“Till we have faces we will never know the beauty of the soul”

I’ve grown up on C.S. Lewis – my dad was reading the Narnia books to my three-year-old self, and I was correcting a mispronounced word at age four – and I’ve always loved this author. I’ve read every fiction book he put out. Except one. My mom withheld Till We Have Faces for when I was “grown up” enough to read it. I always wondered what scandalous content could have warranted such a prohibition.

And now I know it’s not so much the content as it is the knowledge.

Till We Have Faces, published in 1956, is Lewis’s retelling of the ancient Cupid and Psyche story, the tale of a beautiful maiden offered as a sacrifice to appease the jealous Venus, but who is rescued and taken to a palace. Pysche weds a god but never meets him except in the dark, and she is warned never to see his face. But one night, plagued by curiosity and the tormenting of her two jealous sisters, she lifts up her lantern and looks upon Cupid’s face. He disappears and she is now resigned to wandering the world in search of him. The enraged Venus makes her fulfill impossible tasks, but with the help of her lover Psyche completes them and lives eternally in bliss.

However, Lewis tells a different tale, the tale of Psyche’s oldest sister Orual. Ugly and abused by her father the King, Orual lets herself pour all her pent-up love into Psyche, raising her and thinking of her as her own daughter. After the sacrifice, when they all imagine Psyche to be dead, Orual returns to the place and finds her sister, dressed in rags and wandering the fields, claiming to be the bride of a god, dressed in robes, living in a palace. All Orual’s pleadings make no difference to her. But finally over her own blood Orual gets Psyche to promise to see her lover’s face. Returning to her kingdom, Orual becomes a strong and virtuous Queen when her father dies, empowered by the veil that always hides her face. Yet the fate of her sister continually haunts her, and it will either save Orual or destroy her…

My initial reaction after finishing Till We Have Faces was kind of a dazed amazement at the wonder and horror of it all. I haven’t had that kind of an experience since I read George Orwell’s Animal Farm for the first time. It’s in the same league – gripping, terrifying in its insights and scope, and the most frightening because we can see our own world amongst the fantasy world.

What in the world? I thought this was an innocent little retelling of a moldy myth! Instead I found a startling, uncontainable glimpse into the realm of possibilities and reality where the actions of the gods and their effect on mortals take on a frightening new aspect. Orual’s story of her love for her sister and the way Psyche’s immortal connections impacted her own life creates a deeply meaningful account that is beautiful at the same time that it’s terrifying. Beautiful in the way Orual’s love redeems herself, terrifying in the journey she must take to redemption.

The decades she spends as queen, fighting with her memories of the past and the two other people in her life that she can still love, bring her further and further towards her own judgment, until she finally sees herself as Ungit, the horrible, decrepit village version of Venus. And what’s remarkable is the way she finds her hope at the end, through the telling of her tale and her enlightenment.

This is a truly extraordinary book. It’s not like any other I’ve ever read. Told with a great deal of complexity and wisdom, Till We Have Faces wraps the readers in the emotion and vision of the story, ushering them effortlessly into the world Orual lives in. I loved and in a way hated this book for the way it made me feel, and I was left truly changed by her story. I also really appreciated the mature, intelligent handling of the subject matter; it needs a master to tell the story well, and Lewis proves his worth with this breathtaking novel.

It’s totally different from anything else previous produced by C.S. Lewis. Told in first person, Till We Have Faces’s themes and emotions run much deeper than is typical in a Lewis novel. The interaction between the characters, storytelling, and plotlines is so tight that this book should definitely be put in the page-turner category. It’s a wonderful story, but more than that it’s a journey into a dark, realistic fairyland of gods, monsters, and the demons within. If you have the courage for the journey, you will be well rewarded for your efforts.


Plot

Lewis tells his story in the tradition of the epic tales – a plot in which not much action truly takes place, but much life and symbolism takes place. Each event that occurs has a purpose and a significance to the story, very organized and meaningful. But then you have to factor in the realistic, interesting settings and conversations – it’s not just a big jumble of symbolism and obscurity. There’s a very strong undercurrent of momentum that twines around the “plot-posts” of the story, carrying the reader smoothly and grippingly along all the way to the end. By all means read this on a weekend when you have a clear shot!

I appreciated the thoughtful twists on the original myth entwined in this retelling. The decision to make Orual loving and heartbroken for her sister was a breakthrough; in another author’s hands it could be sappy and far-fetched, in Lewis’s hands it’s seamless and stirring. It disposed of the cliched jealous sister device and added a whole new dimension to the story. In fact, when Orual hears a version of the tale in which she and the middle sister Redival are the jealous older sisters, she is enfuriated with the complete corruption of what really happened.

The other additions to the story are equally beneficial. Just having the different perspectives – obviously the older sister, but also the loving slave-mentor Fox, the supportive soldier Bardia, the view of a mortal into the immortal world – is remarkably revitilizing to any predictable element of the story. And there aren’t any predictable moments. So draw your own conclusions. (Or I’ll help you out: this is an extremely creative plot.)


Characters

It’s often difficult for writers to create a likeable, convincing heroine who’s not pretty and stays not pretty throughout the whole book. It’s as if readers WANT to dislike ugly characters, which in a way we do. I love how Lewis turns this prejudice on its head and gives us a forceful, pulsating heroine with fire, courage, and wisdom. Her veil, setting up a wall between her and the other characters, just pushes her closer to the reader. She’s a rather mysterious protagonist but an understandable one. You can strongly sympathize with her but you never pity her, and that is where Orual wins.

Each of the characters surrounding her are perfectly drawn, interesting but not detracting too much attention from the heroine. I loved the Fox, a slightly humorous Greek slave who tutors the young princesses and is Orual’s beloved counselor. And it was easy to see why Orual loved Bardia, her trusted captain and strategic adviser, while at the same time you could see why she held back. Pysche was just right – lovely, princess-like, and well out of the readers’ interest. Too perfect, and that is just what she should be. This is a delicious and fairly small supporting cast (with a few other minor characters), and they are given the time and polish they deserve.


Writing style

This can’t be Lewis, right? I checked the cover twice while reading this book, just to make sure the name of C.S. Lewis was still where the author’s name should go. His storytelling was just so different from what it usually is. This normally very sensible British-sounding author transforms his writing into the impassioned narrative of an ancient mythical princess. The transition is flawless – he flows into the antiquarian style like he was a native, or like he really was the narrator herself. And he crawls inside the mind of his heroine, capturing her very human but also somewhat bizarre thoughts.

The most amazing aspect of the storytelling is how frighteningly real and vivid, and at the same time archaic and legendary, the writing is. The sentence structure, vocabulary, way of shaping the words are all in the style of an ancient Greek writer, and yet it’s extremely gripping, filling the landscapes with unearthly images and vibrant characters. I’ll probably never understand how this kind of complexity in the way its written could be combined with a very effortless and absorbing reading style. The kind of style I call the “keep-going” style. For instance, you could read a page or two of Tolkien and put it down. With this book, you read a page or two and you read a hundred more.

This isn’t the forced, rather studied archaism of Tolkien, either; it’s the relaxed, valiant, fervent narrative that’s more like Rosemary Sutcliff, but even that is a poor comparison. You’ll simply have to read the book yourself to understand the exquisite storytelling among the ancient setting and style. And then you’ll forget all about that and be mesmerized by the eerie, spellbinding atmosphere of the book, the breathing depictions, and the heartwrenching pathos that underlies the story.


Message

I’m afraid most of the themes of this book flew over my head. Further readings will probably show me a lot more that I’m missing here, but one of the ideas that really caught my attention was the concept of the gods’ favor and how much of our judgment is controlled by our fate. Towards the end of the book, when Orual is approaching the end of her life, she searches for beauty of the soul as she did for beauty of the face when she was young. But just as Venus required a beautiful, perfect maiden, do the gods require a beautiful perfect soul? Is there any hope of change? “No man will love you, though you gave your life for him, unless you have a pretty face. So (might it not be?), the gods will not love you (however you try to pleasure them, and whatever you suffer) unless you have that beauty of soul. In either race, for the love of men or the love of a god, the winners and losers are marked out from birth. We bring our ugliness, in both kinds, with us into the world, with it our destiny.”

This leads into the reoccuring theme of beauty, its significance, and the veiling or hiding of one’s face. With Orual it springs from the wish to cover ugliness, and later as a source of intimidation and superiority; with Cupid it is the one requirement he must keep in order to remain with Psyche. Lewis explores the subject using ancient philosophy (through the mouthpiece of Fox) as well as the modern emotions all people experience in relation to beauty. That’s why I think this would be a wonderful book for any teen who has depth enough to appreciate the concepts; it will offer an unusual and thought-provoking look at our prejudices about physical and more elusive attractiveness.


Final thoughts

Wow. One of the most unique and fulfilling (while disconcerting) pieces of fiction I’ve read in quite a while. I understand know why my mom held off on giving me this book till now. There are many inferences to pregnancy, affairs, murder, and child abuse in the novel – much tamer and more tasteful than in many modern books. But probably the sheer intensity would be the most disturbing aspect to a young reader. I’d recommend this book for at least fourteen or fifteen and up. I think anyone who has the maturity of mind and feeling to handle this book will find it an extremely moving and provocative story, and one they will want to return to in years to come.

I know I’ll be buying this book next time I go to the bookstore and I look forward to reading it again in a month or two. It’s bewitching and believable and strangely moving. I can tell you, you WILL be changed by reading Till We Have Faces. Not for those afraid of being challenged in the way they look at the world. Definitely for those who love a great story, a great storytelling, a great courage.