What a surprise to find myself here. I was not planning on reading this book.

For years now, I’ve kinda vaguely intended to read more C.S. Lewis — not having read anything by him since The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was forced upon me back in fifth grade, and bored me to tears — because, you know, being Catholic, you’re pretty much required to love C.S. Lewis (even though he was Anglican, not quite Catholic; he totally should have been Catholic). But I had no concrete plans to do so, because even though I love how quotable and brilliant Lewis is, I wasn’t sure if I’d like his fiction; that fifth grade experience had kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. And even if I had chosen to read him, this was not the book of his that I would have chosen. With very few exceptions, I’ve never cared for high fantasy.

But then, one night a couple weeks ago, my sister, who’s super smart and reads a ton of books (and also doesn’t typically read high fantasy), texted me at like 1AM to tell me that she’d just finished reading this book for the first time and was so amazed, she absolutely could not wait to talk to me about it! When I told her I had not, she went and bought me a copy and had it overnight-delivered to my house so that I could read it. And here it is:

And here we are. I’m afraid I can’t say much of anything intelligent about this book, as I am not that intelligent. So if you’re looking for an insightful, enlightening essay about it, move along — there are plenty of those on the internet that you can go find. As ever on this blog, the only thing I can offer are my silly little impressions, opinions, and thoughts. And here they are:

As a non-fantasy reader: I loved this book! 5 stars. It only took about three or four pages for me to get past the “hmm, I dunno, this is pretty fantastical 🤨” and arrive at fully committed. And by about a third of the way through, it was un-put-downable. Pleasant surprise considering my former prejudice against C.S. Lewis’s novels. I actually loved being in the fantasy world he’s built. Glome is what the Greeks call a “barbarian” society, but by the end of the book we see it becoming more “civilized” and Greek-influenced, thanks to Queen Orual, who was of course educated by the Fox, a Greek.

Interestingly, it seems like the rationalization and “civilization” of this society — like, the way the new priest tidies up the House of Ungit and brings in a new, representational statue of a goddess, instead of the old giant rock — it’s heavily implied that these changes bring the society further away from the truth about the “Divine Nature.” Remove it further from the Truth.

One of the most interesting and impactful things, for me, was the constant association of the holy with the horrible. What’s Divine is mysterious, dark, bloody, stinking, grisly, terrifying, brutal — at once earthy and transcendental. Very real and present everywhere, instilling fear and awe. This ancient attitude toward religion is sorely lacking from modern-day American religion, which loves to portray Jesus and Mary as warm-and-fuzzy and friendly and “relatable.” Reading this book kind of reminds you what a healthy fear of God and awe of His ways should feel like. Even though the religion in the story is pagan, the truths in it are just as true in a Christian worldview and practice.

I’m pretty slow, but even I was able to pick up on the themes of self-deception, examination of conscience, penance, honesty with oneself — the symbolism of the veiling of her face, which reminded me also of U.H.I.D. in Infinite Jest (amiright?!) (someone smarter than me should really write a paper comparing/contrasting Orual & Joelle). So it’s rich in symbolism and metaphor and all without being heavy-handed. I appreciate that.

You all know I like delicious prose, and this is about as tasty as it gets. I love it so much I could almost literally take a bite out of it and ingest it (which is apt, considering how one of its major themes is that of the unsettling, visceral commonalities between loving and devouring — the Holy Eucharist, anyone?!). The phrasing is ancient-feeling and poetic, and you’ll discover lots of fun new vocab words.

It’s fun and accessible, but it’s definitely not what I’d call “light” or “pleasant” — this is certainly not in the “beach read” category. It’s sad, heartbreaking even, it’s upsetting, reflective, and very heavy — it will really make you meditate on your own moral blind spots, the sickness of your own soul, whether you can possibly be redeemed, and your own powerlessness to save yourself. Ya know, all that fun stuff! But it does all of this while being very sensorily rich and delicious and romantic and vivid.

There’s really not much I can add to the conversation about such a famous masterpiece, so before I go I’ll just show you one of my favorite passages. Everyone always talks about Orual’s last words at the end of Part Two, and rightfully so, but here’s a part that I think deserves to be quoted more. This is when Psyche and Orual are talking on the night before Psyche is to be Offered, and Psyche’s telling Orual that she’s actually kind of okay with it, because in a way she’s always kinda longed for death:

Our longing for eternity, they say, is itself proof of an eternal God, and this passage puts that in words so clearly! I dunno about you guys but reading this my brain was like YES because I never quite had the words for it but this feeling is so relatable: always, every moment of great happiness, every experience of beauty, is always colored with a certain sadness, because it’s ephemeral, it’s passing away even now, and it’s like you can’t really sink into it enough. It’s never real enough. “Somewhere else there must be more of it” — exactly! This is our longing for Heaven.

This passage really makes you meditate on how great Heaven must be — if you think back, for a moment, over every joy you’ve ever wished you could freeze and live in forever, or every beautiful thing you’ve ever seen and somehow longed to immerse yourself in more totally — every good thing that’s passing away, all of that longing will be satisfied in Heaven, forever! And more! Sometimes we get so caught up in worrying about avoiding damnation that we forget to meditate on the joy of Heaven (it’s me, I’m “we”). And it’s better, after all, to strive for the joy of union with God than to just try to dodge punishment. We shouldn’t just be content to spend a few millennia in purgatory because, oh well, at least we’ll eventually get to the lower tier of Heaven — we should want to be as close to God as we possibly can! We should want to be great saints.

So yeah, as grim and heavy as this book is, it’s also uplifting, and I daresay it will help you grow in sanctity if that’s something you’re working on. Even if you don’t care for fantasy, or religion for that matter, give it a try if you haven’t already. It’s the very definition of good fun.