Till We Have Faces

This is the third time I have read Till We Have Faces. I have called it my favorite book for about half a dozen years now. When people ask why, I tell them, “Because I have never read anything like it. And because I love the ending.” Both of these statements are true, and I suppose that together, they make a fairly decent “short answer” to a complicated question. But to be honest, I think itʼs a question Iʼve never fully answered, even to myself. This seems like an appropriate time to do just that.

1. I have never read anything like it.

No two books are the same. But some are pretty darn close. Original thought, at least in literature, has in large part given way to self-promotion and money-making. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “You donʼt write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.” If weʼre being completely honest, this doesnʼt appear to be true for the majority of published authors today. Lewis, on the other hand, had something to say, perhaps more so in Till We Have Faces than in any of his other works. For this story, which he published in his sixties, was one he had been toying with and mulling over and reevaluating since his teenage years. When a mind like Lewisʼs spends that much time on something, you pay attention to what he ends up saying about it.

Of course, I didnʼt know any of that backstory when I first read Faces as a thirteen year old. But even then I could tell, without a doubt, that this book was different. So what is it thatʼs so distinctly original about this novel? Well first, the premise itself: “a myth retold,” the cover states -- a revamping of the story of Cupid and Pysche. Only a writer as supremely knowledgeable and self-confident as Lewis would come up with the brilliant plan to improve on the Greeks.

But improve he does, and this leads into a second point: the character of Orual. I cannot think of a protagonist with whom the reader can sympathize more fully. Lewis transforms a periphery “evil stepsister” archetype into a supremely human heroine, whose honesty about the disappointment and tragedy of life and self cut straight to the core. Telling the tale from the perspective of one of the traditional villains, Lewis transforms the story from an enchanting but remote myth to a deeply moving narrative that fairly encapsulates the human experience.

Third and lastly, the religious complexity and ambiguity, which all but forces the most earnest thought and deliberation out of the reader. This sets the work apart not merely from Lewisʼs other writings, though it certainly does that, but from any work of narrative fiction I (and many far more qualified) know. Unlike the Narnia series, Faces is in no way an allegory, and cannot be construed as such. In fact, there is no direct presentation of Christianity at all. It says more about Christian faith by defining what it isnʼt than anything else. As the Fox says towards the end, “The way to the true gods is more like the house of Ungit . . . oh, itʼs unlike to, more unlike that we yet dream, but thatʼs the easy knowledge” (295). The hard knowledge is indeed far more difficult to ascertain. And I donʼt doubt that this was something Lewis not only understood, but fullyintended. For as he writes in The Abolition of Man, “You cannot go on ʻexplaining awayʼ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away” (99). Thus, as opposed to reasoning out Christian theology as he does in his numerous apologetic works, he chooses instead to simply touch on bits and pieces of it, with imagery and description perhaps more closely paralleled by the book of Revelation than anything else. But it is certainly no easy book to explain away. It is the kind that draws the reader in and holds him spellbound till long after the last page is turned. And Lewis defends this type of enchantment in Weight of Glory, saying “Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us” (45).

2. I love the ending.

The title Till We Have Faces is ambiguous at best, and like many good titles, only starts to make sense at the end of the story. I confess the first time I read it, I didnʼt understand it in the slightest. I only had some vague notion that it was beautiful. I still loved the book, which probably says something about its enchanting power, but imagine my sheer euphoric delight when upon my second read I, sophisticated sixteen year old that I was, uncovered so much more of the “deeper meaning.” It made me fall in love all over again, much the same way this last go-round has done through the academic approach itʼs forced me to take. Iʼm far from fully understanding the ending, and (again, much like the book of Revelation), the more I think about it, the more I come to realize this.

What, then, do I love about it so much? This is one of those times where I could ramble on forever, but for the sake of the assignment, Iʼll try to be succinct. I canʼt think of any piece of narrative fiction as brutally honest about human nature and specifically human selfishness as Orualʼs complaint against the gods on pages 290-293. “Lightly men talk of saying what they mean,” she states afterwards, knowing, as we do, that she has just done so. Itʼs a telling statement. What we actually think and feel and want we rarely, if ever, admit to anyone, even ourselves. For we are all fundamentally selfish beings, and what we crave is approval. We want to be told we are right, that our lives and actions are justified, that our motives are honest and our errors and flaws are not our fault. We see this no clearer than at the climax of Orualʼs rant, as she rambles, “I was my own, and Psyche was mine, and no one else had any right to her” (291).

This is a sobering subject. But it is only when we acknowledge these base desires, and more than that, come to realize how incredibly petty and unjustified they are, that we finally begin to know ourselves. And it is only once this happens that we can start to change. As Orual asks in one of the most intriguing sentences I have ever encountered, “How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces” (294)? This change, the redemption that she undergoes, is by contrast one of the most beautiful subjects I could hope to explore. For even as Orual states, “ ʻI cannot hope for mercy,ʼ ” the Fox replies, “ ʻInfinite hopes--and fears--may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justiceʼ ” (297). And she doesnʼt. For though she endures earthly punishment, her response upon realizing this is to exclaim, “ ʻOh, I give thanks. I bless the gods” (301), for she is able to see that it is indeed a blessing. And finally she is made beautiful at last, seeing herself for the first time in a relationship with, rather than in opposition to, the god she once thought to curse. She, and the reader along with her, understand for the first time what he meant when he told her, “ ʻYou also shall be Pysche.”

In this way, Till We Have Faces, in many ways one of the heaviest books I have ever read, becomes at its end one of the most hopeful and redemptive. I love it because, though I cannot claim to understand it, it quite simply resonates. As I said earlier, Lewis avoids making explicit statements on Christianity and instead leaves us with bits and pieces. In so doing, he also leaves us full of the wonder and mystery of our faith. We forget, for the time being, the logical, intellectual side of religion and remember, perhaps for the first time in a long time, that, as Pascal so eloquently put it, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”