Till We Have Faces
An Introduction and Study Guide
Given that one of the things C. S. Lewis is best known for is his ability to make difficult ideas easy to understand, it is no wonder that Till We Have Faces has mystified many fans of the great author. Lewis has regularly taken top-shelf philosophical and theological concepts and discussed them in such a way that anyone’s grandmother could understand them if she cared to. We are used to him dissolving complexities into simplicities and feeding us weighty truths with a spoon-full of sugar.
Even so, it’s not uncommon to hear fans of C. S. Lewis talk about Till We Have Faces in a different way. Many will call the book Lewis’ finest work of fiction while others will admit they didn’t care much for it and say that they would prefer to just stick with Narnia, Screwtape, and Ransom. Most, in my experience, whether they loved it or hated it, will admit that the book is a deep well and that they aren’t entirely sure what Lewis was driving at on every point. They say something like, “It’s a challenge comprehend the argument Lewis is making in the book.” I agree. In fact, I think that there is a clue about the nature of this story built into this admission.
Till We Have Faces is “a myth retold” and myths, though they can be rationally engaged and, to a degree, ought to be rationally engaged, are nevertheless more of an aesthetic experience than a rational argument. In other words, myths engage a person’s being on another level. The rational part of man can read a myth, whether it be this book we are currently discussing, or whether it be that of Perseus and Andromeda, or Heracles and his many labors, etc. and he can say to himself “Well, of course none of that ever happened. It’s not really true.” But one might offer a bit of a push back here.
When we say something is “not true” what the modern mind tends to mean is “it’s not a fact.” That is to say, there never really was such a person and they never really did such a thing in actual history. Granted. But things can not be true in one sense while still being true in another. I might look at a painting or a sculpture that depicts a scene which never literally took place, but the impression that the work of art has upon my soul is nevertheless very real. Something good is happening to me as I look upon it and dwell upon its beauty. Further, the sentiment that a work of art, or a story, may put into my chest may be the truest of sentiments even if the vehicle of delivery is not literally or factually true.
Take The Chronicles of Narnia for instance. Aslan, the talking lion, may not literally exist, but Jesus does and spending time with Aslan has somehow made me love Jesus more. When I read about Aslan and when I walk with the Pevensie children in Narnia, I become more Narnian in my heart even though there never was such a place as Narnia (that’s just a technicality). I become a better Christian in Narnia as my sentiments are formed to be more just and as I learn better to love goodness, truth, honor, and justice, and hate wickedness, deceit, pride, and selfishness.
All of the great myths teach us something about the truth even if they are themselves not factually true and even when they are not offering clear propositional arguments. Till We Have Faces is a story that teaches us, among other things, about love, what it is, what it isn’t, what it should be, and what it must never become. It has been astutely observed that just as Lewis’ That Hideous Strength should be read in parallel with The Abolition of Man so should Till We Have Faces be considered alongside Lewis’ The Four Loves. Cupid, after all, is the god of love. All Orual wants is to be loved and to love and she cannot understand why the gods would want to take away from her the one whom she loves most? Doesn’t she have the right to keep a firm grasp upon what she loves most in the world?
To be sure, this book is a deep well. It not only wrestles with the idea of Love but also of Justice and many other things. It is a well that one can go back to again and again and draw out something more, something new, something you had never noticed before. But it is the experience of going to draw from the well of this myth that is most important. It is what happens to you every time you go to the well that matters. In the end you may leave this book with more questions than you had when you started, but you will not leave this book the same person. You will have, in an important way, had your heart operated on by its deep waters. You will feel Orual’s hope, her love, her pain, her loss, and her longing, and it will do something to you.
Lewis once spoke of reading a passage from Norse mythology that said, “I heard a voice that cried, ‘Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead’” and something about those words moved him in a nearly indescribable way.
“I knew nothing about Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky, I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale, and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it” (Surprised By Joy, ch. 1).
Myth, and really any truly great story, engage us in a supra-rational experience. It arrests our being, our soul, in a way that our mind struggles to make sense of. It hints to us that there is something more out there than reason alone can attain. I think God is like this. We can reason about him and say true things about him, but we cannot comprehend him fully. He is too much to fully know by reason alone. God is not less than a rational being, but he is far more than only that. As reason is only one part of man, emotions are another, and physicality yet another, so there are truths that cannot be apprehended on a merely rational level. Some truths literally strike us as concrete realities, others come to us in experiences of Music, Art, and Story and they transport our soul elsewhere, operating upon it in a wholly other kind of way.
Till We Have Faces is like that. It’s not true, but it is true. It will engage the mind and make us wonder and think hard about important things, but even while we are still trying to conclude with our minds what Lewis meant by it all, we are already a different person who has been somewhere else and had an encounter with something very real. We drew from the well and now we need to go back for more.
Below you will find links to each section of the study guide for C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces as they become available. If you would like to pick up a copy of the book to join in the study you may do so by clicking HERE. For a list of other Great Books study guides already available, in development, or planned for the future you can click HERE.
As my dad said: "C.S. Lewis will make you wonder if you ever actually love anyone."
Thanks for the tipper from X about this article. Now you make me want to re-read the book. I'll have to put it on my TBR shelf!