Till we have faces. A myth Retold

Product Information

Myers, Doris T (2004), Bareface: A Guide to C. S. Lewis's Last Novel, Columbia: University of Missouri Press Listening, this time, to Nadia May, I really did become Orual, so full of self-deception, or perhaps I should Indignant, she discovers that, after all, she was the cruel and unjust one. Logical and learned, she discovers that, after all, she was the liar and deceiver. (The worst lies she tells are to herself.) Pragmatic and effective, a ruler who has built a solid and abiding empire, she discovers that, after all, her kingdom will be given to a distant relative she hardly knows.

The baby is named Istra, which translates to Psyche in Greek, and her beauty stuns all around her. Orual and the Fox love her deeply, and Orual takes on the duty of raising her. Orual, Psyche, and the Fox all become close and constantly spend time together. This is the happiest time of Orual’s life. But when Redival is caught kissing a guard, the King forces Orual and the Fox to keep constant watch over her, which ruins Orual’s happiness. One day, Redival sees a woman ask Psyche to kiss her baby to make it beautiful, and she threatens to tell the Priest of Ungit about the incident, because people seem inclined to worship Psyche like a goddess. Apocalyptic Log: At the beginning Orual comments that she knows the gods may strike her down at any moment for her accusations against them. At the beginning of the second part, she notes that she must hurry in her writing, because she knows she will die soon. The narrative ends mid-sentence, with a comment by Arnom that he found the queen dead, her head resting on the book. Orual: Now, for the first time in all my life (and the last) I was gay. A new world, very bright, seemed to be opening all round me.Side note: In the poem version, there are two characters with familiar names… Psyche’s siblings, named Caspian and “Jardis.” Lewis wasn’t one to let a good name go to waste! In the early part of the book, between the Fox's Greek philosophy and the beliefs of Glome, which sanction the occasional human sacrifice and castration of a man who flirts with the King's daughter, among other things.

The Blank: The Queen's favorite In-Universe bit of Wild Mass Guessing about her veil is that she wears it to hide the emptiness where her face would be. This theory in particular helps her intimidate wily politicians and brave soldiers into ceding to her demands. When the sun sets, Orual leaves but promises to return as soon as possible. Orual and Bardia camp near the river that night but Orual is unable to get any sleep. In the morning, she wakes up and goes to the river to drink some water. It is then when she sees an imposing palace on the other side of the river. The palace however disappears into the mist and Orual keeps the palace a secret. Our Gods Are Different: The novels presents the theologies of Greece and Glome before hinting at the truth about the gods: Love Goddess: Glome's two main gods, Ungit and the god of the Grey Mountain, are identified with Aphrodite (Venus) and Eros (Cupid), respectively. At the end of the novel the priest of Ungit even calls himself the priest of Aphrodite. Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The king of Glome is, perhaps understandably, simply the King to everyone, save for at the very beginning when he is introduced by his given name, Trom. Similarly, the elder priest of Ungit is simply the Priest.By adding this complexity to the story, Lewis makes his wonderfully unreliable narrator into a round, thoroughly engaging character. Orual, rationalizing that she is acting out of love and in Psyche’s best interests, manipulates Psyche’s true and self-sacrificing love for her, coercing Psyche (who is, in Lewis’s version, not gullible at all) to knowingly betray her husband. Instead of focusing on Psyche’s tasks following her betrayal, Lewis leads readers along Orual’s journey as she denies and then slowly comes to realize the true nature of what she’s done. As she becomes queen of Glome and rebuilds her land following her father’s ineffectual reign, she has other cares in which to hide from her reflections. But these and the veil she begins to wear cannot fully protect her from increasingly painful revelations about herself. Cunning Like a Fox: The Fox is so called for his cunning. As Orual puts it, he can twist his words to make a "no" seem an excited affirmation and to make an enemy's "yes" look like a declaration of war. (Well, and his red hair.)

Orual begins her second book by telling the reader that she is old and will die soon. Because of this, she can’t rewrite the book but she can add to it. A former guard came to Orual, a man named Tarin and he made Orual think about the suffering she caused to her older sister. Then, a few days later, Bardia dies and his wife blames the Queen for forcing him to work too much. The two talk for a long time and they both realizes that they loved Bardia. Lewis expects that his readers will have at least a passing acquaintance with the story of Psyche and Cupid; he wants you to note the ways he’s changed or subverted or illuminated the original tale. If you don’t know that story, it’s well worth your time to read it before you dive in to Till We Have Faces! On this reading of Lewis’s novel, I was in no mood for academic exercises. I just wanted some authentic light in a dark moment. Painting the Medium: The last paragraph of the book is in italics, signifying that it's written in a different hand than the rest of the book, namely that of Arnom. He found Orual dead, her head resting on the scroll she was writing the story on.Orual goes to visit Psyche where she has been imprisoned. She finds Psyche surprisingly calm and resigned to her fate. Psyche has always dreamed about a palace on the Grey Mountain, and she feels that she has been unconsciously preparing to be given to the gods there. Orual is angry that Psyche doesn’t seem to mind their parting as much as Orual does. She doubts Psyche’s love for her, and they part bitterly. Davis, R. G. (1957, January 13). Cupid and psyche. The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/1957/01/13/archives/cupid-and-psyche.html Heel Realization: Throughout the last stretch of the book, Orual is confronted again and again by how she had mistreated the people around her. She freed the Fox, but never allowed him to go home. She loved Bardia, but she hated his relationship with his own wife, so she'd go out of her way to make things difficult for him if she felt slighted. Finally, of course, her treatment of Psyche was purely selfish, and it takes her till near the end of the book to realize this. Unreliable Narrator: Orual realizes she is one after finishing the first half of the book, when she realizes she's been blinded by her grief and jealousy to the point that she can't even admit the truth to herself. There’s some disagreement about exactly how much Joy Davidman contributed to the text of Till We Have Faces. We know for sure that she typed it off of Lewis’ handwritten notes. We know that Lewis asked her advice on many points, and that his confidence in writing a female point of view character was due almost entirely to her advice. There are aspects of Orual’s story that surely echo Davidman’s. The style is not like any of Lewis’ other books, either, and there are aspects that seem like Davidman’s. So critics and scholars have some disagreement here, as to exactly how much of the book was hers vs. Lewis’. For her part, Davidman said only that she “helped him write more like himself.” I suspect that is very much true: this book feels like the first one that Lewis wrote for himself and not for someone else. But he did, of course, dedicate the book to Davidman.