Enetertaining, but disjointed and inconsistent

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	• Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold C.S. Lewis Harcourt Brace & Company, 1980 - 324 pages average customer review:based on 188 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

According to Lewis...

this book was his favorite of all of the books he wrote. I'm right there with him.

9th grade English class, the last day of discussion, from the back of the room, "I am so mad I didn't finish reading this before today's class!!"

I think that says it.

Why must holy places be dark places?

In his masterpiece address, "The Weight of Glory," Lewis says, "if our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."

Through the retelling of an ancient myth, Lewis deals with the uncomfortable issue of God's justice in light of what seems a very unjust world. Why have the gods always seemed indifferent to the afflictions of man? Why must holy places be dark places? Why can't the gods just answer us without all the guesswork and riddle?

If these questions bother you, you will be able to relate to the book's protagonist, a woman named Orual. That is the great thing about this work, if we are honest, we shall see ourselves in Orual. And while admittedly not answering all the questions that arise along these lines, the book, I feel does succeed in giving us a glimpse of at least that part of the problem that we can control and at some level understand.

The main issue that is dealt with in this book is perhaps the most puzzling aspect of faith. There are clearly those things that go far beyond our ability to control, and each of us shall leave this world in ignorance and most assuredly in wonder, why this, why that? But to his credit, Lewis does an amazing job of taking these tough questions and once again through myth, helping his readers to understand a bit more clearly perhaps, the most mysterious of all things, the human heart.

Once we understand (in some measure) our own hearts, perhaps we too will agree with another of the book's characters, The Fox, when asked by Orual, "are the gods not just?" He answers, "Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?"

The Blackstone Audio of this book is excellent by the way. I read the book once and found (as I do with most of Lewis's works) that I enjoyed it even more upon the second reading. I hope you will enjoy it as well.

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through a glass, darkly

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is the most novelistic of the many books by C. S. Lewis. But don't expect it to satisfy on that level. All of Lewis' fiction is an allegorical exploration of man's relationship to God. Till We Have Faces deals particularly with the question of why God seems so distant.

The story is a carefully crafted version of the Greek myth of Psyche, a mortal woman who has a difficult romance with the god Eros. The point of view is that of a homely sister, Orual, who is consumed by unrecognized jealously at being ignored (as she supposes) by the gods. Over time, experience develops in her an independent spirit - a "face" of her own - that qualifies her to converse with God.

I enjoyed this book much more 30 years ago, when the pleasant narrative and the dream-fantasy sequences were enough to carry the allegory. But in my latest reading, the relatively weak characterization and the lack of real challenge in the protagonist's life detracts from the effect.

I respect C. S. Lewis highly as a clear-minded Christian theologian. But like princess Orual, his life experience was hardly rich enough to support the weight of his message.

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Enetertaining, but disjointed and inconsistent

To be sure Till We Have Faces is written poignantly, eloquently and descriptively in the style our parent's and grandparent's generation came to expect from C.S. Lewis. Lewis is at his core a master story teller. Like his popular work (Chronicles of Narnia) this one flows along, captivating the reader and often delivering the unexpected. However, a good exists reason why Till We Have Faces never reached the popularity and acclaim of C.S. Lewis' other works.

In his retelling of the Latin novel Metamorphoses (the story of Cupid and Psyche) Lewis rewrites the story with a more ambivalent motive and a different character for the heroine. The story remains mostly faithful to the original but many odd and unbelievable passages exist in the book; contradictions that cannot be overlooked. First, we are led to believe that young Orual (central character) is magnificently endowed with the powers of persuasion, natural authority, god-like bravery and ruthless discipline when she is suddenly made Queen. For the first portion of the novel Lewis paints Orual as a kind if homely, playful if brave, emotional and sentimental character. We are given no indication that such a fantastic transformation of her character would seem possible so quickly (even after her grueling pilgrimage up a mountain). Furthermore Lewis would have us believe that the King, who had a palace soldier castrated for secretly courting his other daughter, would run a household whereby Orual could merely slip away for two days without being noticed by the King's servants and confidants. The Queenly, warrior-like personality shift that Orual undergoes as her father dies is sudden, awkward and the reader is unlikely to believe the transformation. Once Lewis commits this transgression the rest of the novel takes on an unbelievable tone. Meek Orual, now Queen, slaughters men in battle, wages war and rules with an iron fist.

Many other passages exist in the novel that are puzzling. For example, the King is consistently portrayed as a brute that beats and insults his daughter, and executes, punishes and humiliates men arbitrarily. And yet one of the novel's most noble and trusted characters, Bardia, states "....he's no bad master to soldiers, shepherds, huntsmen and the like." Likewise, the castrated soldier reappears towards the end of the novel. The eunuch has somehow survived his disgrace and sentence of hard labor, miraculously reintroducing himself as an ambassador to a powerful King from a far away land. Unbelievable? Till We Have faces is peppered and ultimately drained by these sorts of small but ultimately damaging contradictions and flaws.

For all of his beautiful writing and occasionally triumphant literary sequences, C.S. Lewis delivered an inconsistent, disjointed work with Till We Have Faces. His more notable works show a thoughtfulness and a maturity that Till We Have Faces simply never achieved.

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One of the Best Spiritual Autobiographies

TWHF is by far, one of the richest, most insightful works of fiction which traces the spiritual autobiography of a character. The truths and depths reflected in this work are marvelous. It is not always an easily accessible work. It must be read several times (at the very least twice) to fully enjoy it and even to grasp some of the basic truths. However, the reader will be greatly rewarded for his or her efforts.

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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