Read: Till We Have Faces

So I finally gave into endless recommendations to read C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces.

I resist because, with rare exception, I'm not a particularly huge fan of C. S. Lewis. I find him ultimately the product of a time that led to a lot of sexist and shallow theology. I understand taking things in context, but taking C. S. Lewis in context left me having to sift through quite a bit of crap to get to a few decent nuggets.

Not so with A Grief Observed or Till We Have Faces. I like these, and especially my latest read, because they're based in doubt, with the protagonists (in one C. S. Lewis himself) questioning divine authority.

Because for me, I'm an Edmund or a Susan. I prefer inherently flawed people, especially if they are doubters and questioners. I'm less interested in Peter or Lucy, who I find endlessly faithful and unquestioning, and thus, endlessly dull.

If discussion of the divine is without questions or doubt, than, to me, it's a worthless conversation. That's why I adore this book, and its protagonist, Orual, who pens the story as a charge against the gods for what they did to her and her sister, a human-turned-goddess, Psyche.

This is a retelling of greek myths in much the same way Gregory Maguire retells the stories of the Wicked Witch of the West or Cinderella.

The story of Psyche involves a girl sacrificed to a beast of some kind. Cupid is sent to kill her, because peasants worship her like a god. Cupid instead falls in love with her and takes her away to a palace and marries her, but keeps himself hidden from her. Psyche's sisters see the palace, become jealous, and convince the naive and gullible Psyche to shine a lantern on her husband and kill him. When she shines the lantern, she is banished.

Lewis brilliantly turns the story around, creating Orual, one of the sisters, Psyche's elder, who is overly fond of her young, beautiful sister. Orual is seen as ugly. Orual's actions are not out of jealousy, but out of logical doubt. As far as she can see, someone has conned her sister, is keeping her locked in a mountain and manipulating her into thinking he is a good. Orual is unable to see this palace, and insists that Psyche prove that her alleged husband is more than just some manipulative thief. She's convinced that, in fact, Psyche might be drugged by the hidden husband.

I love this protagonist, because I think most level-headed people would have the same reaction to Psyche's situation. But more than that, Orual confronts the god's and charges, in a great set of dialog, that the god's real crime is being absent and ambiguous. If they were violent beasts, humans could deal with that, but instead they're distant and withhold the intent of their actions.

I don't want to give any more away than that. But it just astounded me, and I applaud Lewis for not driving a "have faith no matter what the cost" message, but rather leaves the story unclear in the end. It seems that Orual begins to have faith in the end, but it's not a moral that is forced, and Orual's doubts and anger ring much stronger than Psyche's blind faith, whether Psyche is correct in the end or not.

Onto some lighter fair. Next I'm reading Cold Comfort Farm for the second time.