Till We Have Faces

For my Modern Christian Writers class, we had to write a response to reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, addressing whether or not Lewis intended for his story of Orual and Psyche to mirror particular truths in Christianity, and why the title of the work is appropriate. I read this book a few times before I read it again for class, and I get a new appreciation and love for it each time I read it. This time was especially wonderful because I got to hear it explained more fully and to be in a discussion about its significance. I think one of the most memorable things I came away with was realizing Lewis's talent even more, since he was able to write this story so convincingly from a female perspective. How many male authors can do that?

Lewis does suggest some similarities between Christianity and Orual’s struggle. The process of Orual slowly discovering her spiritual ugliness and realizing that she can have no complaint to bring against the gods is a process very similar to what Christians must come to terms with. Like Orual, Christians all struggle with the question of whether God is a good God. It’s one thing to believe that God exists; it’s another to believe that He is really good. At the end of her book, Orual discovers that the complaints that she brings against the gods for what she has supposed to be her own concern and love for Psyche is actually all about her own selfishness and bitterness that she can’t have control over Psyche and have Psyche’s love all for herself. In reality, Psyche’s “death” involves her being freed by being taken away from Orual. It is merciful of the gods to keep her from being drained by Orual as Bardia was.

When Orual “loses” Psyche to the god of the mountain, she displays the ugliness of her heart in her fierce desire to bring Psyche back to her and in her disregard for Psyche’s ultimate good. The word she uses over and over again in her complaint to the gods is “mine.” When people ask questions of the Christian God and demand that He tell us why he has done something, such as take away a loved one, the most common thing they say is “how could God be a good God and still cause this pain?” What we hardly ever realize is that such a question is more about us than it is about that person that we miss. Though death is awful and Christians can’t escape being hurt by it, when a loved one dies “in the Lord” we know that God is still good, and that that person always belonged to God to begin with, and not to us.. It is significant that Lewis constructed this story of Orual and Psyche to be parallel to some important questions in Christianity, because before writing this book he had lost his own wife and had to work through that grief himself.

The title of the book is very appropriate to the work, and is explained in the last chapter. Most of the book is Orual’s depiction of her life and justification of her actions—her complaint to the gods. But for much of the story she is shrouded in a veil, faceless to her kingdom and friends, hiding the physical ugliness that closely mirrors her spiritual ugliness. She is like Ungit—faceless, thirsty for people that she can suck the lives from in order to feel fulfilled. She steals Bardia from his wife, draining him emotionally, all the while believing that she was loving him, just as she thought she was loving Psyche. Orual is able to get away with many things because she is faceless and does not acknowledge the weight of the things she has done, and it is not until the gods strip her of her clothing and veils that she is exposed in all her ugliness and selfishness. The ugliness that she has hidden behind her veil directly symbolizes the distorted, egocentric intentions with which she has treated all people. Until her “face” is revealed to her, her real self, all that she has are her endless words of bitterness and accusations, not resolution or peace. As the Fox says, Ungit’s false image is “too true an image of the demon within” (295). When Orual’s face becomes known to her, and she knows “as she is known,” then her questions become meaningless and the face of God becomes the answer.

I really want to make it a tradition to read this book again every year. I love books that you can read over and over and still receive such meaning and enjoyment. And I hope that I didn't ruin the plot for anyone patient enough to read this entire post. :)

famous last words

These are some of my favorite endings to books (or stories) that I've come across. I'll add more when I think of them. Comment with your own!

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther.... And one fine morning---

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you. I might--

--C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

"And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen."

--The Apostle John, John 21:25

"A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are--oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that."

--Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences

"The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam."

--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

--James Joyce, Araby

"But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

--C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

The Slacker revisits Screwtape

Well, I think it's obvious how much progress I am making on Les Miserables. Little to none, lately. I am still determined to finish it by the end of the summer, but I have been less and less motivated to finish, especially when I have to sludge through chapter after chapter of plot-interrupting material about Paris and Napoleon, cloisters and politics. Somehow I'm just not constructed to appreciate battle strategies and political gymnastics and such. Poor me. I have come up with a way to get through it, though--when I get fed up with excess information that breaks the plot, I switch to reading another book. Then I have another wack at it. Right now, I'm reading The Screwtape Letters again. I've been thinking lately about how easily my mind is distracted from God by countless things that I come up with to deceive myself, so it has been great reading this Lewis book and seeing new phrases and ideas register in my mind.

I'm also rediscovering the Psalms. Quality.

Here is some food for thought:

"Remember, he [the human being tempted] is not, like you [wormwood the demon], a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary."

It's funny how little things like putting aside prayer or communion with God to fix lunch, take a nap, or make a grocery list can be used effectively against the human heart. Especially when you tell yourself that you'll carry on whatever thoughts about God later when you have more time, feel more awake, etc. It's cheated me out of a lot, for sure.

Anna Karenina

It has taken me a long time to finally finish this book--all 817 pages of it. I started it at the beginning of last summer, and gave up in order to read shorter books with shorter character lists. It's true. I definitely chickened out. Halfway through reading it, I even began wondering why in the world Tolstoy named the thing Anna Karenina when it was about so many other people as well. Oh, and each of these people have about 4 variations of names each. No kidding.

As I read though, even as the main narratives unfolded slowly in and out of agricultural and historical explanations, I got pulled into the story. After long stints of reading, I walked around with long Russian names in my head and their problems still running through my mind. When I went outside in the summer air, I thought about Levin as he walked through his farmland and Tolstoy's words that so realistically described things like wheat, and grass, and dirt. Just simple things like that. My initial thoughts were that I would be detached all the way through, especially since the narrative isn't gripping and wasn't the type to keep me on the edge of my seat. But I was wrong, because the slowness of the story made the characters grow on me, and I felt like I spent weeks with them as their lives progressed and their problems came to a head.

I felt a mixture of pity and annoyance for Anna, I loved Darya, I admired Levin, and I disliked Vronsky.

It's a big job to sum up my thoughts about this book, especially since my time reading it was broken up into two summers. Sometime, I plan to read it again in a much shorter amount of time in order to soak it in more cohesively. I was constantly amazed, though, by the skill Tolstoy has in rendering characters and their most complex emotions in such a clear way. The social problems that he addresses in this work made me stop reading many times just to think. How is it that women who sleep with men other than their husbands are shunned from society, when the men are able to walk freely, and even congratulated? Anna becomes socially paralyzed, and her increasing, even paranoid dependence on Vronsky to support her and love her (to make her fall worth it) ends up ruining her. She jumps under a moving train. Darya's husband is obviously unfaithful to her, and she partially envies Anna for being the one to take control as the unfaithful one, instead of the one hurt. I thought a lot about what lengths women go to to control their idea of happiness, and the men that they believe will give them ultimate happiness, and how that rage for control is so destructive.

Well, that is the end of this questionable book review. I call it questionable because it's scattered, which is usually the state of my brain after reading a book. But what I love about books is that some part of them gets ingrained into me each time I read. They don't just bounce off, they soak into me and something or everything about them affects how I think.

Next up: Les Miserables (523/1463 pages read so far!)

words that won't be eaten. i hope.

I told myself that this would be the summer that I'd actually follow through with my reading list. In past summers, I've read a couple books or started a few without finishing them. Not this time. No sir.

By the way, I think it would be kind to set out a disclaimer. Being away from college makes my brain atrophy when it comes to writing, so this might be pretty rough and tedious. Maybe it will get better--we shall see. Also, I overuse dashes. But, I can promise you, I will never misuse apostrophes or use the word "myself" subjectively. These are my pet peeves, and I will not tolerate any misuse of these functions of speech and punctuation.

Ahem, anyway, that was not my point. This is where my disclaimer about tangents comes in. Consider yourself disclaimed.

I'll be adding books to the list as I think of them, and while it seems silly of me to address the nameless people who are not reading this blog, and know nothing of its existence, I want to invite you to share book titles with me so that I can round out that skimpy list.

I am currently reading Les Miserables, and I am at the completely-sucked-in phase. Ahh, I love it.