I am so excited to talk about this book together.
It’s the last full work of fiction that Lewis wrote, and the last we’ll be discussing in this series at Tor.com. It’s quintessentially Lewis in so many ways, but unique among his other books. There are critiques to be had, I’m sure, but it’s a book I love, and one I came to late. When I was reading my way through Lewis I left it till last because it seemed very much like it might be the least interesting. But it quickly became one of my favorite of his novels, if not the favorite.
In March of 1955, Lewis was feeling burnt out. He felt he had run out of creative ideas. An American woman with whom he had been corresponding came to visit, along with her two sons. This was, of course, Joy Davidman, the woman who would marry Lewis in less than a year. At first, they said they’d married for visa reasons; eventually they admitted that they were in love.
In any case, Davidman and Lewis talked about stories and threw ideas at each other for a while, and the next morning Lewis had written the first chapter of the book that would become Till We Have Faces (originally titled Bareface). It was a “myth retold”… a revisiting of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, a story that had bothered Lewis from his youth, because he felt the characters acted in ways that didn’t make sense. Now he was going to dig into it and find the truth of the whole thing.
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Seasonal Fears
Lewis considered Till We Have Faces his best novel. I think he’s right. Critics and the public at large didn’t agree—or at least many didn’t, not at first. Lewis said, “that book, which I consider far and away the best I have written, has been my one big failure both with critics and with the public.” His Christian fans were put off by the unapologetically pagan nature of the book… The familiar God of Christianity never shows up in a way that was obvious. Others thought the sudden swerve toward some sort of literary work was strange, and that the prose was needlessly opaque. If you wanted a space adventure, a heavily and obviously theological work, or a children’s fantasy, you were bound to be disappointed. This was something different, a book about a woman who hated the gods and was putting them on trial.
I don’t want to say too much about the content of this book, because I get the feeling there may be some of you out there who’ve been with us through this reread but who haven’t read Till We Have Faces yet. I don’t want to get too deeply into the characters and plot before you have a chance to read it, so I’m going to keep this article brief(ish) and share a few bits of trivia and a handful of things to be looking for as you read:
- The title Bareface was rejected because the publisher felt that it might be confused for a Western. Lewis didn’t agree, and actually thought it wouldn’t matter much if you picked up the book thinking it was a Western. Nevertheless, he worked on coming up with a different title, and chose this one from a line in the book.
- There’s some disagreement about exactly how much Joy Davidman contributed to the text of Till We Have Faces. We know for sure that she typed it off of Lewis’ handwritten notes. We know that Lewis asked her advice on many points, and that his confidence in writing a female point of view character was due almost entirely to her advice. There are aspects of Orual’s story that surely echo Davidman’s. The style is not like any of Lewis’ other books, either, and there are aspects that seem like Davidman’s. So critics and scholars have some disagreement here, as to exactly how much of the book was hers vs. Lewis’. For her part, Davidman said only that she “helped him write more like himself.” I suspect that is very much true: this book feels like the first one that Lewis wrote for himself and not for someone else. But he did, of course, dedicate the book to Davidman.
- Lewis was turning some version of this story over in his head for much of his life. He first read Apulieus’ version of the story in The Golden Ass when he was 18. He even took an attempt at writing a poem version of the story when he was an undergrad. Interestingly, it’s a story that held his attention from the time he was an atheist through to the time that he became a Christian. It seems to me there are some interesting places in the novel where we see Orual’s journey reflecting Lewis’ own on the matter of gods and the divine.
- Side note: In the poem version, there are two characters with familiar names… Psyche’s siblings, named Caspian and “Jardis.” Lewis wasn’t one to let a good name go to waste!
- Much like That Hideous Strength was a fictionalized journey through the same content as The Abolition of Man, Lewis said publicly that Till We Have Faces was a fictive version of similar thoughts being explored in The Four Loves. It’s worth remembering those four categories: Storge (affection/fondness/empathy); philia (friendship); eros (romantic love); and agape (the unchanging divine love). If you have the time to read The Four Loves, pay special attention to how Lewis describes love when it goes wrong or is unbalanced… that’s a lot of the story in Till We Have Faces!
- Lewis expects that his readers will have at least a passing acquaintance with the story of Psyche and Cupid; he wants you to note the ways he’s changed or subverted or illuminated the original tale. If you don’t know that story, it’s well worth your time to read it before you dive in to Till We Have Faces!
This book is, I think, the most honest Lewis ever was in his novels. It’s a story about him, about his family and family history, about his life and faith (or lack thereof), about his questions and anger. It’s the most free he ever was in focusing the story on things he himself loved, keeping the pagan story at the center and not trying to shoehorn in a religious piece that wasn’t already present. The Greek and Roman and Norse myths were essential in his own movement toward Christianity, and he trusts that the Truth of the story will be clear without making the trappings of the story overtly Christian.
Lewis once wrote:
This re-interpretation of an old story has lived in the author’s mind, thickening and hardening with the years… Recently, what seemed the right form presented itself and themes suddenly interlocked: the straight tale of barbarism, the mind of an ugly woman, dark idolatry and pale enlightenment at war with each other and with vision, and the havoc which a vocation, or even a faith, works on human life.
It’s a story, in the end, about having the courage to reveal one’s true self. There’s such beauty in that. I’m looking forward to discussing it with you all in the weeks to come.
Matt Mikalatos is the author of the YA fantasy The Crescent Stone. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
Looking forward to this!
Excited for this one! I’ve only read this book once (about 2 years ago now) and while I definitely enjoyed it (have not yet found a Lewis I do not enjoy), it did not strike me as Lewis’ best work and it didn’t resonate with me as some of his others have. I’m wondering if a second read will affect me more. Definitely excited for these articles and the subsequent discussion.
I’ve read the book several times. The first time, I didn’t understand it at all and I hated it. The second time, at least I knew where it was going and so I enjoyed the journey more . . . but I still didn’t understand it. The third time, a couple things fell into place, and I appreciated it more. The fourth time, another significant piece fell into place, and suddenly I loved it! The fifth time, I was able to enjoy even more detail, and I finally felt satisfied and fulfilled.
I suppose there are those more perceptive, perhaps more mature, readers who would not require 5 readings to arrive at satisfaction with this story, so don’t be put off by my experience! Come along for the ride!
It was an astonishing revelation to read this book. And yes, it is far and away his best work.
Is there any record of Tolkien’s reaction to this novel?
This is my favorite Lewis novel.
@5 – Agreed.
I love this book. Literarily, I think it’s Lewis’s best work. It digs deeper into a character’s heart than, IMO, anything else Lewis wrote. The One God doesn’t show up (till perhaps the very last scene?), but I think that plays well into the themes of the book.
And, I love the title as well; I think the publisher’s insistence vastly improved it.
The story of Psyche and Cupid was a vague memory to me when I first read this book as a young man. So I missed a lot in the first reading, but I do recall finding it interesting even so. The Narnia books were written for children, the Space Trilogy for young adults perhaps, but this one feels like it was meant for those of us who have to be pretty optimistic to be considered truly middle-aged. I’m looking forward to reading it again.
@4/wlewisiii. Yes! Tolkien also felt this was Lewis’s best work.
This is certainly a book that has never stopped improving with re-reading, at least for me. “Dark idolatry” and “pale enlightenment”, yes, and we see too a personal experience with the Divine … and are left to make the connections for ourselves. It is very interesting, too, to see Lewis write from a female point of view. I can’t say how authentic it is, not being myself female, but it’s definitely more nuanced than his previous work.
This is somehow the only Lewis novel I’ve read, so can’t comment on if it’s his best work, but it left a deep impression on me when I read it in college, almost 20 years ago now. I saw a little too much of myself in Orual, I think, with her self-doubt and defensiveness and unacknowledged truths. The prose is beautiful, and I respect that Lewis respected the essential mystery and contradictions at the heart of myth and religion. I’m looking forward to this discussion.
I think Lewis found a brilliant middle-ground in this book, where his faith and his respect for the source material (the Greek and Roman myths) were perfectly married together. He didn’t “shoehorn” in anything, but it’s absolutely there. Orual’s stumbling across the priest of Psyche, and hearing how the more well-known version of the story will be the famous one that outlives here, was a clever nod to the original.
This is not only my favorite Lewis novel, but probably my favorite novel, period.
Looking forward to the discussion about it!
This is definitely my favorite book by Lewis. I don’t think I completely understand it; but I find Orual’s journey, her loves and sorrows, very powerful.
I first read this book in high school; I gave up on it. I came back to it and found I love it. Like @14 I don’t completely understand it, but it is one of a select amount of books that I stayed up way too late trying to get to the end. And the end itself really hit me. I think I read somewhere that it is supposed to be an example of Lewis’s non-fiction “Four Loves”? I should read that, then read TWHF again and try to find all the paralells. I have tried encouraging my family to read Till We Have Faces, but to no avail so far (sigh).
Like a lot of people, this is my favorite book by Lewis. One of Lewis’ weakness is that, in a lot of his stories, you see very clearly how characters are making mistakes. That didn’t happen when I read this one.
And I can’t say anything more about it without giving spoilers. But, I love this book!
Me too. This is my favorite single book of Lewis’s and has been since I first read it at the age of about 15. Especially his translations of Sappho: “take me to the apple-laden land” and “the moon’s gone down / gone into the Pleiades / but alone I lie.”
@10/perseant – as a woman, I feel like Orual is written as a person? Which is exactly why she’s believable as a woman. The sort who’s “not like other girls” and has loads of internalized misogyny to fight, while feeling simultaneously like she’s somehow a failure at woman-ing on a deep level. And above all else, *not* looking at everything in life through the “woman” lens.
Basically, it’s Dorothy Sayers and the whole “women are people” thing.
Still, I don’t connect to Orual *as a woman* because I have no experience of what it’s like to be a woman completely dismissed or ungendered by all the important/powerful people in my life, to be rejected because I don’t fill a sole function of beauty, to have to scramble for intellectual opportunity, to have thwarted ambition (I’m extremely *un*ambitious). I wouldn’t, say, recommend this book to men to get a deep dive into What It Is To Be A Woman. And that’s fine. I connect to Orual as an older sib, as an outsider, as a scholar, as someone with a very keen but not always very accurate sense of justice – in other words, as a person, for whom gender is only one characteristic. Other people will make other connections.
I’m sad this will be the last discussion but I’m really looking forward to it! Cupid and Psyche is my favorite myth but I remember being disappointed when I first read this book. I’m inspired to pick it up again after reviewing The Four Loves. You do great work, Matt!
I have a lot of respect for Lewis the storyteller. Lewis the Thinker? Not so much. This book is a case in point. Orual is a great character and the book marks a big step forward in Lewis’s evolution as a writer, but the fact that people have difficulty understanding its actual point is entirely down to Lewis rather than the reader. I’ve used the analogy elsewhere – but has anybody ever seen the film Frailty? Did you find it a frustrating experience? Well…..
@20 This criticism is a little odd to me. I don’t necessarily think the mark of a great thinker is having ideas that are easy to understand or sum up. And I also don’t think the best stories are always the ones with easily digestible morals or viewpoints. I actually think the reason I like Until We Have Faces so much is that Lewis resists his usual tendency to write as though it’s always easy to discern what’s a sin and what God wants from us.
I would say the opacity is part of the point of the book. Lewis is trying to grapple with the difficulty of understanding what reality, if any, lies behind spiritual experience. The central question of the book is Orual’s: “Why must holy places be dark places?” The fact that Lewis avoids giving an easy answer is to his credit.
I think one of the themes of this book is that myths and religions can’t be completely understood through reason. Whatever truth they possess is not “thin and clear, like water”, but rather “thick and dark, like blood”. You don’t understand a myth, you absorb it, digest it, and are changed by it. Not unlike the Eucharist itself, if you believe in that sort of thing. Orual can’t understand Psyche’s experience of the Gods by thinking about it; it only makes sense once she participates in it.
Lewis resists his usual tendency to write as though it’s always easy to discern what’s a sin and what God wants from us.
I guess a lot of it has to do with reader expectations? Most of us will feel that Orual was acting in good faith (just like the older brother in Frailty) and be surprised by the subsequent story direction. And this is compounded by how we have no clear idea as to the exact nature of the ‘God of the Mountain’ (especially given that the story is based on a pagan rather than a Christian myth) – ie, whether he’s good or evil.
Fair enough – I was already very familiar with the story of Cupid and Psyche when I read the book for the first time. So I was anticipating that the God of the Mountain would turn out to be truly divine, and that Orual would be shown to have been in the wrong. I hadn’t thought about how the text would read to someone without those prior expectations.
(I haven’t seen Frailty, unfortunstely, so I can’t speak to the similarities/differences between the two works.)
Frailty suffers from the same problem (or maybe it’s a viewer problem??) – ie, knowing the kind of movie you’re watching beforehand (ie, realistic or supernatural) would have definitely have made a big difference.