Welcome to Tumnus’s Book Shelf where we review any and all books related to Narnia and CS Lewis! For this weeks review, we will be looking at CS Lewis’s Till We Have Faces
Book Title: Till We Have Faces
Author: CS Lewis
Publisher:Harcourt Brace & Company; Harvest Book edition (July 9, 1980)
ISBN-10: 0156904365
ISBN-13: 978-0156904360
Summary of the book:
In the land of Glome, there lived a woman by the name of Oreul. She and her sister Redival were the daughters of King Trom. Their father took for himself a second wife. In time the second wife was to give birth. The King had not yet been given any sons. As in his mind only a son was fit to inherit the throne, he desperately prayed to the goddess Ungit for a son and made the proper sacrifices.
The request was denied. The King was given another daughter by the name of Istra (or in the Greek Psyche). Oreul loved her new sister greatly. Psyche grew to be a very lovely woman both in spirit and in face. So beautiful that the people said she was even more beautiful than Ungit the goddess of love and beauty.
For this, the land of Glom was struck with famine. The people were dying. In order to lift the plague, Trom would have to sacrifice Psyche to the Great Brute. Oreul was very angry about it and sought a way to save her sister. There was no way out of it. Psyche choose to allow herself to be a sacrifice as she desired to be on the Mountain.
Sometime after, with the aid of Bardia her manservant, Oreul made a journey to the Mountain to find the body of Psyche and give her a proper burial. It was in their customs and beliefs to do so and it had to be honored. They arrived at the tree where Phsyce had been sacrificed.SPOILERS! To their surprise they found nothing but broken chains and the iron girdle that fastened her. There were no bones, no rags, not a single thing to mark where she had been. The two of them resolved to find where Psyche may had been taken.
To Oreul’s surprise they discovered Psyche alive and well on the other side of a river. Psyche invited her sister to come over. Oreul discovered that Psyche had not been killed but was now married to the god of the Mountain and dwelt in a beautiful palace. However she could never see the face of the god of the Mountain.
Oreul could not see the palace Psyche dwelt in or any of the fine foods and drink she was given. Psyche was deeply upset by this. Oreul tried to convince Psyche it was all a lie and to return with her. Psyche refused as she loved her husband and knew it was true. She told her she always longed to be on the mountain and always longed for the gods. Psyche was happy and Oreul couldn’t dissuade her.
Oreul reasoned that her sister was being held captive by some fiend. She returned to Bardia and went back to Glome. She spoke with the Fox who concurred with her that the man Psyche married may be a criminal. Oreul decided she would rescue her sister and make her see the truth as she felt she was the only one who loved her sister.
Oreul went to visit her sister again, this time she urged her to go into her husband’s chambers at night with a dagger and an oil lantern. Psyche refused. She loved her husband and would not betray him. Oreul slit her arm and made Psyche swear a blood oath to do as she told her. If she did not she would kill Psyche and herself. Psyche agreed to betray her husband to save them both.
During the night Oreul watched from a safe distance as the beautiful palace Psyche dwelt in was destroyed as Psyche disobeyed her husband. A fierce storm came over the land and Oreul returned home alone, as Psyche was now gone.END SPOILERS!
When she returned she told the Fox of her errand.SPOILERS! He rebuked her for the actions she took as it could have endangered Psyche’s life if the man were a wanted criminal. He disciplined her for her actions. Oreul retired to her sister’s old room to mourn her.END SPOILERS!
Sometime later around Midwinter, her father returned from a revelry some good distance away. He had fallen ill and went mad. Everyone was concerned about who would rule the kingdom if he died as neither Oreul or Redival had a husband and they were at war with another kingdom. Oreul resolved that she would lead the nation.
The king died and Oreul became queen. She became very powerful and part of her power lay in her aura of mystery .She always wore a veil to hide her face as she was ugly. This led to many rumors about her and who she was.
Some time later she made a journey to the land of Phars, which were the people they had been at war with.SPOILERS! While on her journey she came upon a temple to a goddess with an all-too familiar name. “Istra” It was dedicated to her sister Psyche.
She spoke with the priest who told her the story of Psyche as given to him by the gods. According to the story, not only was Oreul jealous of her sister’s beauty but Redival helped Oreul in convincing Psyche to betray her husband . Then she also learned that Psyche was sent on a quest to reclaim her husband’s favor. When her quest was complete she would become a goddess.
She returned home, angry at the gods. First they gave her Psyche, the only one she ever loved, and who ever loved her and then they took her. Now they had humiliated her and compared her to Redival. With that she issued a charge against the gods, whom she found noxious, and demanded that they answer her. END SPOILERS!
Her life continued on. Some time later when the Fox had long left and many others close to her died and another plague had come upon the land. A strange thing happened while Oreul was asleep. SPOILERS! The ghost of her father woke her up and took her to the Pillar Room. She was ordered to dig a hole in the pillar room, and is worked like a dog. Then she was ordered to throw herself into the hole.
She found herself in another pillar room, the one made all of earth and dirt. Than her father posed her a question. Who was Ungit. Oreul declared herself Ungit. She was left to ponder this and came to realize in what ways she was like the goddess.
She is soon brought before the gods, and striped naked in front of them to plea her case. She is forced to read from her book her charge against them. The gods showed her that she was setting herself up to be a goddess and trying to take from them what was their’s. Psyche belonged to them, not her.
The Fox appears to her and shows her many images from the past . The one that pains her the most is that of her tearing apart Psyche’s marriage. She learned had not been out of love that she tried to interfere, but jealousy. A voice calls out that Psyche is returning from the underworld, having completed her task that Ungit sent her on to have her marriage to her husband restored.
Oreul falls to her knees, realizing that her sister had become a goddess. Oreul declared that she relinquished her control of Psyche. The two speak with each other as now they are not separated by anything. A Voice calls out again. It is the god, coming to judge Oreul.
Oreul is transformed into Psyche. The gods words are fulfilled she will also be Psyche. She could still see nothing as she still clung to her book. Her own stubbornness and disbelief had caused her not to see. Then she awoke four days later and set about to write down her tale. She died before she could complete it having never finished sharing the answer to her question to the gods.END SPOILERS!
Review.
We always wonder how a well-loved story would come off if it were told from another perspective. Countless children’s books try to retell classic fairy tales from an alternate point of view, usually the villain or a side-kick. The play Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead looks at Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the view of the two minor characters. A new Star Wars novel, called Death Star looks at some of the events of the original film from the perspective of the Galactic Empire instead of the heroic Rebel Alliance. To do these kinds of stories gives the reader a different angle and breaths fresh life into an old classic. One of the best examples of a story that not only does it, but tells even a better version of the story, is CS Lewis last complete work of fiction,Till We Have Faces.
This novel retells the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche from the point of view of one of her two jealous sisters, Oreul. It was a story that had long captivated CS Lewis. Parts of it he started writing in his late teens and early twenties, before he was converted. His initial motive then for writing it was to issue an argument against God or the gods. The final novel, written towards the end of his life sought to not only issue the argument but provide the answer. Some Christians disapprove of this book because of it’s “pagan” content, however, much like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, it is set in a “pre-Christian world” that does not exist, so the use of these aspects is innocuous.
Till We Have Faces is one of the few exceptions, along with Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts and Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Greek Myths, of adaptations of a story from Greek mythology that don’t sanitize the subject matter. Till We Have Faces is not like Disney’s Hercules where the story was essentially Hercules starring in a retelling of the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films with a dash of The Karate Kid and Rocky. This is the story, from a new point of view, in it’s most “realistic setting.” This means that much like many of the more grizzly stories in the Bible, this book is NOT for children.
However as it is a retelling, there are a few key ways that Lewis makes this story his own unique twist. One of the first is the location of the story. No city was ever given to Psyche. Here, Lewis situates it in a made up land of Glome, a neighboring kingdom of Greece.
The word Glome bears some phonetic similarities to the word “ Gloom” which characterizes the culture very well. Glome is a very dark, gloomy society. This helps set the tone of the story, in particular for the narrator, Oreul. Oreul is not very loved by any one in her world, or at least she doesn’t feel that way. The only light that enters her world is when her sister Psyche is born. Psyche loves her and she loves Psyche. This is what leads to her further despondency when her sister is taken. She looses the one thing that brings her happiness.
The gods in this story are given other names. Most notably is his name for “Venus” or “Aphrodite” The name she is given in the land of Glome is “Ungit.” Just a dry reading of the name leaves the reader with an awful taste in their mouth as the name sounds gruesome.
The gruesomeness of this goddess is carried even further as Lewis depicts some aspects of the worship of this type of goddess that is often overlooked by our society. We remember Venus as the goddess of love and beauty. Lewis, having studied the classical mythologies would have remembered her other roll, she was the goddess of fertility which encompasses many things dealing with reproduction. While no there are no scenes that depict some of the more “detestable” practices conducted at such shrines, it does depict animal and human sacrifices.
This goddess is also very cruel and very proud. A prime reason a whole plague comes to Glome and Psyche has to be sacrificed to appease them is because the goddess was insulted by the people. The people said that Psyche was more beautiful than Ungit, and to claim such was to reap punishment. Oreul finds these aspects of the goddess appalling as do the readers.
Just as appalling to her is Ungit’s son, who is referred to as “ The Brute” or “The Shadowbrute” who we identify as “Eros” or “Cupid.” This god is not depicted as the cute, chubby, little cherub we see glossing the fronts of Hallmark cards every February the 14th. This god is distant and invisible and is ravenous to Oreul. In order to save her people from the plague, Psyche must be given to him, which Oreul assumes will be for food.
Oreul, the protagonist of the story is actually given a name. Most versions of the story just depict her as a nameless, jealous sister, on par with the ugly step-sisters in Cinderella. Here she not only has a name, but more motivation. She loves her sister, so much that she is jealous of the gods when they take her. Her jealousy then isn’t motivated out of jealousy towards Psyche, but at Ungit, the Shadow Brute and the other gods who dwell on the Mountain. She feels like she has been robbed of the only thing that ever made her really happy.
Her sister Psyche in contrast is different from her. Typically all we get of her is that she “is very beautiful” the story goes as far to say that she is more beautiful than “Andromeda”, “Helen”, and “even Ungit (Venus)herself.” According to the ancient myths these were three of the most beautiful women ever. However, this still only gives us an idea of what she is like in terms of her physical appearance. With these characteristics alone, it is very possible for Psyche to fall into the same pit as most versions of Cinderella, Snow White, and Repunzel: a vapid, shallow, and poorly defined character.
Not so, with Lewis. He gives Psyche a personality to match her face. She is kind, compassionate and tenderhearted. She loves both of her sisters, and every one around her. She also loves the gods and is willing to serve them at all costs. Her devotion fills her with an emptiness that no handsome( and overrated) Prince Charming could fill. She longs for the gods and to be with them.
Such a characteristic would dissatisfy most readers. Would any of us actually enjoy the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, or Repunzel if the voids in their life couldn’t be filled by Prince Charming? This is Lewis’s way of addressing a greater need in a person’s life. As wonderful as romantic love is, divine love is far greater and more lasting.
As the story is a myth retold that means there will be aspects that will connect the story to more vital truths. The literal definition of a myth is “a story that explains the beliefs, customs and practices of a culture.” This means that many things in the story may not only enhance our understanding of deeper things, but make us appreciate them more, or even address them more clearer than ever before.
Early on in the book we see that Lewis not only defines the beliefs of the ancient Greeks, but shows some contrast with out Christian faith as well. While our God is a close, loving God who desires a relationship with us, so much that He would give Himself for us, the deities of the Greeks are distant and remote.
Oreul finds these gods and goddesses detestable and cannot see why Psyche would be so devout. Oreul sees the shape her culture and religion have taken and despises it, and rightly so. In a way she is not unlike many who were part of an organized religion, but left it as they despise the forms it takes and feel that God abandoned them. She chooses to embrace intellect and logic over the simple faith of Psyche.
Psyche besides being very devout to the gods and very loving person, her character also serves an important function. In a small way, she is a Christ like figure. She is willing to sacrifice herself in order to save her people from the plague, despite her sister’s protests. She is willing to do what she can to reconcile herself to be with her love again.
She also shows what real faith is. It says in Hebrews that “Faith is the evidence of things unseen and are sure of.” She believes in the gods and loves them and desires them, even though she doesn’t completely know them or their ways. She will follow the gods even if it seems bizarre.
As the story is told from the first person perspective of Oreul, this helps the story immensely. As we see things through her eyes, as opposed to the traditional third person style the story is told, we don’t see what the gods are doing. We don’t know why the plague has come. As we see someone serving these gods through their eyes we better see how different the true God really is.
Using this also helps Lewis cast light on a dark shadow of the Christian faith. There are and will be times in our lives where we feel like God is distant from us and His plan for our lives looks cruel from our human perspective. These are times Lewis knew all to well as he watched his own mother die at a young age, saw a best friend fall in battle during World War I, and later watched his own wife die of cancer. He shows that it isn’t a matter of God coming close to you in these dark moments and giving you the answer, but like Psyche during the famine, you going to God and seeking Him for the answer.
Lewis also addresses in the book how we will launch our own questions at God. He started this story when he was not a Christian. He finished it when he was a Christian and married to Joy Davidman and facing these questions again. Unlike most of Lewis’s fiction which may be able to provide answers to some theological concepts, this one doesn’t.SPOILERS! Oreul dies at the end of the story having never fully gotten the answers.END SPOILERS!
The only thing that is said is “Lord you are the answer.” After that, much like in life, we get further questions. Questions that may not ever see answers. We may have theology to explain concepts but we can never fully gain the answer to anything in life, such as love, loss or what God’s plan is. Lewis called this one his best book, and it is easy to see why. Filled with brilliant characters, intriguing points and a classic story, Till We Have Faces is one of the best 20th century retellings of Greek mythology along.
Five out of Five shields.
