Culture Corner: C. S. Lewis

Book recommendation time, boys and girls. I just finished C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" and thought it worth mentioning here. It's his last book, and his own personal favorite of his books. Many reviewers consider it his most mature work.

The subtitle is "A Myth Retold" and the storyline is that of Cupid and Psyche. The POV character is one of Psyche's 'ugly stepsisters', who, in this version, is actually motivated by what she believes to be Psyche's best interests.

The POV character is also the narrator, and Lewis does a good job with a female narrator. (Trust me, not all writers can narrate across gender lines.) The setting is much more pagan than is usual for his fiction, and any Christian allegory so subtle as to be entirely invisible, although themes of love and faith, of course, cross pagan/Christian lines.

I found this in a thrift shop in an old "Time magazine books" edition from '66 (back when media companies thought they had some sort of responsibility to the public), and for a 40-year-old paperback, it's in astonishingly good shape.

Since you probably won't be similarly lucky, it's still in perpetual print. Amazon link provided in sidebar.