whispers of sovereign design, the human mind is apt to define everything satisfyingly within the confines of human understanding--even that which cannot be grasped.

The complexity of the allegory is hard to overstate. C.S. Lewis is, on the one hand, commenting on the reality of human nature. He is also showing the true homeliness of our "faces" when compared with the untamed holiness of the true God. We are dust...such small and inconsequential beasts in the face of the One Moses could only see from behind. The wonder is in the fact that we, merely human, will one day see Him face to face as we stand upon the merciful blood of His Son, to be reunited with Him whose image we bear imprinted on our eternal souls. And that, in C.S. Lewis' allegory, is what it means to have a face.

There is no doubt in my mind that you should read Till We Have Faces. If not, I will read it again for both of us. And that is not a threat, but a promise!