I recently finished a homeschool unit all about Ancient Greece, so when my book club decided to read Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis I got pretty excited. I was delighted at the idea of reading a retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche written by the man who created Narnia. This was going to be good.

However, this book took all of my expectations and tossed them out. It was nothing like I imagined it would be. I don’t even know if I would say I enjoyed it, but I definitely appreciated it by the end.

Till We Have Faces takes place in the fictional kingdom of Glome, a city-state near Greece, during the Hellenistic Period. Orual, the eldest daughter of the King, is the protagonist and the story is told from her point of view. Orual, who has always been told she is hideously ugly, adores her younger half-sister Psyche who is so beautiful, the people of the kingdom begin to revere her as a goddess.

Unfortunately, as the kingdom struggles with plagues and famine, the powerful temple priest accuses Psyche of being the cause of all Glome’s problems. He explains that the goddess Ungit (the Glome equivalent of Aphrodite) is jealous of Psyche and the only way to appease the goddess is to offer the princess as a sacrifice. Unable to stop the ceremony, Orual lies in bed ill while Psyche is chained to a tree on a mountain to either be devoured by a supernatural beast or married to Ungit’s son.

Believing her sister’s dead corpse remains chained to the tree, Orual travels up the mountain to retrieve Psyche’s body and give her a proper burial. However, when she arrives at the sacrificial site, she discovers that Psyche’s chains have been broken and she is nowhere to be found.

After a brief search, Orual is reunited with her beloved sister, who is alive and healthy. Psyche explains to Orual that she has married the god of the mountain (the son of Ungit) and now lives in a beautiful palace with him. Orual, skeptical of her sister’s story, can not see the palace and when she asks for proof of this invisible husband, Psyche is unable to deliver, explaining that she is not even allowed to see him.

Orual is convinced her sister has gone mad and eventually persuades her to take a peek at her husband’s face at night while he is sleeping. Psyche reluctantly does so and is banished. Orual sees the proof she is looking for but at a great cost.

At this point, the story is far from over. Moving forward, Orual determines to forever veil her face. She becomes the ruler of Glome upon the death of her father and restores the kingdom to prosperity, but she is forever haunted by the agony she has caused her sister.

This book was fascinating and C.S. Lewis considered it his greatest literary achievement. I was especially intrigued by the significance of the time period and the role this played in the internal struggles of the protagonist.

By the Hellenistic Age, Greece had already produced some of the world’s greatest philosophers, mathematicians, and scientist. Men like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Intellect and reason ruled over the spiritual and the superstitious.

This is important in context of this book because Orual’s tutor and dearest friend (practically a father to her) is a Greek slave called the Fox. The Fox teaches Orual to discount the religious beliefs of her countrymen and trust in the philosophies and wisdom of the Greeks.

Orual is torn between the superstitions and traditions of Glome and the teachings of her tutor in an internal conflict that similarly parallels Lewis’ own battle with the spiritual vs. the secular. As a young man, C.S. Lewis abandoned the religious teachings of his youth and became an atheist. He later converted to Christianity and I can only wonder if he perhaps patterned Orual’s struggle on his own.

Till We Have Faces is not simply a myth retold, it is a story of a woman conflicted in her beliefs, consumed by guilt, and how she must come to terms with who she really is. She must metaphorically unveil her soul to herself before anyone else can truly know her heart.

This book combines the great story-telling of C.S. Lewis with the allure of Greek Mythology. It explores themes of feminism, regret, and honesty, among others. Till We Have Faces wasn’t necessarily what I would call a fun book to read, but I learned so much from it and I would definitely recommend it.

Until next time… Let’s get reading!