"Till We Have Faces"
I went to Barnes and Noble the other night and I found a copy of C.S. Lewis's "Till We Have Faces." I have been wanting to read this book for sooooo long, and I'm excited that B&N had such a good selection of Lewis's works. Its funny that they have so much more than Family Christian Stores, but thats another topic. I have so many things on my reading list right now, but I'm tempted to bump them off for this one.
"Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956) was C. S. Lewis's last work of fiction, and the one he considered his best. It was not well received initially, probably because of its difficulty and its differences from his earlier narratives, and remains the least popular of his fictional works, though it is the most highly praised by literary critics. The book retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which had haunted Lewis all his life. From the first time he heard the myth, he knew that the traditional story, told first by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, had a key point wrong: Psyche's sisters could not have seen the palace of Cupid to which she was carried by the West Wind; they could not have seen it because they did not believe in divine mysteries.....
The story shows how all of Orual's loves turn possessive and destructive (her motherly affection for Psyche, her friendship with the Fox, her sublimated but nonetheless real desire for Bardia). The story illustrates the theme of The Four Loves, that the natural loves can remain themselves, can remain loves, only if they are infused with, or transformed by, divine love, or agape (charity). "
http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12321
I went to Barnes and Noble the other night and I found a copy of C.S. Lewis's "Till We Have Faces." I have been wanting to read this book for sooooo long, and I'm excited that B&N had such a good selection of Lewis's works. Its funny that they have so much more than Family Christian Stores, but thats another topic. I have so many things on my reading list right now, but I'm tempted to bump them off for this one.
"Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956) was C. S. Lewis's last work of fiction, and the one he considered his best. It was not well received initially, probably because of its difficulty and its differences from his earlier narratives, and remains the least popular of his fictional works, though it is the most highly praised by literary critics. The book retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which had haunted Lewis all his life. From the first time he heard the myth, he knew that the traditional story, told first by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, had a key point wrong: Psyche's sisters could not have seen the palace of Cupid to which she was carried by the West Wind; they could not have seen it because they did not believe in divine mysteries.....
The story shows how all of Orual's loves turn possessive and destructive (her motherly affection for Psyche, her friendship with the Fox, her sublimated but nonetheless real desire for Bardia). The story illustrates the theme of The Four Loves, that the natural loves can remain themselves, can remain loves, only if they are infused with, or transformed by, divine love, or agape (charity). "
http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12321
1 Comments:
Hey Carrie,
I read Til We Have Faces last year. It was required reading for my Mythology in Lit class. It was very good, and I think you'll like it :)
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Val, at 4:00 PM
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