Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Faced

#9: Till We Have Faces



Literally, I don't know anyone else who has read this book. Until I started bringing it up, most of my friends didn't even know that it existed.

C.S. Lewis is far better known for his work on things like The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia, but that doesn't mean Till We Have Faces is any less a masterpiece.

Really, there are two main reasons why I had to make this book #9:

1. The story


It's not an unheard of story. It's the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Most of us heard the story in high school or college, or were interested enough in mythology to read it on our own at some point in our lives.

What's different is the way it was written. It's not the story you expect to read -- which is generally what C.S. Lewis tries to do in his novels. While the tale of Cupid and Psyche is fairly well known, in this version I found myself wondering what was going to happen next and how everything was going to turn out.

You know it's a good story when you know the ending but the author has forced you to throw all that out the window.

2. The reason


Cupid and Psyche really doesn't sound much like a C.S. Lewis topic, does it?

That's because it's not. However, it was (from what I understand) a story that plagued him for years. It was one that fascinated him and one that he simply had to write about -- and that, to me, makes it interesting.

When reading the book, I could feel how close to the story Lewis was himself, the obsession with the story and his attempt to make it as perfect and beautiful as possible, and it made it all the more enjoyable. Perhaps that's the reason why I've read it so many times in the few years I've had it on my bookshelf.


Don't forget, there's still time to vote for what excerpt you want to see on Friday! Click Here for more information!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

No comments:

Post a Comment