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| Subtitle | A Myth Retold |
| First Written | 1956 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Origin | UK |
| Publisher | Harcourt |
| ISBN-10 | 0156904365 |
| My Copy | cheap paperback |
| First Read | July 01, 2013 |
Till We Have Faces
This is Lewis' best fiction, and a novel that I come back to every couple of years. I picked it up as part of my 'read through Lewis as an adult' project.
Besides being a great novel - well written, compelling, emotionally vivid - I think this is the fullest view of Lewis' interior life, his worldview or ethos or whatever you want to call it. It compares the natural attractiveness of 'The Greeks' - the clear and reasonable philosophy of the ancient world, and the dark, murky, 'holy' threat of gods or God - and how the truth might be different, or include both, or more true than either.
Noted on July 1, 2013
Did I hate him, then? Indeed, I believe so. A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love.
Quoted on July 1, 2013
I don't know now. Only that the way to the true gods is more like the house of Ungit . . . oh, it's unlike too, more unlike than we yet dream, but that's the easy knowledge, the first lesson; only a fool would stay there, posturing and repeating it. There priest knew at least that there must be sacrifices. They will have sacrifice - will have man. Yes, and the very heart, center, ground, roots of a man, dark and strong and costly as blood.
Quoted on July 1, 2013
How can I be the ransom for all Glome unless I die? And if I am to go to the god, of course it must be through death. That way, even what is strangest in the holy sayings might be true. To be eaten and to be married to the god might not be so different. We don't understand. There must be so much that neither the Priest nor the Fox knows.
Quoted on July 1, 2013
And yet, it was a lesson I could hardly keep in my mind. The sight of the huge world put mad ideas into me, as if I could wander away, wander forever, see strange and beautiful things, one after the other to the world's end.
Quoted on July 1, 2013