The Catholic Book Club discussion

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I read this book some years ago and i will reread to comment with you. However i will start this book on 11th of april.

This will be my fourth reading of Screwtape. I first read it in 1990.

Mariangel wrote: "This will be my fourth reading of Screwtape. I first read it in 1990."

This will be my seventh reading :-) I read it first in 1980.

This will be my first reading; C.S. Lewis is my favorite writer, but somehow I missed this. So happy we chose it.

This will be my fourth reading. I first read it at the suggestion of my CCD teacher, in 1976 or 77. In the early years after my reversion to the Church I frequently read the blog of Father Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican, now Catholic priest. He had a series of posts written in the same style, which prodded me to read it again in about 2005. Then I read it in 2021 with a group of business/law colleagues.

I do not remember when i read "Screwtape letters" between 2007-2015. I think that it would be my third or fourth reading.

I've lost count

In III, it is striking that annoyances more effectively interfere with love than major disagreements. It's easy to be critical of someone for nothing more serious than habits. Instead of beginning, "It annoys me when..." I've learned, "If you're looking for a small, simple way to love me..."

I've read it once before, a year or so ago.
It's a quick read, I've nearly finished it.

I applogize because i Will delay the reread of this book because i have other previous engagements. I have read few books this month, and besides i have rereads pending. My beloved Juan Manuel de Prada taking the chance of the CoVid wrote his own "Screwtape Letters" but in this case is Bromwood who writes to Screwtape. The book is called "Letters to the nephew to his devil" and Mary Eberstadt Tadesci had a close idea but she changed the devils for a evil children who writes to Richard Dawkins for spreading the atheism around the World. I have seen that Michael Ward is a recent member of this group. It is a pity that he could not participate because he is an expert in C.S. Lewis.

I wanted to say Wormwood sorry 😅.

Frances wrote: "This will be my first reading; C.S. Lewis is my favorite writer, but somehow I missed this. So happy we chose it."
You won't regret it!

He took the opportunity to share the links of the books I have talked about https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... in the case of Don Juan Manuel de Prada's book I share the criticism, which I wrote of this book, which was written for a topic already cited by our moderator John Seymour el CoVid. It also helps us to know how Spain is https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and another book, which follows the model of "The Screwtape letters" is a better known book written by Mary Eberstadt Tadesci https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7.... As I said, I trust that I will be able to join the discussion fully next week. This week I have to reread, and write the reviews of W. Somerset Maugham's "Razor's Edge" (since it was asked by a friend of mine), I also want to write a review of "The Innocence of Father Brown" (in fact, my intention is to write a review of the five books, and put them together) and I will also read overdue readings to continue increasing my reading number to overcome the challenge of Goodreads.

Patrick wrote: "Frances wrote: "This will be my first reading; C.S. Lewis is my favorite writer, but somehow I missed this. So happy we chose it."
You won't regret it!"

I agree with Patrick. Frances is very fortunate to be able to read this gem for the first time. Of course when I finished it I will write my own review on Goodreads

Letters XVIII to XX about sexual temptations are a little outdated now, 80 years after the book was written. In that time, the coworkers of Screwtape and Wormwood have successfully separated sex from love for most people. Screwtape's advice to Wormwood to lead his patient towards a "desirable" marriage would not be so appropriate now as it was in the nineteen forties.

Depends on the particular circumstances. Certainly there are marriages nowadays that lead one spouse astray. But, yes, they're a little harder to contract, where sexual sins are easier. OTOH, it's also easier to lure him into a marriage where the wife will leave, leaving him hanging.

So, yeah, the advice there is a bit situational

On this subject I recommend two books. A very accessible one by Mary Eberstadt (also) "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... and this book by the German Gabriele Kuby "The Global Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... to see how things have changed in sexual material. Although it has become obsolete by the sexual revolution, it is interesting to recommend the book "A Slavery of Our Time" by Maxence van der Meersch https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... (his particular crusade to end prostitution truncated by the sexual revolution. The latter book is impossible for the English-language reader to obtain.)

Fonch wrote: "On this subject I recommend two books. A very accessible one by Mary Eberstadt (also) "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...-..."

The recent issue (March 20) of National Review has a good review of the Eberstadt book. I've been reading NR for years, so I trust this is something worth reading.

Patrick wrote: "Fonch wrote: "On this subject I recommend two books. A very accessible one by Mary Eberstadt (also) "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution" https://www.goodreads.com/book/..."

I liked it a lot. I think they have recently reissued it.

Fonch wrote: "On this subject I recommend two books. A very accessible one by Mary Eberstadt (also) "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...-..."

Fonch, how has the crusade to end prostitution been truncated by the sexual revolution? Prostitution and sex trafficking are, I think, as prevalent as always.

John wrote: "Fonch wrote: "On this subject I recommend two books. A very accessible one by Mary Eberstadt (also) "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution" https://www.goodreads.com/book/..."

Hello John, if there was always prostitution, but the book of "A slavery of our time" by Maxence van der Meersch thought (I think a little too optimistically) that it was about to be eradicated. In fact, one of the characters in "Bodies and Souls" Simone Heubel was inspired by a real case, and Maxence van der Meersch went out of his way to eradicate her from France. He tells us a story of the horroes of prostitution, and his struggle to eradicate it from France, and said that it was during the Vichy Republic that puppet state that supported Nazi Germany, when there was more prostitution. Maxence van der Meersch talks about the support he had in his fight against prostitution. Ironically, he had more support among the left than on the right. Since now it is the left that encourages prostitution the most. Maxence van der Meersch, who died very prematurely, and very young died before May 68, which is when pansexualization gained momentum again. The few on the left who protested were cornered, and it was the left that promoted the Sexual Revolution. Gabriele Kuby speaks above all of the promoters of this phenomenon, while Mary Eberstadt speaks more about the consequences of the Sexual Revolution.

Prostitution has generated a very strong debate. There are people who were against, and in favor. In the sixteenth century the Duke of Alba carried prostitutes in his armies to prevent troops from raping civilian women. Although Maxence van der Meersch's book was very outdated I still recommend it, because it seems to me a very valuable read, and perhaps the work of Maxence van der Meersch should be continued. As the subject of sex was touched on, I decided to put it on, because it seemed pertinent.

Although most of Letter XXVIII is still to the point, its last paragraph has become outdated:

The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth... We are allowed to work only on a selected minority of the race, for what humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception.

This was true at the beginning of the twentieth century, but after the second world war, with the spread of antibiotics and other medical improvements, most children do not die. I wrote about this in this post in my blog, which makes a distinction between life expectancy and longevity:
https://populscience.blogspot.com/201...

While reading the last-but-one paragraph in Letter XXVIII, I was surprised by this:

A great human philosopher nearly let our secret out when he said that where Virtue is concerned “Experience is the mother of illusion”

Lewis does not bother to name the philosopher. He obviously assumes that there is no need, for (nearly) all his readers would know who is the author of this quote.

Nowadays I doubt if 1% of the readers of "The Screwtape Letters" are aware that the quote comes from Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant.

Manuel wrote: "While reading the last-but-one paragraph in Letter XXVIII, I was surprised by this:

A great human philosopher nearly let our secret out when he said that where Virtue is concerned “Experience is t..."

By the way, I have "Critique of Pure Reason" to read. In Spain it raised a stir because politicians Pablo Iglesias of Podemos the Communist Party (who misquoted the title calling it "Ethics of Pure Reason") and Albert Rivera of the Ciudadanos Party (a kind of non-Marxist center-left that flirts with the liberalism of Adam Smith, and Hayek) (who did not realize that he had misquoted the title) talked about him. Most likely, I failed to read this book, since Kant is a very complicated author for my poor brain. From St. Thomas Aquinas at COU (the pre-university course) I did not know anything they told me in philosophy my body was present, but my soul wandered through strange places that were not the classroom.

I have finished. This is my review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Manuel wrote: "Although most of Letter XXVIII is still to the point, its last paragraph has become outdated:

The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth... We are a..."

OTOH, it is still true that we can die at any moment.

Mary wrote: "The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth...

OTOH, it is still true that we can die at any moment."

Yes. As two characters in The Curse of Chalion say:

"So you are saying that I can die at any moment!"
"Yes. And this is different from your life yesterday in what way?"

Mary wrote: "OTOH, it is still true that we can die at any moment."

This topic makes people very unsettled. When I was at a law firm, they required every partner to prepare a transition plan if they were within three years of their expected retirement. They first asked me the year I turned 60 what my plans were, in case I needed to prepare one. I asked two questions: "What does the plan entail"? and "Why isn't every partner required to have one"?

The last puzzled them. When I pointed out that none of us is guaranteed tomorrow, that any one of use could get hit by a bus, or a drunk driver, or receive a fatal cancer diagnosis, they were distinctly uncomfortable. But no, I didn't intend to retire within three years, and yes, I had a transition plan.

We live miraculously, and we never know when the end of our life will be.

In one sense, the devils' part has eased, and so we must face the hard part: the longer we are in the world, the longer the world has to grow on us.

Mary wrote: "In one sense, the devils' part has eased, and so we must face the hard part: the longer we are in the world, the longer the world has to grow on us."

As Lewis pointed out in letter XXVIII.

Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli is an antidote to Uncle Screwtape's attacks, very useful battle tactics for combating the enemy.

Susan, we read The Spiritual Combat in Dec 2019, you can read our comments here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

One of the things I like about the book of "The Screwtape letters" is the dedication, which is dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien. This is interesting to debunk rumors, and falsehoods about the deteriorating friendship between C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. It is true that due to some personal differences the friendship between J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis cooled somewhat, but until the end of their lives the two remained great friends. By the way, a Spanish Society of Catholic Tolkien has been created, and I have become a member. It is directed among others by Diego Blanco Albarova https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3..., https://www.goodreads.com/author/show..., and the Father Izquierdo.

SUSAN wrote: "Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli is an antidote to Uncle Screwtape's attacks, very useful battle tactics for combating the enemy."

Yes, I remember that I participated in that debate :-).

I just read the foreword and I remembered the spiritual cramps that C.S. Lewis talks about, and how this book was uncomfortable for him. I have found some errors in the RIALP notes I will have to talk to them in the case of Lindsay the author A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... a book that by the way they gave to my friend Turbiales. I told him I had received a treasure. The other mistake is with the author of Vice Versa: A Lesson to Fathers by F. Anstey https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... RIALP could not recognize the Garuda stone. Several films have been made from that book. A very nice one with Judge Reinhold, and Fred Savage (the child The Wonder Years in Spain is a cult series). I really liked how Lewis received the reprobation of the English parish priest. I believe that what has been truly immoral has been the progressive attitudes of the Anglican Church, as demonstrated by Joseph Pearce in his book on C.S. Lewis, and the Catholic Church, which was inspired by a book by Christopher Derrick from which he also borrowed the title. It is curious, because when Juan Manuel de Prada published "Letters from a nephew to his Devil: Chronicles of Coronaviral Spain" he also https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... the same problem in the newspaper ABC, and received many letters of protest from readers of the newspaper ABC. In this case it was Wormwood as I said in another intervention who with much insolence, and irreverence wrote very rudely to his uncle, and De Prada https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... set the events in the Spain of CoVid

The nurse's anecdote was very funny. I really liked how he dismantles the Manichean heresy, which places good and evil on the same level. His criticisms of Raphael remind me of those made by Rosetti, and allowed the creation of the pictorial movement of the Pre-Raphaelites. There was a similar movement called the Nazarites. As for the work "John Inglesant" by Shorthouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... mentioned by C.S. Lewis has always wanted to read it, but they never translated it into Spanish, since it influenced many English converts, who had that book as a bedside book. I think Maurice Baring, and I don't know if Robert Hugh Benson was influenced by that book. I was unaware of Maeterlinck's work (according to RIALP's footnote). I don't know if the bee thing had anything to do with some John Bunyan metaphor.

I agree with C.S. Lewis that the book would have earned more if it had included the guardian angel, as he says. I agree that Satan's opposite is not God, but St. Michael. The last thing I want to highlight is the theme of Goethe's Faust, which the Professor and I have commented on in our correspondence. The mistakes that Goethe makes are the consequences of a century in which I emphasize indifferentism. However, Marlowe's Faust also left me cold. I told Professor Manuel Alfonseca what the Jesuit Leonardo Castellani said https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , which I think gives in the CLAO. The immoral thing about Goethe's work is that after such a horrible sin as selling one's soul to the Devil, Faust is saved. Of the three literary archetypes Don Juan (the seducer, although in reality the idea of Tirso de Molina is not that Don Juan is a seducer of women, but that he is a blasphemer, who skips the divine laws. His lust is a consequence of his libertine character. This was attenuated with later versions), Hamlet (for Castellani Hamlet embodies the skeptic). Well, for the Argentine Jesuit both Don Juan and Hamlet could be saved, but Faust never. Regarding the demonic nature I would like to recommend the work of a writer, who unfortunately has not reached the United States "The faith of demons, or atheism overcome" by Fabrice Hadjadj https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... where it speaks of the true relationship between humans, and demons. Like demons, who are fallen angels, they envy beings as vulgar as humans who are brute matter, for them vulgar, and that their pride, and their envy lead them to seek to lose them with a hatred close to murder. The French is a writer who is very worthwhile. Regarding demons we have "El Diablo Cojuelo" by Vélez de Guevara, which was later copied by Lessage in a French version. The epistolary genre is a fashion of the eighteenth century.

Reading the foreword by C.S. Lewis when he says that there are two possible negative attitudes towards demons. Not believing in them, or having an unhealthy interest in them. I was thinking of the quote from the French poet Charles Baudelaire, when he said that the greatest success of the Devil is to make us believe that he does not exist. For that reason (although I liked it). I didn't understand the movie The Rite by Michael Hasftrom. If the priest did not believe in the devil, why manifest himself to believe? Was it not easier to leave him in unbelief, and thus condemn himself to hell? It seems to me that in that movie the Devil was a bit clumsy. Although good sinned of a very Luciferian defect the "vanity".

Mariangel wrote: "Susan, we read The Spiritual Combat in Dec 2019, you can read our comments here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group..."
Thank you, Mariangel!

I have observed during the process of reading The Screwtape Letters, that to denigrate some aspects of Christianity Screwtape uses the term puritan to discredit some attitudes that could cause the human being to escape the control of Wormwood. I know it may be a silly thought that I think, but, although the word puritan is used in a derogatory way in the Hispanic world, also meapilas. Puritan in our world has the meaning of hypocrite, above all. I think, here you see that Lewis has an Anglo-Catholic bias, and you see the rivalry between the high church and the low church. What is used to denigrate us (at least here) is to call us meapilas, extremists, fanatics (my mother sometimes calls me Taliban). You see the rivalry between a progressive modernism, and a more traditional cult and also in a derogatory way the former usually tell us that we are outdated, that this is not in force. Since Vatican II, the influence of progressivism in the Church has greatly expanded. Our moderator John, Michael D. Greaney, has spoken wonderfully on this subject in this discussion.

This part has interested me when Lewis through Screwtape defines the four types of laughter. The joy, the fun, the joke, and the lightness. The theme of laughter was the argument used by the late Umberto Eco in "The Name of the Rose" to attack Catholicism. To say that laughter was a sin, even if it was a deranged monk with the features of Borges who said it. The subject of humor has been treated wonderfully in his book "Humorists" by the late Paul Johnson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1.... Due to my laziness I have not yet been able to write a critique of the "Revés del derecho" by the Valencian novelist Fernando Vizcaíno Casas where I was going to talk about the humor of right-wing writers, which I find more funny, intelligent, than that of left-wing authors. It is interesting Lewis's reflection of jokes, which are used to extol stinginess, cowardice, and cruelty, and detract from the seriousness of those sins. When Lewis spoke of lightness he was thinking of tasteless satirists from Lucian to the writers of the French Enlightenment Diderot, D'Alembert, and Voltaire, and I remember some very good reflections from Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life also by C.S. Lewis https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... when he spoke of Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, and Gibbon, and said he found them funny, especially Gibbon, but nothing more. I think that might be a good conclusion to this letter.

The theme of gluttony has its intrinsic. Today it has regained its importance we can see that in the first world many of the causes of mortality are strokes, and that the population suffers from many eating disorders, or eating convulsively like the fat Seven, or having people with bulimia, or anorexia. Now with the excuse of climate change, the 2030 Agenda wants to force us not to eat meat or fish, and to eat insects, or meat, and synthetic fish manufactured by the plutocrats. I think that unfortunately gluttony has come to stay. In third world countries people are starving. It's sad to see the contrast. I myself am attacked by this evil with great effectiveness I love to eat my parents cook wonderfully. Sometimes I eat what I shouldn't eat, and I do it in large quantities. The good thing is that being picnic makes me good-humored, and there are not usually so many fat tyrants (well Mao Zedong). If there are people like the mother of the protagonist that Lewis talks about preparing meals for it is very difficult, and they generate very strong family tensions.

I am reading Letter XXII, if as you can imagine I am about to finish. I'm enjoying Screwtape's tantrum, which has made love bad. Screwtape as advised by a user of Oscarzine.com where he talked about cinema. Take a man linden. That climate of suspicion, suspicion, and distrust that exists between demons reminds me of that episode of Doraemon the secret of the Devil in society was hierarchical, and the demons were suspicious of themselves. I believe Lewis influenced the movie Doraemon and the Seven Wizards. In fact, the author who wrote the instructions for defeating the King of Demons was called Narniades in the movie. It is known that the Japanese writer Noriko Ogiwara https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... has always been greatly influenced by the novels of C.S. Lewis.

The joy of Screwtape scares me. It is as terrible as that of Domitian, who before doing evil to someone was always in a good mood.

Here I share with you my review of "The Screwtape letters". I think it is a magnificent summary of this discussion, as it summarizes the main issues that have been discussed here. It has been a great pleasure to have been able to participate. Of course I have dedicated it to the whole group, and John Seymour was mentioned in my review very highly https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

SUSAN wrote: ""San Antonio was bristling with spies. One Mexican followed me about wherever I went, and one day I was accosted on the street by name by a man behind huge black spectacles, who upon being requeste..."

Susan, this comment should go in the discussion of Mexican Martyrdom: Firsthand Accounts of the Religious Persecution in Mexico 1926-1935: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Manuel wrote: "SUSAN wrote: ""San Antonio was bristling with spies. One Mexican followed me about wherever I went, and one day I was accosted on the street by name by a man behind huge black spectacles, who upon ..."

Ooops!!! Thank you!