Book Review: Till We Have Faces

[osprey_archer]

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the centre of your soul for years, which you have, all the 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?

I first read C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces years ago - in high school? in college? - before I was writing regular reviews of my reading. But I remember that I didn’t much like it, and found it especially aggravating how the narrative kept harping on how Orual’s ugliness made her unlovable.

And yet - and yet. There’s a scene near the end, where Orual finds herself reading her complaint to the gods. Not the complaint that is this book that you hold in your hands, which Orual wrote with all the customary self-justifications and evasions of mortals; but the real complaint at the center of her heart in all its petty childish selfishness, the raw molten hurt fury that Orual’s beloved half-sister Psyche could love anything, anything aside from Orual.

That moment stuck with me. That was why I wanted to read the book again, to see if I would understand it better this time, and I did, and I loved it.

On that first high school read, I believed Orual’s insistence on her own unlovability, and also mistook Orual’s opinion for Lewis’s. Never mind that the last four chapters of the book systematically refute Orual’s opinion on this matter, culminating in that speech that so stunned me that I remembered the impact for years. The narrator said it, so obviously it was true, and just as obviously the author’s opinion!

But, no, it isn’t at all, and indeed, the last few chapters of this book are all about the fact that Orual’s belief in her own unlovability has led her to feel unloved, never mind how many people love her enormously. They don’t love her the way she wants them to, and so their love is as nothing. Bardia loves her as his queen and comrade-in-arms whom he would die for at the drop of a hat… but he’s not in love with her. Her tutor the Fox loves her so much that he stays in Glome as her counselor even after she frees him… but right after he got his freedom, he considered perhaps going home to Greece. Well, what good is a love that can even think about leaving you?

And Psyche! Psyche! Orual wants Psyche to love her most and best and only, the way Psyche perhaps loved her as a baby. And instead, the girl insists on growing up and making other friends and finding inner resources and not needing Orual anymore.

But what actually begins to get through to Orual is the story of her other sister, Redival, of whom Orual has always spoken with contempt. The pretty, flighty, thoughtless sister, who ended up married to a man who “never listened to a word she said.” (This is clearly meant to show that their marriage isn’t very happy. It’s such a contrast to That Hideous Strength, where Jane sighs that Mark doesn’t listen to her anymore, and Mrs. Dimble, the exemplar of a Christian wife, is like, ah well, how could a man listen to all his wife’s prattle? So glad that littlerhymes and I ended the Lewis read on Till We Have Faces rather than That Hideous Strength.)

As she is writing this complaint to the gods, Orual remembers that as very little girls, she and Redival had been friends. It was only after the Fox came, after Psyche was born, that Orual dropped Redival - and Orual learns, to her amazement, that Redival was terribly lonely afterward. It had never before occurred to Orual to consider that moment through Redival’s eyes - to imagine that the loss of Orual’s love could ever hurt anyone’s feelings. “For it had been somehow settled in my mind from the very beginning that I was the pitiable and ill-used one. She had her gold curls, hadn’t she?”

And if Orual had been mistaken in this fundamental assumption, then might she, perhaps, be wrong about other things? And from there, the whole structure of her grievance against the gods begins to unravel. Did the gods take Psyche from you, Orual? Or did you drive her away?

Comments

[littlerhymes]

I'm so glad the book circles around to Redival at the end. She never got her full due - it could've been a tale of three sisters! - but she did get that moment.

Super glad we finished on this one too, it was such a good palate cleanser after That Hideous Strength. And a whole book about a girlboss, IMAGINE THAT!

[osprey_archer]

One of the tragedies of the book is that Orual realizes, far too late for it to do any good, that it could indeed have been the tale of three sisters. Would losing Psyche have been less devastating if she could at least have fallen on Redival's shoulder and cried about it?

And yes, a girlboss heroine, such a change from the girlboss villains like Jadis and the Lady of the Green Kirtle! Although Orual is really more of an anti-heroine, isn't she?

Trying to imagine Jadis having this eleventh-hour realization that perhaps she could have reconciled with her sister instead of blowing up the whole world... maybe when you've committed that hard to being wrong, it becomes impossible to repent, though.

[littlerhymes]

Orual is too conflicted and interesting to be a true girlboss. How many times can I look at the word girlboss before it loses all meaning.

JADIS WOULD NEVER she would burn the whole world down before reconciling with her sister and in fact did.

[lokifan]

Oh wow, this sounds like it'd make me very emotional. (I'm the oldest of three sisters, and we used to all be very close, and then they became closer to each other.)

I'm glad you went back - understanding narrator vs author is such a useful thing!!!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, it definitely might. I don't have sisters, but certain aspects of the sibling relationship definitely got me thinking about my brother and me.

My recollection is that in certain other books, I could distinguish between narrator and author - but not in this one, maybe because Orual's voice was so powerful that it completely swept away my critical faculties. Couldn't take a step back and say "Hmm, does Orual's presentation of herself actually accord with what we're seeing," no, I was just sitting there yelling "SOMEONE LOVE ORUAL THE WAY SHE NEEDS TO BE LOVED."

[kore]

I remember the first time I read this book (when I was probably too young for it, lol) I was so swept up in Orual's viewpoint that the bit where she complains the real complaint was a bit of a shock.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, exactly! Reading it now, I can see the hints sprinkled throughout that Orual is not, in fact, a 100% reliable narrator, but when I first read it, I was gobsmacked when we hit the real complaint, and it sweeps away the edifice of self-justification to show just how raw and petty and selfish the complaint is at bottom. Overwhelming like an ocean wave. Just knocked me off my feet.

[ironymaiden]

Oh, I love this book! it appeared at a moment in my life when I needed to learn from it

[osprey_archer]

I probably could have learned from it back in high school if I could have understood it better! But maybe I can learn some lessons now...

[sovay]

The narrator said it, so obviously it was true, and just as obviously the author’s opinion!

I had the opposite experience of screaming inside my head at Orual for much of the book because it became evident that she was not a reliable narrator, which meant I was enormously relieved when the penny finally dropped and began to release her from her self-serving, self-harming self-image, but also I have never re-read the book because I don't want to go through the screaming part again.

[osprey_archer]

I did scream a little bit, because if ONLY she had written this down earlier, like maybe decades ago right after it happened?, she could have gotten a bit of perspective early enough in her life for it to actually make a difference in her relationships with people. Instead all these realizations come to her after most of the important people in her life are too dead for it to make any difference.

[kore]

That book is such a stunner it amazes me that Lewis wrote it. I mean, obviously he did write it, it's just so different in a lot of ways from the rest of his books. A lot of people credit Joy Davidman for that.

[osprey_archer]

It draws on a lot of the same themes as his other books - in particular, the idea that the gods are terrifying in their very goodness. (See for instance Aslan and "he's not a tame lion.") But the ideas developed so far beyond his earlier works that it's amazing the same person wrote them.

I wonder if his relationship with Joy unlocked some script that he had been repeating over and over in his own heart, about women or love or something like that. The book definitely feels like he's untied some knot that had held him back before.

[kore]

I think so! According to at least a couple of biographies I read, he delighted in her intellect and arguing and insisted on introducing her to his friends and I think taking her to the Inklings, or at least to a couple of their buddy dude gatherings, which annoyed some of them, especially Tolkien. From his description in Surprised by Joy he was also delighted when she "sprang" on him for "cant" so I think he was very happy not to just find a woman he thought was an intellectual equal, but who could call him on his bullshit. It was certainly unlike all his other relationships including friendships with women, from what I can see. Joy gets a bad rap from a lot of biographers, but she sounds like a pistol. (Debra Winger played her in the VERY questionable Shadowlands, which was fab casting in an otherwise soggy mess.)

[osprey_archer]

IIRC in The Inklings Humphrey Carpenter portrayed Joy in a pretty good light, but it doesn't surprise me to hear that other biographers paint her as the Yoko Ono of the Inklings. Although how do they account for Till We Have Faces if they think she was a bad influence...

I do feel for the other Inklings, though, because apparently for YEARS Lewis was very insistent on the Inklings as Boys Club, and then all of a sudden HE'S the one with the wife he wants to introduce to everyone, and so much for Boys Club! Oh, so it's DIFFERENT when it's your wife, huh? Your wife the American divorcee?

It's like the time Lewis decided that they were all going to love Charles Williams except worse, because at least Lewis couldn't marry the man!

[kore]

but it doesn't surprise me to hear that other biographers paint her as the Yoko Ono of the Inklings

//dies

I do feel for the other Inklings, though, because apparently for YEARS Lewis was very insistent on the Inklings as Boys Club, and then all of a sudden HE'S the one with the wife he wants to introduce to everyone, and so much for Boys Club! Oh, so it's DIFFERENT when it's your wife, huh? Your wife the American divorcee?

SERIOUSLY! Way to be a STONE COLD HYPOCRITE, JACK. From what I remember it really threw a spanner in the works re his friendship with Tolkien, altho Tolkien had some of his own stuff going on with wives and ideal male companionship and intellect anyway. And of course it was that WWI group where male friendship was so fraught and important, as you know far better than I do!, &c &c

It's like the time Lewis decided that they were all going to love Charles Williams except worse, because at least Lewis couldn't marry the man!

//dies AGAIN

I think I tried to read one (1) Charles Williams book and ai yi yi. It just had such a weird....vibe.

[osprey_archer]

I know that Tolkien as a Catholic was very distressed that Joy Davidman was a divorcee, although ofc this definitely might be an Orual situation where the stated problem (she's a divorcee!) is a cover for the real complaint (she's taking you away from me. Although Charles Williams had already taken Lewis away from Tolkien, so you'd think he'd be resigned by the time Joy came around...)

I really TRY not to get my slash goggles all over Lewis's friendships, and re: Tolkien and Lewis, yes, that's an A+ example of an extremely intense friendship that's also 100% platonic. But Lewis's feelings for Charles Williams though! There's so much going on there! Is "he looks half-ape, half-angel" a heterosexual thing to say about another man, really?

[kore]

I know that Tolkien as a Catholic was very distressed that Joy Davidman was a divorcee, although ofc this definitely might be an Orual situation where the stated problem (she's a divorcee!) is a cover for the real complaint (she's taking you away from me.

Aww, poor Tollers. The whole situation reminds me some of Robert Graves and Laura Riding (altho Joy was NOT like Laura, at all) -- the whole "I found an intelligent woman and by God you're going to admire her too!!" kind of thing. Altho apparently both Tolkien and Lewis were at leats nice to their female students, which is good.

Although Charles Williams had already taken Lewis away from Tolkien, so you'd think he'd be resigned by the time Joy came around...)

CHARLES WILLIAMS JUST GIVES ME SUCH AN IMMENSE SQUICK. Almost kind of Aleister Crowley vibes! Except in the opposite direction? IDEFK!

I really TRY not to get my slash goggles all over Lewis's friendships, and re: Tolkien and Lewis, yes, that's an A+ example of an extremely intense friendship that's also 100% platonic. But Lewis's feelings for Charles Williams though! There's so much going on there! Is "he looks half-ape, half-angel" a heterosexual thing to say about another man, really?

What has always been really wild to me is that the women/wives were for (possibly) romance, and sex and family, and that kind of Female Companionship, but where your real intellectual and emotional life went on was with your mates, and boarding school and war and scholarship just emphasized those bonds all throughout life. I don't think it was a coincidence Joy was an American, and brash and argumentative with a career all her own. Edith Tolkien and Mrs Moore weren't anything like that (not to their detriment!).

[osprey_archer]

Vaguely related, but in the Mary Renault biography I learned that Tolkien was one of Mary's favorite professors at Oxford (IIRC she was there before Lewis, although I would have loved to see Platonist Lewis go head to head with Platonist Renault), and I love that. And also although obviously they are writing about very different things, with a very different worldview, there is a similar concern for getting all the details exactly right so the world (be it Middle-Earth or ancient Greece) feels real and convincing.

I want to read a Charles Williams book someday, but I've always been a little scared to, and reading That Hideous Strength (which was apparently Lewis's attempt at a Charles Williams book) just makes me more scared to. Aleister Crowley but in the opposite direction seems like an apt description. Christian occultist! Very charismatic!

Joy had a quality of mind that Lewis would have called "masculine," and that level of intellectual stimulation was maybe necessary for him to be fully emotionally engaged with someone. There's a bit in A Grief Observed (my copy is packed away, so I can't find the exact quote), but it's something to the effect that in a certain mood, one looks at the beloved and calls her Brother.

[landofnowhere]

This is so well expressed what that book is doing.

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[skygiants]

I really have got to read this book.

[osprey_archer]

Yes absolutely! Allow me to shamelessly enable this addition to your already-tottering TBR pile!

[kore]

Allow me to add that it's VERY readable. And compelling.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I was buddy-reading it, and we were doing two chapters a night, and some nights it was a real struggle to stop!

[nnozomi]

Thank you for the fascinating review! I've never read this one and I feel I should; I only know about it from Humphrey Carpenter's Inklings book, which I think does suggest that the changes wrought in Lewis by Joy Davidman had something to do with it.
How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
Even without much context, this is such a moving, evocative line. Something about the rhythm makes me want to set it to music (I wonder if anyone's ever written an opera of this book...).

[osprey_archer]

I don't have my copy of Humphrey Carpenter's book handy now, but IIRC he does suggest that Lewis's relationship with Joy Davidman helped shape the book. Lewis had wanted to write a retelling of the Psyche story for years and it just never worked till he met her, and fell in love, and understood love perhaps from a whole new angle.

I do think this one is definitely worth reading, and although it's not at all necessary to read it at the end of a Lewis binge, doing so really puts into perspective how different it is from his other books. Many of which I also love! But I do feel he leveled up with this one.

[asakiyume]

Apparently I read this and wrote up my thoughts in 2010. At that time, the thing that stuck with me/horrified me was Orual's determination to break everything (vis-à-vis Psyche) because it didn't accord with how she wanted reality to be. When people's inner sense of how the world *should* be wins out over what they're experiencing of how it actually *is*. --I think we talked about this a few entries back in your journal.

And I'm thinking about how the desire to be loved ("but not like THAT! and not like THAT!") can lead to some dark places, even though it's a very basic, natural desire.

[osprey_archer]

I don't remember exactly when most recently we talked about "should be" vs. "is," but it's definitely something we have talked about, and as you say, this is a prime example of burning down your whole relationship with someone because the other party isn't conforming to your imaginary vision of what that relationship "should" be. Orual isn't the fixed center of Psyche's entire world forever and ever?? Well to hell with her then!

And the darkness that can grow out of a desire to be loved - or can be covered by the thought "I just want someone to love me." It sounds so reasonable, but it can mask cruel and unreasonable demands.

[genarti]

Yes yes yes! I read this book as a teenager and it blew my mind -- that twist of perspective at the end, the grievance unraveling without fully vanishing, the way the gods aren't any kinder (or crueler) for that unraveling.

I read it some years back and still liked it, but it didn't work for me quite as well. I think that's partly because I was expecting a repeat of that teenaged mind-blown experience, which of course didn't happen to mid-30s me with a whole lot more reading under her belt. But I should read it again; the details have receded, and that teetering stack of realizations is just so well done.

[osprey_archer]

That's the problem with revisiting a book that blew your mind the first time around! Especially in a book that blew your mind with a twist, in this case by twisting Orual's perspective all around at the end. It just changes the experience to go in already knowing that the twist's on its way.

Another thing that impressed me: after making her complaint to the gods, Orual gets to meet and talk with the Fox again, but not Psyche. It's right but also so painful - what's broken there can't be repaired, even though she sees it now in a new light.