Book Review: Till We Have Faces

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Rating: ★★★★½ 




This is a beautiful retelling of "Cupid and Psyche" (think, the original myth that princess stories like Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella are based on). I recommend reading the myth before you embark on this beautiful narrative.

The shortened version of "Cupid and Psyche" for those of you that don't want to look it up:

Psyche, a princess, is found to be so beautiful that people begin neglecting the goddess Aphrodite and paying homage to Psyche instead. Aphrodite is outraged and sends her son, Cupid, to prick her with his arrow and make her fall in love with a low beast. Cupid does as his mother asks, sprinkling bitter water on Psyche's lips, when Psyche gasps and wakes because of the bitter potion, looking directly into Cupid's eyes. Cupid, invisible and hovering over her bed, is startled and accidentally pricks himself with an arrow, falling in love with her. He undoes the mischief he'd committed and leaves out her window.

Time passes, and no one has offered for Psyche's hand, though her less beautiful sisters have married. Distraught, she and her parents are seek the council of a priest, who tells them that Psyche isn't meant to wed any mortal, she is to be the bride of an immortal monster.

Her parents are terrified and grieved, but they take Psyche into the woods and leave her there for the monster. Soon, the wind whisks Psyche away to a beautiful castle attended by invisible servants, and there she spends the day in luxury. When the night finally arrives, her husband comes to her and wins her over by speaking words of love to her. His only rule is that she can never see his face, so their relationship carries on only at night and only in the dark. It's a lovely existence for her. Psyche has fallen in love with her mysterious husband, and trusts him enough to not break his rule and bring a light into their bedroom to see his face.

Soon she becomes homesick and worried about her family. They all think she was eaten by a monster after all, and she misses them. Against his judgement, Cupid allows Psyche's sisters to come visit her, and when they see the splendor of her new life, her sisters grow terribly jealous. Once they hear about her husband's one rule, they convince her that her husband is probably a monster, and that she should take a dagger and lantern to bed so she can kill him if they turn out to be right.

When they leave, Psyche can't shake that fear and does as they recommended, pulling out the lantern once he's asleep. She becomes breathless at the sight of the most beautiful of all the gods and leans too close, spilling oil on his shoulder, waking him up. He quickly flies out the window and abandons her—the castle and meadow disappearing.

She becomes crushed under her grief and tries to find her love again, but he won't see her. Eventually she pledges herself to Aphrodite's temple and does impossible tasks to work her way back to Cupid.

He comes to rescue her and they live happily ever after...

The original Greek tale is one of my personal favorites (I'm a sucker for mythology), so hearing that freaking C. S. Lewis retold it with a Christian twist excited me (Cupid is the god of love after all, the parallels were already falling in to place), the fact that this particular tale haunted Lewis throughout his life intrigued me; throw in the fact that this was his final novel that he co-wrote with the love of his life...

...I was hooked.

The novel is Psyche's eldest sister's formal complaint against the gods. Psyche's sister, Orual, is an old woman now and is considered by all to be one of the wisest Queens and rulers ever to command her nation. Outwardly, she is well loved by her people, intelligent, a fighter, and to be revered, but inwardly her soul is eroding with a bitterness towards Unguit, her nation's god. She presents her case as if before a judge, and speaks on the suffering they've caused her, and it's all to do with Psyche.

It was Orual who raised and taught Psyche - loving her as a daughter more than a sibling. There's a possessive intensity there that makes you look hard at what loves really is. When we say we love someone, are we actually saying we love them as long as they're ours? As long as they have love us above all else? Can we love them even when we're not the first in their hearts? Can we accept their free will to do what they choose, and can we be mature enough to know that if they love someone else, that doesn't mean that there's less love for us?

The nation also falls in love with their princess, so much so, that they begin worshipping Psyche as Unguit (the representation of Aphrodite) which sparks a period of famine and disease and war: the wrath of the gods.

Here the real story can begin. Psyche must be offered to Unguit's son, the Shadowbrute, as a sacrifice. The people turn on their beloved princess, banging on the gates demanding she be handed over—hungry and riotous. The priest eventually comes and tells the king someone in his family will need to be sacrificed. He casts lots, Psyche is chosen, and the king hands her over with all the sadness of the "pardoned turkey" on Thanksgiving. (For non-U.S. residents you'll need to look that reference up)

After the people have a ceremony and tie Psyche to a tree on the Grey Mountain where the Shadowbrute lives, Orual, Psyche's pragmatic sister who has a mixed view of gods inherited from her Greek teacher and the land that raised her, travels to the Mountain of the Gods to see if Psyche has been devoured by the wild beasts.

She discovers what she deems a worse fate - Psyche is in love, and has been taken as this "Shadowbrute's" bride. She sits healthy and glowing, speaking of riches and a palace that Orual cannot see.

She is joyful. She is happier than Orual has ever seen her.

Orual can't take it.

There is a beautiful story here, one that cuts to harsh truths. This novel is all about how we view God, how we project ourselves onto the divine, and what we perceive as love. There is no neat lesson here. No Narnia, full of good feeling and a sense of black and white comfort. You're left after the reading to battle with who you perceive God to be, and with your own ideas about love. In the end, Orual get's her answer, though it wasn't the easy answer she wanted to hear. She didn't really love Psyche, not in the way she thought she had. She wanted Psyche's entire heart to be hers, and hers alone. This god who loved Psyche took her away from Orual, heart and soul:

“Oh, I can see it happening, age after age, and growing worse the more you reveal your beauty: the son turning his back on the mother and the bride on her groom, stolen away by this everlasting calling, calling, calling of the gods. Taken where we can't follow. It would be far better for us if you were foul and ravening. We'd rather you drank their blood than stole their hearts. We'd rather they were ours and dead than yours and made immortal.”

And when she hears the words articulated, when her heart says what she means for the first time without a veil, Orual sees as a blind woman for the first time:

“The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. [...] 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?”

The reason for that docked half point is partially because of the above paragraph. The second part of the story—when the scales fall from our misguided heroine's eyes and she has revelation after revelation and healing can come into her life—is far too short, and the implications of her final narration largely untapped. I wish I could have sat the author down and had him explain everything to me as if I were five, for, though some conclusions are obvious, others left me in a frustrated confusion.

More than anything, this story is about love. What we perceive as love, and what we take from others in selfish need. This juxtaposed to an awe-inspiring, self-sacrificing, overflowing love that gives and doesn't stop giving. It will bother and rock you in wonderful ways. I highly recommend Till We Have Faces.


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