Till We Have Faces

by C.S. Lewis

A retelling of Cupid and Psyche, "Till We Have Faces" is retold through the eyes of Psyche’s oldest sister, Orual.

Orual was born ugly and even though she’s a princess, she struggles with the death of her mother and the friction between her sisters. There are two lights in Orual’s life. One is her tutor, the Fox, a Greek slave captured through war. The other is her much younger sister Istra, later nicknamed Psyche, born from Orual’s father’s second marriage. Istra is beautiful and sweet and good but far from being jealous of her, Orual loves her as a daughter. When the priest of Ungit says that Psyche’s great beauty is an insult to the goddess and she must be sacrificed, Orual fights to prevent this. When Orual expects to find her sister dead, she finds her well and thriving. But, why can’t Orual see what everyone else sees? Blinded by her jealous love, Orual casts blame on the duplicity of gods. What is the truth? What is real?

Lewis’s novel is a brilliant examination of envy, loss, betrayal, blame, grief, guilt, and conversion. Why must holy places be dark places? Lewis reminds us of our own fallibility and the role of a higher power in our lives.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Mythology, Christian, Religion, Book Club

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]

Reviews

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironically, though Lewis considered this to be his best work, it is not very well known. Even among those who label themselves as Lewis fans, the work is not often read. Few people even know that it exists. Among the few, I would guess that there are a significant number feigning ignorance so as not to delve into the pages. Perhaps it is because the book is so often seen as a philosophical/theological work, something scholarly and dense and difficult to read. The somewhat colorless covers that the tale is often subjected to do not help matters. However, the majority of those who actually give this book a chance are more than pleased by the outcome.

First of all, let me remind readers that Lewis wanted his stories to be, first and foremost, stories. Whatever you may think of his personal beliefs should not affect the reading of the tale, as it was written to BE a tale. Lewis did not set about to write a story based off of a principle. Rather, he set out to write a story, and the principles of the author cannot be separated from the work as the work is a part of the author’s mind. That is why ideas are dubbed “brain children”.

Lewis’s story itself is a masterpiece of imagination, scholarly knowledge, plot and great insight into the human character. It is the tale of Psyche and Cupid. However, rather than star the beautiful heroine of the myth, the main character is Psyche’s older sister, Orual, a strong woman cursed with a hideous face. The story covers her love of Psyche, as well as her overall desire for love and her anger with the gods. This tale is set in a world of myth so well realized that it never once feels artificial. Many myth-inspired works feel unreal, as if the myth was painted on and the author only knew a little of his own world. Such is not the case in Till We Have Faces. It is believable from start to finish. This is strengthened by the tangibility of the characters themselves. No one is painted black or white. All are real human beings with feelings, hopes and reasons for their actions.

Some criticism has been placed on this book concerning its depth. True, this is not light reading. This is not Eragon, after all. The story does have philosophical elements, as well as theological ones. The tale is one of contrasts –between classical and cultic paganism; between beauty and ugliness; between trust and jealousy. Also, the emotional current of the story is certainly passionate and the tone is dark. However, I do not see why any of these traits should prevent a reading. I read this book for the first time when I was twelve. The language may not be incredibly easy, but neither is it too dense nor too difficult to understand.

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 Update: Just undone. I read this for the first time when I was 18, I think. In many ways, in the last 40 years I have lived it. Tonight I miss my Psyche, Emily.

I have read this book over and over again. Perhaps it is the book I have reread more than any other.
I used to read it because I didn't get it and felt I should. Now I love it.
Listening, this time, to Nadia May, I really did become Orual, so full of self-deception, or perhaps I should
say that I recognized myself in her more clearly. Ouch.
This is the plumb line for 5-star books.

Lewis is still my favorite author and probably my favorite person in general, my best friend. How can it be that
I've never sat down and had tea with him? It seems like I must have.

"I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”


I am thankful that when we see Him, Jesus, face to face we will be like Him.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the lesser known of Lewis' fiction works, this is a masterful retelling of the mythological story of Cupid and Psyche that paints a vivid picture of how selfish humanly love is, and to what extent we will go to protect it. The narrative serves to humble the reader as the heroine of the novel transforms from the pitiable victim to the chief antagonist, and at the same time we realize that we are her, always pondering on the wrongs done to us and the shortcomings we experience. It's an excellent novel that speaks to how we, as humans, tend to see our own plight in life as the most dire, and perceive others as being part of our plight or calloused to our plight. Yet, in the end, we are most likely the villains in a myriad of others' stories as much as the tragic hero of our own. A great reminder that whatever my circumstances, I am in thousands of stories other than my own, and only I can choose the color of my character!

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘You are yourself the answer.’

C.S. Lewis, author of the beloved Narnia series, is a firm believer in the power of myth. By adorning ideas into a story, Lewis argued ‘we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.’ This is doubly evident in his construction of Till We Have Faces, Lewis’ final novel and the one he considered his best, as Lewis examines many of his theological ideas through a myth narrative, but also allows us to rediscover the joy of older myths such as the story of Cupid and Psyche which provides the bones upon which Lewis builds his story. It makes for an engrossing read that is palatable even for those who don’t subscribe to the Christian mythology that is embedded in Lewis’ retelling. Told from the perspective of the oldest sister, Orual, Till We Have Faces is a moral examination on justice, faith and love, particularly interrogating the dichotomy between selfish versus selfless love as well as divine love. Highly approachable and soothingly written, Lewis’ retelling becomes something far more expansive than the original myth and is a novel that is infectiously enjoyable.

‘I have said that she had no face; but that meant she had a thousand faces.’

In his essay On Three Ways of Writing for Children, C.S. Lewis wrote ‘I now enjoy the fairy tales better than I did in childhood: being now able to put more in, of course, I get more out.’ I feel similarly, having enjoyed them in childhood but have found my interest and enjoyment reinvigorated with a greater intensity as an adult. There are extensive literary theories and techniques and many have written about the moral and psychological aspects in them such as Carl Jung who believed fairy tales were a way to study the ‘anatomy of the psyche’ and Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz wrote that ‘fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes.’ Alternatively there is Philip Pullman who believes ‘there is no psychology in a fairy tale,’ and instead it is simple repetition on good and bad. For Lewis, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien, they believed fairy tales point us towards faith, with Tolkien once encouraging Lewis to believe in Christianity because it was ‘the fairytale that is really true.’ While I’m not personally religious, for me I see fairy tale stylings as a great way to fold in social criticisms and other messaging in a way that feels epic and imaginative. I’m included to agree with what Jeanette Winterson once wrote on that matter:

’Reason and logic are tools for understanding the world. We need a means of understanding ourselves, too. That is what imagination allows…As explanations of the world, fairy stories tell us what science and philosophy cannot and need not. There are different ways of knowing.’

Lewis has always worked in myth and fairy tales—George MacDonald being one of his idols—and even in his mythical world of Narnia we see figures from the Greek myths inhabiting his lands. Till We Have Faces is his most direct immersion in the genre. Drawing from the story of Cupid and Psyche as it is found in The Golden Ass by Apuleius, Lewis sets his tale in the fictional kingdom of Glome in the country Greekland (if you guessed it’s modeled on Hellenistic Greece, you’d be correct). Where in the original myth the older sisters hope to send Pyche to ruin due to jealousy of her, here the tragedy is sparked due to jealousy for Pysche’s love. Told in a first-person narration, Urual’s tale reads as rather confessional, representative of the sacrament of Reconciliation in Christian practices.

Written over a span of 35 years, the story also reflects Lewis’ conversion into Christianity, mirrored through the narrator Urual who’s complaints against the gods were Lewis’ own when he began the tale. The second part, written alongside his wife Joy Davidman, affirms his conversion and creates an interesting contrast to his beliefs from his pre-Christian days. Characters such as the Fox, a slave named for his red hair that becomes the three princesses’ teacher, operate within realms of logic and reasoning based in Stoicism, which is juxtaposed with later revelations by Urul which demonstrate Lewis’ belief that ‘Christianity is both a myth and a fact,’ and operates not without logic but beyond it. Lewis is widely beloved in Christian circles (it became evident to me once I was an adult why the Narnia books had been pushed on me so hard as a child), though his theology often draws criticism from these same circles for beliefs such as this (Aslan allowing folks into his kingdom like Emeth who believed in a different god is another Lewis belief I have heard him harshly criticized over). While I’m not really all that into religious messages, I think this novel is still just as enjoyable reading it as a message of self-discovery and positive morality.

But on to the story. Lewis reworks the original myth in fun ways, with Aphrodite represented here as the goddess Ungit and Cupid being the Shadowbrute, a god of the Grey Mountain who is purportedly the son of Ungit. It begins similarly, with Psyche being worshiped by the kingdom for her beauty and a belief that she can heal the sick, which leads to her being sacrificed to the Shadowbrute. The tragedy begins when Urual, unable to see and therefore unable to believe in the Shadowbrute’s invisible palace where Psyche has become his bride, convinces Psyche to betray him and is thereby banished from his kingdom. The notion of faith and the importance of believing without evidence is blatant, with the palace serving as a symbol of divine mystery.

This is central to the novel and one of Urual’s dominant complaints against the gods (which she refers to as ‘divine Surgeons’) is that they do not speak clearly to mortals. She does not yet see how the ambiguity is key to faith, instead frustrated that it leads to mistakes for which the gods punish them. Her brief vision of the palace—and choosing to disbelieve it—is highly symbolic of how she opts for a selfish, earthly love to have Psyche to herself like a possession. There is a clear juxtaposition in the novel of selfish and selfless love, with earthly concerns making love more of a devouring of one another than anything else. ‘Some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing, ’ Urual is told. When she is Queen, she sees this as devotion to her is something of a sacrifice, even leading to the death of her military counselor, Bardia, who more or less was overworked right into the grave. Urual is rebuked by his widow who tells her ‘I do not believe, I know, that your queenship drank up his blood year by year and ate out his life.’ Urual eventually realizes that it is she who is the devourer:

‘I was that . . . all-devouring womblike, yet barren, thing. Glome was a web—I the swollen spider, squat at its center, gorged with men’s stolen lives.’

Urual is not an unsympathetic character however, and we see how she was shaped by the cruelty of her father and her belief in her own ugliness. The veil she wears to hide her face—symbolic of her cutting herself off from humanity as well as hiding her ‘true face’—is donned to hide her ugliness which can be read as more an unconscious belief in her tormented soul than just physical beauty. You wouldn’t be wrong to raise an eyebrow here, as physical beauty (or lack thereof) being a reflection of the soul can be a bit problematic. There is also the awkward element of Urual being treated more ‘like a man’ by her court because she is not sexually desirable (this is coming from the same author who kind of denied Narnia to Susan for being into boys and make-up). But it does lead to the idea that Urual must embrace her own face because the gods cannot ‘meet us face to face till we have faces’

Faces are highly symbolic in general here, with Psyche’s betrayal is that she (through Urual’s direction) attempts to see the gods faces. Mirrors, as well, function symbolically in the story, being used to convince Urual she is not qualified for the god’s love due to her ugliness and she later removes the same mirror as it has become representative to her of her father’s cruelty.

‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. ’

Urual believes ‘the case against [the gods] should be written,’ but when the time comes to confront them she hears her own voice in a new way.

‘the complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. . . . I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?’

This becomes Lewis’ way of examining divine mystery as part of the whole point in faith. Divine love is intended as all-encompassing, a giving of oneself bare of the veil of self-deceit, and only then can the gods look upon us ‘face to face.’ Possessive love must be denied, and it is only by accepting and, well, confessing, one’s sins can one be cleansed. It gets pretty religious here, but the message is powerful to embrace ourselves even in our flaws and cultivate a self-understanding to do better and do no harm.

This was a wonderful novel, one that it is easy to get lost in as Lewis constructs a world that feels just as magical and engrossing as his Narnia. The title, taken from the line ‘how can they meet us face to face till we have faces?’ was originally intended to be Bareface but Lewis’ editor thought it would sound like a Western. While the editor is probably right, someone should jump on this as a band name. Till We Have Faces has been another fascinating myth retelling in my current obsession with retellings, and one that I have heard all my life cited by others as one of their favorite books. Myths and fairy tales are powerful and can be a lovely way to deliver a message. As Jeanette Winterson wrote, ‘they explain the universe while allowing the universe to go on being unexplained,’ and that notion of retaining the mystery is highly representative of Till We Have Faces and Lewis’ belief in ‘the true myth.’ A book well worth reading.

4/5

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seems to be the right time of year to pick out a ton of books all focused on retelling old Greek myths!

Perennial favorite C. S. Lewis went out of his way to retell the story of Psyche and Cupid from the PoV of Orual, the ugly sister, and it's a very well-told tale. He admits he uses the original as a template and goes on to make a much more psychological and grounded tale than the original, and he pulls it off delightfully, full of Orual's obsessive angst, her striving to be better, her complaints against the gods, and eventually the god's replies.

More than the original, I think, this retelling captures the darker and more intricate differences and pulls off an entirely different level of storytelling. There's the surface story, the tale told by the Fox about the actual Greek legend, and the under-story which is a purely psychological exploration of all the secrets that the original legend tells us.

It's very Psyche-logical. :)

Out of all of Lewis' works, I think I like this the best. :)

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for any Lewis fan. He began the book as an unbeliever (a case against God) and finished it some 30 years later fully converted. Almost autobiographical, you get a real sense of his own spiritual awakening. It is claimed to be his personal favorite. The name comes from the scripture: "Now we see through a glass, darkly: but then face to face..shall I know even as also I am known."

Better than anything I've read, it describes the process of developing faith and finding and becoming like God. Amazing!

The actual Cupid & Psyche myth is summarized in the back of the book. Read it first for context.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stupendous. World class. Top drawer.

Finished an audio version of it in August of 2016. I have read this a total of three times. Once when I was young, and I didn't like it. The second time was in 2003, and I thought it was great. This time, and greater still.

[Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note, Oct. 31, 2023: I've just edited this review to correct a typo.

Although I count C. S. Lewis as a favorite author, and had nominally had this re-telling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche (based on the version recounted by the 2nd-century A.D. Latin author Apuleius in his Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass; Lewis summarizes that version here in an author's note at the end) on my to-read list for some time, I'd probably never have read it if it hadn't been a common read in my Fans of British Writers group here on Goodreads. Greek mythology isn't a big interest of mine; I wasn't familiar with the legend or with Apuleius' work, and expected something sort of like a bowdlerized kid's version of the Odyssey that I read as a child. I'd have missed out on a great read that was nothing like that expectation.

Lewis re-invents the story through the eyes of Psyche's older sister Orual, who's our protagonist and narrator, a shift of perspective that's crucial to the story as he tells it. He also changes a central detail, in the interests of greater psychological realism, and this changes the whole coloration of the tale. I've classified it as fantasy, because some crucial scenes take place in dream or vision sequences in the realm of the divine, outside this world as we know it; but the great bulk of this story reads like realistic historical fiction, written with great psychological and spiritual perception. The sisters are princesses in the "barbarian" (the ancient Greeks' word for anybody who isn't Greek) kingdom of Glome. But while Glome and its neighboring lands are fictional, they fit into a well-realized milieu of the areas around the Black or Caspian Seas in the 4th century B.C., and Orual refers in places to the "Greeklands" and their real-world writings and events (including the death of Socrates in 399 B.C., which helps to date the events). Glome has a culture and religion that's generic Iron-Age southwest Asian/Eastern Mediterranean (Ungit, Aphrodite, Diana, etc. are all variations of the cult of the Great Mother), and the characterizations are life-like and vivid.

Against this realistic background, Lewis unfolds a mostly very realistic story of a dysfunctional royal family, a conflict between traditional paganism and the rising rationalism of some of the Greek philosophers (represented in Glome by major character Lysias, nicknamed Fox, the enslaved Greek intellectual who becomes the princesses' tutor), and occasional eruptions into mundane life of a mostly unseen spiritual realm. He explores several serious themes here: the necessity for true self-knowledge of our real feelings and motivations, symbolized by the high-quality mirror in the royal palace (there's a lot of significant symbolism used in this novel, to enrich the telling!); the difference between healthy love that wants the best for another and possessive desire to own and dominate its object for self-gratification, masquerading to both parties as "love," a concept Lewis would explore four years later in The Four Loves; the conflict between Reason and intuition/imagination; and the fundamental conflict between faith and unbelief. Lewis also does an excellent job of making Orual, Fox and other characters nuanced, with both faults and good points.

Till We have Faces is set in pre-Christian times, and the religious thought of its characters is pre-Christian. But Lewis would say that God was always there, even before Christ was born, governing the universe and seeking a relationship with human beings, and the same central spiritual truths that are true now were true then too. Humans then, especially apart from Jewish influence, without the special revelation we have today in the Bible and especially in the New Testament, didn't understand those truths as clearly as those who have the full light of Christian revelation; but like some of the ancient and medieval/early modern Christian thinkers, Lewis understood the pre-Christian pagan religions as pre-figurations of Divine truth, imperfect and partial articulations of spiritual realities that serve as shadowy reflections of and pointers towards the real thing --as Plato might have said (and Lewis was a Neo-Platonist in philosophy) earthly images of the heavenly Ideal. An online article by Michael Ward (the author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis), here: http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/art... , helpfully expands on this idea. That's a concept essential to fully understanding Lewis' purpose and message here.

I've included this book on my "action heroines" shelf --a surprise to me, because I didn't expect such as element here! Indeed, it's not an action heroine read to the extent that, say, a Modesty Blaise novel would be. We only have one real, directly described action scene, and a passing reference to another. But the motif is there. Orual trains in sword fighting with the captain of the palace guard (long story!), proves to be naturally talented for it, and subsequently puts her training to good use. In that respect and others, I'd say that, while one of my few overall criticisms of Lewis is that his thought isn't quite as feminist as I'd like, this is probably one of his most feminist works.

All in all, I'd say this mature work might well be Lewis' masterpiece, and I'm really glad to have read it. (Thanks for nominating it for the group read, Oksana!)

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

This book is something rare and extraordinary. Though ostensibly a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche (I'd recommend reading Lewis's afterward before you begin if you're not already familiar with the story, as he provides a succinct summary), it's told from the point of view of one of Psyche's sisters, Orual, a princess cursed with an ugly face. I think if I'd been informed before starting this book that so much of the focus would be on Orual rather than Psyche, I would have been disappointed - and that disappointment would have been very misguided indeed, because Orual captured my heart. This strong, flawed, broken young woman is honestly one of the most complex and haunting female protagonists I've come across.

I hadn't read any C.S. Lewis except for the first three (I think) books in the Chronicles of Narnia series when I was younger, and, as evidenced by the fact that I only read the first three (I think), I was not a huge fan. Honestly, he was an author I never had much interest in, but after reading Till We Have Faces, I am distraught that more of his fiction doesn't appeal to me (I'm not a big science fiction fan). I love his writing - the passage I quoted above is only one of many that I had to pause and reread because I found his prose so striking.

It's hard to summarize this book, or even fully wrap my head around it, as it's one of the more thematically complex things I think I've ever read. It's a book that almost demands to be read more than once. That's not to say that it's dense to the point of incomprehensibility - I read it in two days, and doing so was an absolute joy. But Lewis provides a thoughtful meditation on beauty and ugliness (with a startling commentary on how a woman's worth is wrongly determined by her appearance), as well as the symbiotic nature of love and hatred, before delving into even deeper philosophical and theological themes, examining the very nature of man's relationship with God (or, in the case of mythology, the gods). It's heavy stuff, but in a rewarding way. This book will stay with me. (Also, on a personal note, I'm not religious. I can't comment on whether having a vested interest in Christianity is essential for reading any of C.S. Lewis's other works, but I found that, despite the religious themes, this was really not the case here. I'd recommend this to absolutely everyone.)

Till We Have Faces achieves everything I like to see in a retelling - it fleshes out the stories of minor characters who only play bit parts in the original, it interrogates and expands on the original themes, and it captures the wondrous atmosphere that makes mythology so compelling. I'm in awe of this book.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Psychologists have long known that every person has two great longings and inward needs. The first is to be loved, and the second is to love. But when pressures and heartaches come into our lives, many give up any hope of ever finding love.

For me, the above statements summarize the message that C. S. Lewis wanted to impart in his most mature and his-favorite-among-all-of-his-works novel, Till We Have Faces. Ugly Orual loves her beautiful youngest sister Psyche that she acts as her mother and a protector. Famine comes into their kingdom and the priest says that to appease the goddess Ungit (Aphrodite), Psyche should be sacrificed to the goddess’ son Brute (Cupid). However, the son falls in love with Psyche. Orual goes to the mountain to bury Psyche’s bone but she finds that Psyche is alive and Psyche shows Orual her invisible (to Orual’s eyes) house. Orual believes that Psyche has married a serpent so she asks Psyche to see the face of the Brute while he is sleeping. This despises the Brute so he sends Psyche to exile. Missing her sister, Orual transforms into a warrior and becomes more of a man than a woman and she eventually becomes the Queen of Glome, their kingdom.

This is a story of contrasts: beauty and ugly, loyalty and deception, loving and hating. This is a story of transformation, realization and redemption. On the surface, this is a story of jealousy among two siblings. However, when the ugly Orual is about to expire in the end, she realizes that the true reason behind her deception and that she indeed still loves her sister – the beautiful Psyche. Orual did not feel that she was loved by her father because of her ugliness but she was able to love Psyche from the time she was born. Orual acted as Psyche's protector because she loved her sister until Psyche was sent to the mountain to appease Aphrodite’s wrath. Orual transformed to become a warrior and eventually a queen whose face was covered to hide her true feelings. She gave up on love. Some say that, unlike the other more popular works of C. S. Lewis, this book does not have any Christian theme but for me, the veil covering Orual’s face signifies sin: jealousy, pride and deception. The Bible says that until we first recognize ourselves as sinners, we will not be able to accept Jesus as our personal savior. The realization that Orual experienced in the end was not too late for her to know that she did what she did because of her love for Psyche. Before she died, she got love back.

My friend is right. The better part of this book is at the last few pages. The dream-like sequence of Orual being with the dead is like standing before God at the day of one’s death. It is full of philosophical thoughts and beautiful Christian metaphors that have been the trademarks of C. S. Lewis's works. I had earlier read 4 of his other books (first three books of Narnia and A Grief Observed) and for me this is the best. I am not a big fan of fantasy books and for most of the middle parts, this book bored me. However, when I came to the last part, my mind was just blown away and it left me teary-eyed this morning.

One of the best books I have read this year. It gave me a strong feeling that this might really be the best work of C. S. Lewis.

Tina - thanks for recommending this book to me. Your taste on books is really impeccable!
Atty. Monique - thanks for lending me this book. You who have the most generous heart!

[R.F. Gammon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread review:
Lord, before your face questions die away.

Original review:


Few books have changed my life. I think this one claims that elusive spot.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

”You are indeed teaching me about kinds of love I did not know. It is like looking into a deep pit. I am not sure whether I like your kind better than hatred. Oh, Orual—to take my love for you, because you know it goes down to my very roots an cannot be diminished by any other newer love, and then to make of it a tool, a weapon, a thing of policy and mastery, an instrument of torture—I begin to think I never knew you. Whatever comes after, something that was between us dies here.”

Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche retold by Psyche’ ugly half-sister, Orual. Aphrodite appears as a shapeless foul-smelling black stone. The people of the Kingdom worship her as the powerful goddess Ungit. Technically, the blood libations are what smells, not the rock. Cupid is known locally as the Brute, son of Ungit.

I think you can read this blissfully unaware of the Christian context. I only heard a sustained note from a pipe organ once. From that angle, it’s a terrific story about a warrior queen and her long ago kingdom. Both of her loyal and trusted advisors are great. I will probably remember best.

I expected to like it a lot more than I did, but I’ve read it twice now and don’t feel especially enthusiastic. On the bright side, I buddy read it with Newly Wardell, who loved it!

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fourth time through in preparation for my Canon+ series with Joe Rigney. Even better than before.
Third time reading it. Still my favorite Lewis novel.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

We want God to be just. By “just” we mean that we desire that God rule in our favor. But we don’t think enough what might result should God heed the council of our minds and hearts. Would we have God make us what we wish to be, or make us what God knows we are meant to be? And what of others? How would even our loved ones fair if God treated them as we thought God should? So many want their redress from God and yet curse God for the outcome.

Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis is about accusing God for the unjust ways in which he treats mortals. And also the book is about God’s answer to that charge.

“Are the gods not just?”
“Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were? But come and see”...

“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.”

Till We Have Faces is not an easy book. It takes some skill to read, and probably does not do all its work until the third or more reading. Those who like their discussions of God neat and tidy will likely misunderstand the book or even be repulsed by it. The pagan priest has what might be the best lines, “Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.”

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 5 out of 5]

"how extremely unfair that the greatest female led fantasy novel of all time was written in 1956 by CS Lewis and Joy Davidman"

- a thing I tweeted last week while wending my way in utter delight through the dazzling, dizzying complexities of TILL WE HAVE FACES, revisiting this favourite book for the first time in oh, so many years I don't even remember.

I stayed away, to be frank, because I was intimidated. I'd last read the book in my early 20s, at which point I first began to feel I was peeling back the layers to fully understand it - only to find more and deeper layers beneath. For the first time I had just an inkling of how far down this book truly went. The next time I read it, I wanted to tame as many of those layers as I could. One is reminded of GK Chesterton's adage about the philosopher trying to get the heavens into his head, and his head splitting. I couldn't bring myself to embark upon the re-read simply because I knew that it would only exhaust me to try to tame it.

I'm glad that in the end, I simply approached the book as a reader. This time I think I grasped many more things about the book even than last time - I took notes, y'all - but I'm still floundering in its depths. As a result, in this review I'm going to confine my comments to one specific aspect: the point of view.

The point of view - Orual's - in this book is the thing that staggered me the very first time I read it (I couldn't have been any older than 13, possibly younger). For one thing, it was not what I expected from the author of Narnia or even of PERELANDRA, which I had discovered at 11. Orual's perspective was grim, dark, jaded, gritty - she's a grimdark character determined to believe she lives in a grimdark world, constantly deliberately closing her eyes to the possibility she does not. It was also, and this blew my mind even the first time I read it, still wet from the eggshell - the perspective of a woman. By my late teens (after a second read, in which I decided that the book had been a terrible mistake and what was Lewis thinking, and a third, in which I decided that I had been wrong and it was a masterpiece) I was having to explain to a male acquaintance who had recommended Jasper Fforde's THURSDAY NEXT books to me with the very confident proclamation that they were the best example of a male-penned female narrator in existence, just how comprehensively wrong he was. (I read the THURSDAY NEXT books. Not only was Next not a patch on Orual, she was dreadfully wrong about THE FAERIE QUEENE). Women who read TILL WE HAVE FACES at a later age than I did have described to me the sheer sense of unreality that came from hearing a woman's voice so strongly and so convincingly from a man's pen - as though he'd somehow seen directly into our brains and dragged our private thoughts out, kicking, into daylight. Me, I just knew for a fact that no man had ever written a woman like this, and perhaps never would again. (I am delighted to have discovered Anthony Trollope since, who is nearly, though not quite as freakishly good. Nobody else even comes close).

This time around I was blinded by things that flew right past me in my youth. Orual's observation that men are comforted by the sound of their own voices. Or the utterly poignant depiction of what it's like to have male friends who will stand by you when so many do not. Or the biting comment about how many ways men have of torturing a man who really loves his wife.

It's become much more common knowledge these days that Lewis' wife Joy Davidman, a poet and writer in her own right, contributed substantially to TILL WE HAVE FACES. Indeed, according to her son Douglas Gresham, Lewis wanted Joy credited as a coauthor and it was her decision to remain anonymous. To any woman, this will come as an absolutely convincing explanation. How else could Lewis have known what almost no other male author ever has? Even he didn't know these things in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH - nor in Narnia, though he arguably wrote better and better female characters as he matured as an author.

To be honest, for a long time I actually felt a tiny bit disappointed to realise that Joy had had a hand in Orual. I did so love to think of her as the greatest female character ever written by a man; but if she had been co-written by a woman, she lost that status and Anthony Trollope took Lewis' place as Best Male Author of Female Characters. After re-reading TWHF this week, I no longer think so. The book is so evidently Lewis' creation. Other male authors have had feedback from the women in their lives, and have failed miserably in producing anything recognisable. Not only that, but Orual's female perspective is utterly foundational to the book not just on a characterisation level but on a conceptual and thematic level. Lewis conceived of the book, imagined Orual as its lynchpin, wrote her, listened to his wife, adopted her ideas, (who knows?) perhaps incorporated some of her writing - Joy lives and breathes through this entire book as evidently as does Jack, but he had both the imagination and the humility to see the ways in which this added to the story; and what he did with her input went far, far beyond the odd token line or two slung in to improve characterisation: this is the work of a man who has taken hold of what he's being told with two hands and exercised considerable skill, enthusiasm, and creativity in incorporating as much of it as he can into the very bones of the story.

Yet my tweet garnered pushback right away from men who either refused to acknowledge that Joy made any meaningful contribution to the book at all, or saw Orual's POV merely as a nifty bit of characterisation. To the former I will only quote Orual's observation, that men have many ways to punish a man whom they think loves his wife too well. To the latter, I would argue that on the contrary, Orual's female POV is not incidental to the story but utterly foundational to its power.

Orual's perspective operates as a major feature of the story. In the first part of the book she tells her own story from her own perspective, and in the second part of the book she tells how that perspective has undergone a radical change. It turns out the world she lived in, the gods she lived under, were both far kinder and far more terrible than she ever imagined, and that she herself was a devourer who first demanded exclusive love and then cut herself off from any possibility of love once she had been disappointed. A huge part of the book's power lies in how uncannily convincing Orual's perspective is in the first part, and then how utterly her self-image and narrative is shattered in the second. I mean, this must be the fifth time I've read the book, and I'm STILL figuring out stuff like how the veil she perceives as radically empowering is actually a wall she's put up to cut herself off from ever being truly known and loved. And even the things one SHOULD see coming, like the reality of the god and of Psyche's house, still hit like a semi-trailer. We are so deeply and convincingly immersed in Orual's perspective that it takes all the effort we can to disbelieve any of the things she says.

Everything about Orual's perspective, therefore, is consciously used in this book to immerse us, to make us believe her. This includes, centrally, the fact that she is a woman. It's not just because the Psyche of myth had no jealous brothers - that's where Orual might have come from on a conceptual level, but it's not where she is in this story. Orual as a woman has been the target of misogyny all her life, from her father's abusiveness to Bardia's lament that she hadn't been born a man, or cool observation that she might make a decent wife if she had had any other face. (It's also no random decision that Orual uses her femininity to bait an enemy prince into the duel that wins her her throne).

Lewis uses Orual's femininity in many ways through the book - as ever I feel completely aswim in it - but there are two major ones. First, the corrupt love Orual bears for Psyche is the love of a mother for her child. Lewis wrote in THE FOUR LOVES about this sort of corrupted love; he was writing what he saw as a distinctively feminine form of love (don't forget that he spent decades of his life with a highly controlling mother figure). It's this that drives Orual throughout the whole book. Second and even more importantly, the book culminates with Orual realising that her true ugliness lies deeper than her skin: it lies in her soul. Having recognised that her soul is as repulsive as her face, she comes for a while to believe that she must have been born with an ugly soul in the same way that she was born with an ugly face, and that as such she must despair of the love of the gods in the same way she has always despaired of the love of a man. The ending of the book has Psyche bring her beauty in a casket, banishing her ugliness. This ending, as the kids say, slaps. And the whole reason it hits as hard as it does - at least, if you're a woman - is that all of us know what it is to feel we don't measure up to standards of physical beauty, all of us have felt unlovable because of it. Heck, when I put it down in black and white it seems an absolutely trite and reductive thing to say about a book this complex and protean. But it's true for all that.

In TILL WE HAVE FACES, CS Lewis takes aspects of female experience - beauty, motherhood, romantic love, misogyny and Lord only knows what else I've overlooked - and uses them as the building-blocks of his parable. In doing so he gives his heroine one of the most distinct and powerful female voices in literature written by anyone, male or female, and creates a book that doesn't only speak to, but for, many of its readers. He quite obviously didn't do it alone. Together, CS Lewis and Joy Davidman have produced a masterpiece and what is, I am convinced, by a significant margin, the greatest thing he ever produced.

Some men, I am told, complain about this. I would challenge them to meditate upon the meaning of the ezer kenegdo.

[Mary Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a rather ambivalent relationship with author C.S. Lewis prior to reading this book. On the one hand, I loved the breadth and energy of his imagination, respected his scholarship and appreciated the way he was able to entertain children – he did have the knack for writing a page-turner. On the other I balked at the far-too-blatant theological overtones in his stories, the rampant racism and abhorrence of women – to wit, the attitudes of a 1950’s Oxbridge scholar firmly entrenched in his era. It was frustrating to me all the more because I loved him, or almost loved him. I could not deny he had a splendid, soaring mind. He just tended to load down his own wings with the most abominably heavy clutter. It made him a fine writer of Christian apologetics, apparently (I have not read that aspect of his work,) but unfortunately also turned him into a flawed storyteller. Storytellers should not try to be preachers of any stripe: it kills the tale. But that is another subject for discussion, which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say that I generally came away disappointed from Lewis’ fiction.

I had read the Narnia series, of course, as well as some of his adult science fiction titles (‘That Hideous Strength’) before picking up ‘Till We Have Faces.’ I approached the book with reservations, expecting to encounter the problems mentioned above. Almost immediately however I realised this book was in a different league. Yes, there are times when the man Lewis transparently pontificates through the lips of his female protagonist. Yes, the attitudes towards women are still a little skewed, still a little ‘off.’ But something else shines through. Here Lewis has successfully tapped into the universality of myth; he has gone a step further and discarded (some of) his dogmas in favour of a more mystical line of storytelling. I was immediately caught up and carried away by this fable retold, ostensibly a historical narrative in the confessional mode, with unabashedly spiritual overtones.

The book revisits the Cupid and Psyche myth from the point of view of one of Psyche’s sisters, Maia or Orual, who feels the gods have treated her unfairly and wishes to set the record straight. She gives us the story from her point of view, starting with her childhood and the birth of baby Psyche, all the way through to the well-known tale of how her beloved sister became the bride of a mysterious man who refused to show his face. Lewis does a wonderful job of bringing the ancient kingdom of Glome to life, with all its political intrigues, religious rites and rituals, layerings of history, myth and magic. He has also in Orual created a truly appealing character – his only female character I have ever fully identified with. One can’t help but sympathize with her complaint against the gods. I will not spoil the central point of the grievance – how exactly Orual feels she was cheated – suffice to say that she is magnificent, and flawed, and all things a good hero should be.

I am thrilled to find C.S. Lewis in this instance to be every bit the storyteller I hoped for!

[AiK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Привлеченная аннотацией о философском переложении мифа о Психее, я не проверила, кто автор. Так я познакомилась с жанром фэнтези. Аннотация описывает книгу очень глубоко, но это тот случай, когда стиль изложения отворачивает читателя от всего, что хотел сказать автор. Эклектичность произведения, когда одновременно встречаются и античная мифология, христианская мораль, приторно-сказочное фэнтэзи, не идёт на пользу роману.
Роман начинается и заканчивается строками из книги, которую пишет Оруаль, старшая сестра Психеи. Пишет она на греческом языке, и это с одной стороны, демонстрирует ее гордыню - она не считает, что кто-то из ее соплеменников поймет, даст оценку ее мыслям и поступкам и, вообще, достоин того, чтобы читать ее книгу. С другой, написание на чужом языке - очевидная трусость, поскольку народ может быть разгневан ее деяниями.
Оруаль описывает события достаточно объективно до момента осознания себя Унгит. Такой богине в древнегреческой мифологии, кажется, нет, но в романе она олицетворяет уродство, зло, зависть, ненасытность. У нее нет лица, каждый видит в камне, изображающей ее, что-то свое. Она постоянно требует жертв, и ей в жертву была принесена Психея.
В противоположность сестре, Психея обладает красотой, позволяющей ей соперничать с богинями. Выстраивается противостояние "красота - уродство" с неизменной второй параллелью "добро-зло". Психея спокойно, безэмоционально принимает свою участь быть принесённой в жертву во имя умиротворения Унгит, для спасения народа от зол, насылаемых богиней (параллели очевидны).
Отождествление красоты и добра - давнее заблуждение, не чуждое многих мыслителей.
Но это не последний недостаток.

"Искупление любовью" - фраза незавершённая. Искупают грех. Психея безгрешна. Оруаль любит, мучает и причиняет зло любимым, и это ее грехи. Но в ее случае любовь первична, грех проистекает из природы ее любви - ревнивой, сомневающийся, требующей и взыскующей.
Вообще, одна из основных претензий к роману, помимо эклектики, - это растянутость и обилие малозначительных деталей в сочетании с бедным языком. Все это обедняет и выхолащивает произведение.
Самого мифа здесь мало, Психея, как персонаж обозначена несколькими штрихами, ее образ прорисован поверхностно - ни она, ни Амур автору неинтересны. Главная героиня - старшая сестра со всеми ее комплексами, внутренней неустроенностью, неудовлетворённостью и недолюбленностью. И это совсем другая история.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strangely wonderful. Totally absorbing. Quite possibly my favorite C.S. Lewis novel ever.

Some quotes that made me pause:

"The gods never send us this invitation to delight so readily or so strongly as when they are preparing some new agony. We are their bubbles; they blow us big before they prick us." pg.97

"Don't you think a dream would feel shy if it were seen walking about in the waking world?" pg. 114

"Yet it surprised me that he should have said it; for I did not yet know that if you are ugly enough, all men (unless they hate you deeply) soon give up thinking of you as a woman at all." pg. 131

"My heart was still as ice, heavy as lead, cold as earth, but I was free now from all doubting and deliberating." pg.157

"You are indeed teaching me about a kind of love I did not know. It is like looking into a deep pit. I am not sure whether I like your kind better than hatred." pg.165

"...dust blown in my own eyes by myself." pg. 173

"Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" pg. 294

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Till We Have Faces" is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche with an allegorical twist. Really the myth just serves as a springboard for this excellent novel about love and faith and the life that one leads in between the extremes of both. This is a novel that needs to be read more than once, especially Part II of the text, in order to fully internalize what C.S. Lewis is doing in this piece.
The novel is told from the perspective of Orual the older disfigured sister of Psyche. Through her relationship with her sister and other characters Lewis takes us on an exploration of faith and love and the healing and dangerous aspects of both of these powerful elements. The characterization of Orual and one of her soldiers Bardia (Orual becomes a powerful queen) and one of Orual's closest advisors and friends, known as the Fox, are some of the novel's highlights. Lewis' ability to characterize got better as he wrote, and this late novel of his shows him at the peak of his skills in that area.
An unexpected highlight of the book is a scene where Orual explains how drunkenness allows her to ennoble her sorrows. You nod your head in agreement at this apt description of how being drunk can make one feel about their troubles. It is one of the best descriptions of this state as I have read in literature.
"Till We Have Faces" is divided into two parts and although the story is mythical it has much Christian significance, though less obvious (especially in Part I) than Lewis's other novels. There is a wonderful scene on pages 141-142 that mirrors what one must do in order to have some sort of belief system. It is subtle and well done. In Part II the text becomes more obvious as a Christian allegory but it works well in the context of the story Lewis has created and you could still read the text as a non-allegory and enjoy it.
Although there are a couple of moments where the text seems to meander I liked this book quite a bit and I did not think I would when I picked it up. However, it quickly draws you in. Despite the fact that I am not sure that I agree with what C.S. Lewis is saying about our relationship to God (and that is not the point anyway) this is a thought provoking and well done novel.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

C. S. Lewis as a true storyteller will grip you tightly and don't let you go, until the last page has been eagerly and feverish devoured...
"Till we have faces" is a (fantasy) novel grounded on an very old myth, told by Lucius Apuleius ca 125 A D under the title "Metamorphoses".
I mean that it was also the last novel written by Lewis, and he had much support and encouragement by Joy Davidman, his wife, so it could be achieved and published...

It's the story of Psyche and Orual, daughters of Trom king of Glome. During a time of natural disasters and pest, Psyche because of her beauty will be selected by the priests and people of Glom as a sacrifice and living offering to the mountain god to appease him!!!

The characters are vividly portrait and feels like you are dealing with real persons.
The prose is grandios and richly saturated with much love to the details....
The descriptions of the background and surroundings are awesome!!!!
And also the flair and the atmosphere you will be breathing in, is gothic, dense, saturated with magic and will put you in a trance full of wonders and peculiar moods...

Great story, told by one of the best writers of all times, and at the peak of his ability !!!

Dean;)

[Anna Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the beginning I was not quite in the book and I was not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, but the more I continued reading the more I was captured by this masterpiece. It is surely a good book, many parts within its pages are worthy of discussion, it illustrates the process of developing faith and finding God. I am looking forward to reading more of Lewis’ adult books, as since I was a child my favourite books where the Narnia Chronicles and especially "The lion, the witch and the wardrobe" that I always read. On the whole, I'd say this mature work might well be Lewis' best treasure, and I'm really pleased to haven't stopped reading it.

[Sally Linford · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest pieces I have ever read.

Emily sent me this funny note:
"Your silence is deafening. You didn't like the book? Were you afraid you would hurt my feelings. You might not have enjoyed it as much as I did because you are like Psyche and I like the other one...can't remember her name."

10/08/2008 01:16AM My reply to Emily:

Haha! NOT!

I haven't commented yet, because I haven't had time to do justice to this masterpiece. I have to say, when it ended, I stared at the wall for a while saying, "What did I just read?"

I was nervous going into book club, because I felt like I didn't understand it. Then as we started discussing, it started making more and more sense, and I left in awe, thinking of all the connections: "The gods answered with silence." Oh, I don't have time to do a real review, but I will!

Let me just say, reading this book reminded me of reading Jane Eyre; I was completely un-made and re-made through the process--a stronger, better version of my old self. (I should be really good by now!)

At the end of book club, someone said, "Now that I get it, can we do this again next month?" And that's exactly how I feel. Lewis is so brilliant at presenting the story through Orual's mental filters that you really see things as she does (with only a few glimpses into her self-deception). But, going through it again, you see how colossal her deceptions are, and how the gods very gently and thoroughly reveal them to her, right to the bitter end. That second section just blew me away. I was so moved by the gentle pulling of the gods.

As soon as she says, "In this last case, I know my grievance is just!" you just know the gods will send her exactly the thing that will help her see how she has fooled herself--again!

And the circular TELLING of the grievances! Dagger in my flesh!

I also loved how it gave a grand purpose to the mutterings of old age (visions!). So many things to love in this book!

Oh, so revealing! AMAZING! Thanks for the compliment, but I'm no Psyche--that was VERY clear! Yes, I loved it--and NEEDED it, like Orual needed to write it. Between this book and Pres. Uchdorf's talk at the RS meeting, I am a changed woman.

And, I was only going to send you a note to say I would write about it later! I'll still have to do a real review. I'll definitely read it many times. Thank you for the suggestion!
__________

Now it's a year later, and I chose it for our couples book club and read it again. I loved it even more the second time around, and I think this is a book that I should read every January.

[Jeremy]

Ralph Wood says that this is his favorite Lewis book. Lewis himself said that this book and The Abolition of Man were his favorite.

Just as That Hideous Strength is the fiction version of The Abolition of Man, so Till We Have Faces is the fiction version of The Four Loves.

Are Psyche and Orual the same person?

"Till We Have Faces founded a new genre of mythic novelization."

Complaints here. More details in this podcast interview. In a nutshell, Orual seems right in her criticism and seems to be gaslit later, and the argument for God (via the Greek gods) comes across as fideism. This thought might be related.

Catholic perspective connected to confession.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024 Review
The things this book asks of my heart...it's almost too much. It hurts so good.

2022 Review
Till We Have Faces makes me wish Lewis had lived to write just a few more novels. Something seems to have clicked for him here; it doesn't have the try-hard feel of the space trilogy, or the overt symbolism of the Narniad. I found Orual an arresting and unforgettable character, and the setting as rich and marvelous as Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia. The intertextuality of this novel is so layered, I'm sure I'll get many more thought-provoking readings from it. It makes me want to reach for The Four Loves, because I could feel that seeping through every page.

Such is the paradox of Lewis's fiction, that he can have a character like Orual and also name a character Poobi. I found his peccadilloes fewer and more manageable here. He improves greatly upon the source material, which might bring down the quality of the novel as a retelling, but makes it a better novel overall. I'm just saying...Saba Mahmood would have vibed with this novel.

10/10 salves the wound of not liking the space trilogy.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "The Chronicles of Narnia" when a child, which I believe was a statutory requirement for American children born between 1958 and 1970. I went on to read Lewis's Martian books, eg "Perelandra", and suddenly *smack* the Jesus factor hit me and I lost my taste for Lewis. No chance of that here, since this is a retelling of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Aphrodite, for reasons of her own, gets wildly jealous of a mortal beauty, and demands of her local enforcer/priest that he sacrifice Psyche to appease her wrath; her son goes to collect the sacrifice, and instead falls in love with her; he spirits (pardon pun) Psyche off to his Palace of Luuuv; and then all Hades breaks loose.

In Lewis's skillful hands, the retelling of the tale becomes a cautionary tale of political/religious power concentrating in one set of hands and the cruelties and idiocies that follow inevitably therefrom; and the horrid cruelty of the beautiful to each other, the nature of sibling rivalry, and why sisters should always be kept apart, preferably in tiger cages, until breeding age is attained. (Okay, I added that last part.)

It's a marvelous story, fraught with conflicts among a powerful family of women, and almost unbearably sad in many places. It speaks loudly of Lewis's undeniable abilities as a storyteller. It makes all the sense in the world that this should rank in his canon with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", and yet somehow it doesn't. I suspect the lack of Christian symbolism hurts the book in his fans' eyes. But I am here to say that, for the non-Christian looking for an entree into world of Lewis, this is the place to go. What a delight to discover this book at last!

Recommended, with a shooing motion towards the bookery of your choice and a firm admonishment to buy it soon.

[E.B. Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard so much about this book that I came in with high expectations. I was not prepared for the first five chapters. The story was so different from what I expected and I was a little bit underwhelmed. But then I started noticing the sentences. A friend asked me how I was liking it and I told her, "It's made up of amazing sentences." Although I wasn't attached to the characters or the plot, I loved how C.S. Lewis was weaving in these thought-provoking questions. But then the characters began to grow on me. And then the story started to hit home. Even so, I don't think I really loved the book until the last third.

It's difficult for me to describe this book because it is so much more than just a story. For me it was as if Lewis set up a canvas for me to explore my own thoughts and questions. The story itself deals with themes of selfish love, bitterness, and our limited capacity to understand the divine. But there is such a depth to the personal and emotional struggles described in this book (especially toward the end). This is one of those books I will have to read again because even though I know the story, it is the individual lines, thoughts, descriptions, and questions that cannot be grasped in a single setting. And I know that as I grow older I will read them differently.

I loved this book and I loved seeing a different side to C.S. Lewis.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 5 out of 5]

June 2024 — Nothing new to add to my previous reviews...just an increase of love and wonder for this book.

*****

May 2021 — Better every time.

*****

March 2019 — If you want me to understand pretty much anything, you'd do best to tell me a story. I have no gift for writing fiction, so I cannot fathom its manufacture or its mechanisms. I do not know how it works on me, but I know it does. I cannot even always tell you what it means, at least not thoroughly, but I can generally tell whether it's good or bad (and I mean that in both the stylistic and moral senses) and whether it's true or false (I don't mean that in the factual versus nonfactual sense). Till We Have Faces is a deep well, so I do not pretend to have drunk all it has to offer, but what I managed to swallow on this dive quenched something in me today. I need to reread it many times.

****

June 2017 — I was much too young to fully appreciate this when I first read it thirty years or so ago. I'll probably still be too young to fully appreciate it thirty years hence. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Nadia May (alias of Wanda McCaddon) is a brilliant narrator.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

💘 A Myth Retold 💘

🏹 I realize there are many contenders for what might be considered Lewis’s best. And, in fact, I eschew that sort of analysis, because art is subjective, so what I think is best is not necessarily what you will like. An age-old problem with judging literature competitions.

Nevertheless, of all his works, except perhaps for Lewis’s honest confession of the acute grief he experienced over his wife’s death from cancer (A Grief Observed), I found this book, a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid, to be his most profound.

It is some of his best writing, if not the best; it is accessible to all, not just those of his faith, for the truths unearthed are universal, and timeless, and non-sectarian; the myth redux itself is so well-told, so well-executed, it cuts right to the heart and the spirit.

It is a gift.

[Christina Baehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never make predictions like this, but I feel this is destined to take its place among the best novels of the 20th century.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lewis' writings are splendid as usual but this book stood out with its dark and chilling prose. I grew up familiar with the tale of Cupid and Psyche, as I'm sure the person reading this is as well, and I'd always simply assumed that the sisters who'd betrayed Psyche and basically ruined her life were like unto Cinderella's step-sisters: evil, hateful, and full of jealousy. But the angle at which Lewis took his retelling was quite interesting and admittedly, it did make more sense than the original tale. There's a lot of underlying messages and themes in Till We Have Faces, which may be confusing to some, but I think that the book was a great read, for sure!