The Screwtape Letters C S Lewis 1941
“A View of Our World from the Depths of Hell”
Over 31 letters an experienced and successful devil writes words of advice to his nephew, a young tempter on his first person, Wormwood
Uncle Screwtape, vain, tetchy, exacting, has much to say on the temptations of sexual lust in letters 18 – 20 and he is infuriated in letter 22 at the appearance of a “virginal filthy insipid little prude” – indeed virginity angers and disgusts Screwtape so, he has a shape shifting moment and assumes the form of a large centipede! The letter is finished by a secretary Toadpipe
He has some profound moments: in letter 21 he writes “Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they ‘own’ their bodies – those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!”
And in letter 10 “All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be”
This should be by now a famous phrase
If you are unaware of the games close family play you will be agonisingly startled at letter 26 which really gives a healthy dose of life in the workings of reverse psychology and is, for me, a highly delightful read!
My biggest regret in this book is that the young man whose name we know not is so ordinary with no cardinal sins or deviations to make him interesting or outstanding, he is simply terribly dull, no wonder Wormwood struggles to tempt him at all
Indeed all the characters are as insipid as the little prude Screwtape despises
We find no anger, no rages, no bitterness, no fornication, no regret, no twisted insanity
The most promising character is the mother but sadly the setting is wartime and we never really get to view the long declining years of monotonous middle age when most men tread slowly and irrevocably down the slope to languid and disinterested sensual and spiritual oblivion ..
This I find unsupportable but every story must end somewhere and there is enough merit to awaken the reader to the perils of destiny!
Most modern readers will have no experience of the spiritual daily battle and will find this tale invigorating; the regular bible fearing christian however will find the whole thing melancholy and elementary
The central theme, timeless in dimension, is the careful shepherding of a soul through an unremarkable lifetime to the gates of Hell, open in welcome readiness to all who fail to plan otherwise: of course Darwinism and the modern belief in evolution but little else are a vast help to the devils who wish to consume humanity and divorce the original plan of everlasting life in paradise (who nowadays desires that?)
Who will believe there is any truth in this morbid melodrama? A kind of tame Faust for the later centuries
I first met Screwtape in my late teens, enamoured of Narnia I suspected Lewis would pen other delights; he has written a delicious little essay called The Four Loves which is worth seeking out also
Every reader of English should read The Screwtape Letters at least once, I’ve read it 3 or 4 times now, it never gets any happier
I mean we are supposed to return thanks at the conclusion but over the letters I have come to regard Screwtape as rather an old dear and like him, I feel robbed of my prey!
Which goes to show poetry in prose and the writing is compelling indeed, especially those five central letters! 💘💋
I hope you get as much sly pleasure as I do from this ravishing revelation!
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ISBN 978-0-00-746124-0
Dedicated to Tolkein
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