Till we have faces

I like other Lewis works better, but I profit from Faces in a way that I do from no other Lewis work - or indeed no other work of any kind. For me, it's like having my insides probed through the portal of my imagination - sometimes quite uncomfortably. I think that's the power of it - we're all like Orual.

Christian philosopher and Lewis scholar Peter Kreeft does a wonderful lecture on the book (which you can downloads here), but nobody should take that as some sort of definitive explanation. It's a "Cliff's Notes", an introduction to give people a few handholds on the work so they can explore it for themselves.

In my experience, it's those who can most use its lessons that have the hardest time "getting into" it at first. "It's just a story about a crazy lady who wears a veil all the time" is only the starting point. The more we look at Orual (and Psyche, and The Fox, and Bardia), the more we see ourselves.
 
I was quite into the book as I read it. I just saw so much of myself in Oural. It wasn't just her attitude, but other bits of her life that I identified with a ton. I will have to take your advice POTW and mull it over and then reread it again in a few months. There's a bit of several of the characters I could identify with, and there are some lines in there which are incredible. I love the Fox's one about the god's and justice a great deal.

I agree, it is a bit of an uncomfortable probe. In some ways it's exhausting to go through with self-reflection in mind...to drudge through all of the ugliness and realize what is really there. It is different from the other works. In some ways I think I feel overwhelmed by it because there is so much to sort through with it, not just in the story but personally as well.
 
Yeah, there's some amazing lines in TWHF. Too tired at the moment to give a proper post on my thoughts of it, but suffice it to say I really enjoyed it. I was floored by the second part of it - practically had to scoop my jaw off the floor at several points. It's definitely worth another read, which I'll probably do once I scratch a few more things off my 'To Read' list, mostly because of what ItW said... it really does make you think and reflect, and reading it only once doesn't really let you do that enough.
 
Petraverd said:
Yeah, there's some amazing lines in TWHF. Too tired at the moment to give a proper post on my thoughts of it, but suffice it to say I really enjoyed it. I was floored by the second part of it - practically had to scoop my jaw off the floor at several points. It's definitely worth another read, which I'll probably do once I scratch a few more things off my 'To Read' list, mostly because of what ItW said... it really does make you think and reflect, and reading it only once doesn't really let you do that enough.
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PETRA! *Bounces around* I'm SOOOO glad you've popped on TDL!!!!! Welcome bro!

I identified with Psyche in what she said about longing. I do find joy in the longing for heaven. I loved that bit of the book! Eventually I need to pick it up again, maybe once work slows down some. There's still so much to sort through.
 
*is bounced on* OOMPH. My, my presence on here has seemed to cause a lot of bouncing around. Apparently the Tiggerness is catching.

Anyway, getting back on topic, yeah, that was an AWESOME section that deserves some rereading once I find the time. Orual's 'complaint' in the second section just blew me away... the way Lewis wrote it was... I'm not sure I even have words for it, but it gave me shivers.
 
Till We Have Faces Disscusion

Has anyone read it?
This was Lewis' last work and the one he considered his best. It retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche that is said to have haunted Lewis all his life. Although it is very different compared to his other works, there is an important scene in this book that is similar to the one seen in chapter 13 in The Last Battle when the dwarves refused to be taken in. This is where Lewis' story differentiates from the myth.

Til we have faces chapter eleven:
...(Psyche) "So you do see it after all?"
(Orual) "See what?"
"Why this,this. The gate, the shining walls-"


.....(Psyche) "But you tasted the wine.Where did you think I got it from?"
(Orual) "Wine? What wine? What are you talking about?"
"Orual! The wine I gave you. And the cup. I gave you the cup. And where is it? Where have you hidden it?"
"Oh have done with it child, I'm in no mood for nonsense. There was no wine"
"But I gave it to you. You drank it. And the fine honey cakes. You said-"
"You gave me water cupped in your hands"
"But you praised the wine and the cup. You said-"
I praised your hands.You were playing a game(you know you were) and I fell in with it."
"So that was all" she said slowly "You mean you saw no cup, tasted no wine?"
I wouldn't answer, she knew well enough what I had said.
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In the original story, Orual's character was able to see the palace. One source says "From the first time Lewis heard the myth, he knew that the traditional story, told first by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, had a key point wrong: Psyche's sisters could not have seen the palace of Cupid to which she was carried by the West Wind; they could not have seen it because they did not believe in it"
Of course we all remember the dwarves in a similar situation in TLB. But the dwarves 'chose cunning instead of belief' (Aslan)
Was it Orual's bitterness towards the gods and her avaricious love towards her half sister that she chose instead of belief?(Was it like the mother in The Great Divorce trying to take her son back to hell with her?) What theology is it in those two stories or where did it come from? I don't see very much significance in the idea that prompted him to rewrite the myth differently and produce what he said was his best work.
Any thoughts or comments about the book/idea in general? All commentary would be helpful, even if it doesn't answer my questions. I haven't been able to discuss this book with anyone after reading it a few years ago, so I'm eager to hear opinions from anyone.
 
Faces is one of my favorite Lewis tales. Every time I read it, I find deeper meaning.

Lewis not only considered it his greatest work, but his mystical autobiography. It's a stunning masterpiece that contrasts the limitations of natural love, especially when it comes into contact with divine love. He saw all of our souls - particularly his - as being so caught up with natural love that we close ourselves off from divine love. We'll take the best we can seize from what we see with our natural eyes, and so focus on that that we cannot see the greater good being offered us.

I think Lewis executed a brilliant stroke when he recounted Orual's inability to see the palace. For one thing, she was given a glimpse of the palace with her own eyes, though it was a brief one. I forget whether it was on her first or second trip to see Psyche, but she was given a brief view, and even an opportunity to repent and call Psyche back from her mission. But I think Lewis' genius was that she had to "see" the palace through trusting Psyche. She knew her sister's character and could see that she was not mad. Had Orual trusted Psyche, her eyes may have been opened. But that same trust would have meant losing Psyche, so she quickly buried it beneath condescension, fear, and hatred.

Here's what I think interesting: Lewis makes clear he knows the true story because he introduces it at the end of the book, when Orual finds the shrine in the woods and listens to the priest (the event which triggers her writing in the first place.) The priest recounts the story as we all know it: that there were two sisters, they both could see the palace and were jealous, etc. Though Psyche had had two sisters, Lewis wrote the story so that Redival had nothing to do with the visits to Psyche - there was only Orual.

Or was there?

This is something that's piqued my interest of late, and may cause me to reread the book: the mentioned but rarely considered fact that for a great part of the story Orual is faceless. She dons a veil when her father dies, and is thereafter the Queen. We don't consider the veiling since we hear the story from inside Orual's experience, and she doesn't make much of it other than it was a convenient for her life. But to most of the people she encounters, it is like she is a different person than the princess who was Orual. It's like there are two people: Orual (the inner identity) and the Queen (the outer one). I need to put some thought and research into this - especially those points where she removes her veil - but I think there's something there.
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
Faces is one of my favorite Lewis tales. Every time I read it, I find deeper meaning.

Lewis not only considered it his greatest work, but his mystical autobiography. It's a stunning masterpiece that contrasts the limitations of natural love, especially when it comes into contact with divine love. He saw all of our souls - particularly his - as being so caught up with natural love that we close ourselves off from divine love. We'll take the best we can seize from what we see with our natural eyes, and so focus on that that we cannot see the greater good being offered us.

.....Had Orual trusted Psyche, her eyes may have been opened. But that same trust would have meant losing Psyche, so she quickly buried it beneath condescension, fear, and hatred.
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That explains it better. I had no idea it was sort of an autobiography. I was reading this morning, after reading your post PotW, when Redival was punished to spend her time with the tree, Fox,Orual, and Psyche.
"Thus all comfort we all three had was destroyed when Redival joined us."


You said Orual and Psyche were both a picture of Lewis. At an early age Lewis was said to have read all sorts of book, including Paradise Lost at age nine(!). This love of knowledge (possibly the Fox?A very good picture of logic) he carried throughout his life. Eventually he became atheistic while at the same time jeopardized it by falling in love with christian writers like George MacDonald and Chesterton. ('I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere'. -Surprised by joy)

His logic said there could be no God. (The Fox: "Those gods, the gods you are always thinking about, are all folly and lies of poets. We have discussed this a hundred times.") Orual was reluctant in believing Psyche the same way Lewis was so reluctant to succumb to what his authors and even colleagues believed in. He felt a betrayal, it seems, towards the world and fought and denied bitterly, trying not 'to be taken in'. But everything around him pointed to a loving God. Maybe like Psyche's Palace?

It was years he fought like this against the rising tide of authors he loved and colleagues he respected, living two separate lives, one in imagination and the other logical. It was after his conversion that he learned to combine them I think.Why couldn't he have the Psyche without the cupid, or the romance and logic of the authors without their God? Is it the struggle between his view: 'The world is a bitter place so we must accept it as so; Pretending it was not so would only lead to despair or madness' and coming to terms with his romantic side like that between Orual and Psyche's love for cupid?
Also their father reminds me of the cruel schools Lewis was sent to over his childhood. Perhaps its only the unjustness of the world altogether, or maybe something else.

Anyway, when I threaded this I was surprised the C.S.Lewis section only had three threads. That's when I realized I had the thread viewer on 'Last month' only.:D After broadening the time span, I quickly found that there's already a thread about this book. Sorry for posting another.

Also the veil seems like another puzzling question entirely. It does seem like there's something important there. Let me know if you find anything in your research.
 
Yeah, I knew there was another thread - I'll see about merging them.

The image presented by The Fox, especially as juxtaposed against the Priests of Ungit - particularly the Old Priest - is a personification of a theme which Lewis alludes to in Mere Christianity. It's the idea of man's religious understanding being either "thin and clear" or "thick and murky" - i.e. abstract and cerebral or coarse and earthy. If you know anything about Greek religious tradition (which Lewis did), you can see both there: the abstract God of Perfection, pure thought and lacking in nothing, discussed by Socrates and Aristotle, living side-by-side with mythological gods like Zeus (who would disguise himself as an animal to sneak down to earth and rape human women) and Dionysus, whose rites could be unspeakable. Lewis points out elsewhere that Christianity reconciles both these, but in the pre-Christian narrative of Faces they are still in tension - as we see late in the story when the Greek statue of Aphrodite is brought into the Temple of Ungit, but the locals ignore it.

It's a very deep story. Let me do some more thinking about it.
 
Yes, before her last-minute conversion, Orual IS very much like the selfish mother in "Great Divorce."

The character of "The Fox" is especially meaningful to me, because although intellect is a precious treasure, it will always be inadequate if it tries to operate in isolation with no input but its own preferred input. The Fox, with his limitations, is like the man I would have been if I had never met Christ as my Savior.
 
Copperfox said:
Yes, before her last-minute conversion, Orual IS very much like the selfish mother in "Great Divorce."

The character of "The Fox" is especially meaningful to me, because although intellect is a precious treasure, it will always be inadequate if it tries to operate in isolation with no input but its own preferred input. The Fox, with his limitations, is like the man I would have been if I had never met Christ as my Savior.
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Does his character have anything to do with your username, CF?


One of the reasons I posted on this subject is because I'm trying to think of a topic on which to write an essay on for college. Its on comparing two different versions of a story. I remember reading Faces a few years ago. Its definitely a deep book as PotW said, so I'm not sure. I'm really interested though since it has a lot to do with Lewis' spiritual life.
 
The character of The Fox is especially apropos for our time, since in many ways the Modern West is very like the Hellenistic period that The Fox reflects. He's reductionist, trying to express even deep mysteries in terms that can be understood rationally. He's sceptical and dismissive of anything that can't be understood by discursive reason ("lies of poets, child, lies of poets"). At the same time he represents many good things, such as reason, order, and moderation.

The Fox, the priest(s) of Ungit, and Bardia form a triangle that keeps The Queen in balance even while she's falling apart inside. The Fox represents reason and order, the priests of Ungit the dark, mysterious, and threatening aspects of existence, and Bardia the common man of everyday life, discharging his duties and seeking to live in peace.
 
Largo, I very much liked your note on the previous page that compared CSL's struggle to "remain" an atheist with Orual's struggle not to see her sister's rich new life and love. That was well said and I think you could develop your essay just on that topic -- although I don't know if it touches enough on the two versions of the story ...

Now like Roger I want to re-read it and see what I think.
 
I haven't read 'Til We Have Faces yet, but I plan to this year. I'm also going to read The Screwtape Letters, which I know is supposed to be extremely good. C.S Lewis is a brilliant author. He's the kind of author that can really capture your mind and expand it.
 
No, I have not had time, but it's still on my list. I will tell you something though: when I was talking with Jesus about certain subject a friend had told me her pastor said ("Don't confuse God's blessings with your integrity") it seemed that my greatest blessing, and my deepest joy, is to be in the Presence of Christ, and that really is only possible for me to feel when my whole being is quiet and focused on Him, when my life and energy are flowing from His love ... which, by its very essence, causes my beliefs and actions to be mostly integrated, so I have a kind of Integrity ... and Jesus seemed to be leading me to realize: my integrity and His blessing, the joy of knowing I am in His presence, are certainly intertwined because only a person rooted in His love would find that joy in His presence, and one so wholly loved and motivated by love cannot wander too far from the path of righteousness BUT:

Not everyone can see what I see or feel what I feel when I am in His presence, so what seems like joy and blessing to me just looks like a pudgy middle aged lady walking through the neighborhood alone early in the morning. Hardly a blessing! Doesn't compare to wealth or romance or a new job or car. But that's because they can't see Him walking beside me, can't feel His love radiating around me, can't hear His voice speaking only to me. He reminded me, in my way, I'm like the sister in the wilderness, enthralled with her god that her sister can't see or understand ...

Made me want to read the book even more! :)
 
Right, I am re-reading now, and my idea expressed previously is even more strongly coming to the fore now. Orual could not believe in her sister's love and joy because she could not see it for herself ... this is how I feel very often when I try to tell someone about my relationship with Christ -- even other Christians -- their eyes glaze over and you can see they think I imagining things or worse.

I'm grateful, perhaps, to have come to this stage in my Christ-life as an old lady, because perhas had I been young, I could have been dissuaded from it like Psyche -- except that feeling so strongly His embrace as I do now, I don't know whether anything could have turned me from it.

At any rate: I am enjoying the story very much and will have more to report the further I go.
 
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