'Till we have Faces' by C.S. Lewis

In this timeless tale of two mortal princesses- one beautiful and one unattractive- C.S. Lewis reworks the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche into an enduring piece of contemporary fiction. This is the story of Orual, Psyche's embittered and ugly older sister, who posessively and harmfully loves Psyche. Much to Orual's frustration, Psyche is loved by Cupid, the god of love himself, setting the troubled Orual on a path of moral development.

Set against the backdrop of Glome, a barbaric, pre-Christian world, the struggles between sacred and profane love are illuminated as Orual learns that we cannot understand the intent of the gods "till we have faces" and sincerity in our souls and selves.

MY THOUGHTS:

I'd seen this C.S. Lewis fantasy for adults highly recommended and discovered my retro copy in a second hand bookshop. I'm so pleased I bought it, because of the spotlight it shines on human nature. This is Lewis' adaptation of the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid. (Okay, I recommend you stop reading right here and now and google a quick summary of the myth. That might sound like seeking spoilers, but it really isn't. Because Lewis comes from a place of expecting us to know it, and he's about to turn the myth inside out. If we know nothing about it, there's no way we'll be blown away as he intends. And that would be a waste of the book.)

(Are you back? Good.) This story starts in the nation of Glome under the reign of King Trom. Lewis tells his tale from the point of view of Princess Orual, beautiful Psyche's eldest sister, who is born to take on a stressful role in the palace and soon realises she's remarkably ugly to boot. Orual appears in the actual myth as one of the wicked sisters who convince Psyche to unmask her incognito husband, leading to her own terrible downfall. But Lewis' Orual insists that her motives were far more pure than the myth would have us believe, which is what this story is all about. 

 The people all worship at the temple of Aphrodite, who is known throughout Glome as Ungit. The goddess is represented by an ancient, rugged and pocked looking rock that seemingly came from nowhere. The creepy old temple priest exudes what Orual has come to consider a 'holy' smell; pigeon's blood, burned fat, singed hair, wine and stale incense. One day, he demands beautiful young Psyche as a sacrifice. She's being blamed for famine and unrest in the land, for supposedly 'aping the gods' and stealing worship that's due to Ungit alone. And a perfect sacrifice is necessary for the temple of Ungit anyway. 

Orual's desperate measures cannot save Psyche, who is the treasure of her heart. But instead of dying on the mountaintop, Psyche is rescued by an anonymous saviour who takes her as his wife, but refuses to let her see his face. Nonetheless, Psyche thrives in her new lifestyle, until Orual discovers she's survived, and immediately aims to undermine her happiness with doubt about the identity of the supposed deity. Convinced that she has only Psyche's best interest at heart, Orual gets back-up support from her two most trusted advisors, after constructing the story in a carefully biased way to maximise their agreement.

The girls' beloved tutor and mentor, known as the Fox, is a slave captured from Greece, who retains the outlook and wisdom of his homeland, which is impressive but limited. He has a Grecian bent towards explaining everything through science, and ignoring all that doesn't filter through the evidence of his five senses. The unseen realm is brushed aside as inconsequential and non-existent. 

On the other hand, Bardia, the captain of the royal army, has huge respect for all folklore and superstition of the gods. These two advisors scoff at each others' worldviews, but get along with each other well enough to work in sync, and curiously reach the same conclusion that Psyche's unseen 'husband' must be noxious.

This is well-meaning meddling taken to an extreme. The trio convince themselves they've reached an inevitable, Occam's Razor sort of conclusion. They decide that Psyche's husband must be a bestial, foul being at worst, or a tricky crook at best, for else why would he refuse to let Psyche see his face? If the simplest possibility is probably correct, he would surely let Psyche see him if he has nothing sinister to hide. Whenever the possibility that her happy, healthy sister might be speaking total truth crosses Orual's mind, she dismisses it as unfeasible. So her loving interference morphs into intense emotional blackmail with dire consequences. 

The whole of Part One is narrated as Orual's own fervent self defense to shield herself against intolerable guilt. She resents the gods for misrepresenting her and appeals to the reader to agree with her, and judge the gods as capricious, aloof and totally unreasonable. For why make her so incredibly ugly, if they have control over such things? And why remain so silent in response to desperate pleas for answers? How is she supposed to react to their non-response, other than with bitterness and confusion? 

I tell you, it's easy to cheer, 'Yeah, you go, Orual,' and keep turning pages to see if there will be a response to this.

Without divulging plot points, what unfolds is quite jaw dropping. In a nutshell, Orual's own complaint is the gods' answer. It's all to do with humans' successful self-deception. We are adept at pulling the wool over our own eyes to present ourselves in the best possible light. Desperate not to face the truth about our deepest, dodgiest motivations, we make up acceptable sounding jargon that we expect the gods to buy, because we buy it ourselves. Orual discovers one major reason the gods don't seem to answer is that they won't deign to bother replying to insincere babble we think we truly mean. For, 'how can they meet us face to face till we have faces?' Aha, we know when the title of the book springs out to meet us, we've struck gold. 

(I believe Lewis delivers a similar theme in The Magician's Nephew, when he has Digory face Aslan for the first time and face up to his own shady motivation throughout the story, but this book, being written for adults and delivering the culmination of Orual's life story, packs even more of a punch.) 

When it's laid out so starkly, all the pieces slot together. It offers a hallowed moment in the story for readers who pause to contemplate the magnitude of what we've just taken in. All the lead-up in the story, including Orual's reasoning, her twisted thought patterns which seem so seductive and convincing, the half-truths she latches onto that make her life miserable, and the fact that she hasn't considered others' full stories, makes perfect sense. 

It's extremely profound and revelatory, especially because Lewis subtly makes it clear that Orual is a mirror for any one of us. Even folk without her physical ugliness undoubtedly have some mental and spiritual warts and blemishes they take super care to conceal.  

It's a book I'll have to read over again down the track. I've exhausted my store of impressions for now, but I suspect it's the sort of story that will always meet us where we are at with something new. I can't help wondering what I would have thought of it in my twenties, but I'll never know. For now, wow! 

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