Book Review: The Screwtape Letters
During my flight to Madison from Minneapolis last Thursday, I managed to finally finish a book that should have been done and reviewed last year at the latest.
The second book in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics is another popular work called The Screwtape Letters. It was originally published in 1942 while a small sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, came out in 1959 and is added in as a kind of epilogue. Versions of the letters were originally published weekly in the Anglican periodical The Guardian, during World War II between May and November 1941, and the standard edition contains an introduction explaining how the author chose to write his story. It is a work of complete satire and done in a epistolary style of nothing more than 31 letters. Lewis imagines a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to his nephew Wormwood, an inexperienced (and incompetent) tempter. In the 31 letters which constitute the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining God's words and of promoting abandonment of God in "the Patient", interspersed with observations on human nature and on the Bible. In Screwtape's advice, selfish gain and power are seen as the only good, and neither demon can comprehend God's love for man or acknowledge human virtue. The Screwtape Letters became one of Lewis' most popular works, although he said it was "not fun" to write and "resolved never to write another 'Letter'"
This review mostly comes from Wikipedia, with some of my own editing and additions.
The Screwtape Letters comprises letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood (named after a star in the Book of Revelation), a younger and less experienced demon, charged with guiding a man (called "the patient") toward "Our Father Below" (Satan) from "the Enemy" (God). After the second letter, the Patient converts to Christianity, and Wormwood is chastised for allowing this. A striking contrast is formed between Wormwood and Screwtape during the rest of the book, wherein Wormwood is depicted through Screwtape's letters as anxious to tempt his patient into extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins, often recklessly, while Screwtape takes a more subtle stance, as in Letter XII wherein he remarks: "... the safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts". In Letter VIII, Screwtape explains to his protégé the different purposes that God and the devils have for the human race: "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons". With this end in mind, Screwtape urges Wormwood in Letter VI to promote passivity and irresponsibility in the Patient: "(God) wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them". With his own views on theology, Lewis goes on to describe and discuss sex, love, pride, gluttony, and war in successive letters. Lewis, an Oxford and Cambridge scholar himself, suggests in his work that even intellectuals are not impervious to the influence of such demons, especially during complacent acceptance of the "Historic Point of View" (Letter XXVII).
In Letter XXII, after several attempts to find a licentious woman for the Patient "to promote a useful marriage", and after Screwtape's narrowly avoiding a painful punishment for having divulged to Wormwood God's genuine love for humanity (about which Wormwood had promptly informed the Infernal authorities), Screwtape notes that the Patient has fallen in love with a Christian girl and through her and her family a very Christian way of life. Toward the end of this letter, in his anger Screwtape becomes a large centipede, mimicking a similar transformation in Book X of Paradise Lost, wherein the demons are changed into snakes. Later in the correspondence, it is revealed that the young man may be placed in harm's way by his possibly civil defence duties (it is stated in an earlier letter that he is eligible for military service, but it is never actually confirmed that he was indeed called up). While Wormwood is delighted at this and by the war in general, Screwtape admonishes Wormwood to keep the Patient safe, in hopes that they can compromise his faith over a long lifetime.
In the last letter, the Patient has been killed during a World War II air raid and has gone to Heaven, and for his ultimate failure Wormwood is doomed to suffer the consumption of his spiritual essence by the other demons, especially by Screwtape himself. Screwtape responds to Wormwood's final letter by saying that he may expect as little assistance as Screwtape would expect from Wormwood were their situations reversed ("My love for you and your love for me are as alike as two peas ... The only difference is that I am the stronger."), mimicking the situation where Wormwood himself informed on his uncle to the Infernal Police for Infernal Heresy (making a religiously positive remark that would offend Satan).
I can certainly see why Lewis had great pains in writing in such a style. It was almost, in effect, having to go into the psyche of a demon, write its thought process, and come out unscathed. It's certainly an intellectual way of viewing evil and how it influences us in such subtle, everyday ways. His short sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, is an addendum to The Screwtape Letters; the two works are often published together as one book. Toast takes the form of an after-dinner speech given by Screwtape at the Tempters' Training College for young demons. The Cold War opposition between the West and the Communist World is explicitly discussed as a backdrop to the educational issues going on in Britain in Lewis' day. Screwtape and other demons are portrayed as consciously using the subversion of education and intellectual thought in the West to bring about its overthrow by the communist enemy from without and within. In this sense Toast is more strongly political than Letters, wherein no strong stand is made on political issues of the day, such as World War II.
Book Review Score: 3.5/5
(Amazon US, Canada, UK)
Next Book: Miracles (Author: C.S. Lewis)
The second book in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics is another popular work called The Screwtape Letters. It was originally published in 1942 while a small sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, came out in 1959 and is added in as a kind of epilogue. Versions of the letters were originally published weekly in the Anglican periodical The Guardian, during World War II between May and November 1941, and the standard edition contains an introduction explaining how the author chose to write his story. It is a work of complete satire and done in a epistolary style of nothing more than 31 letters. Lewis imagines a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to his nephew Wormwood, an inexperienced (and incompetent) tempter. In the 31 letters which constitute the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining God's words and of promoting abandonment of God in "the Patient", interspersed with observations on human nature and on the Bible. In Screwtape's advice, selfish gain and power are seen as the only good, and neither demon can comprehend God's love for man or acknowledge human virtue. The Screwtape Letters became one of Lewis' most popular works, although he said it was "not fun" to write and "resolved never to write another 'Letter'"
This review mostly comes from Wikipedia, with some of my own editing and additions.
The Screwtape Letters comprises letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood (named after a star in the Book of Revelation), a younger and less experienced demon, charged with guiding a man (called "the patient") toward "Our Father Below" (Satan) from "the Enemy" (God). After the second letter, the Patient converts to Christianity, and Wormwood is chastised for allowing this. A striking contrast is formed between Wormwood and Screwtape during the rest of the book, wherein Wormwood is depicted through Screwtape's letters as anxious to tempt his patient into extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins, often recklessly, while Screwtape takes a more subtle stance, as in Letter XII wherein he remarks: "... the safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts". In Letter VIII, Screwtape explains to his protégé the different purposes that God and the devils have for the human race: "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons". With this end in mind, Screwtape urges Wormwood in Letter VI to promote passivity and irresponsibility in the Patient: "(God) wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them". With his own views on theology, Lewis goes on to describe and discuss sex, love, pride, gluttony, and war in successive letters. Lewis, an Oxford and Cambridge scholar himself, suggests in his work that even intellectuals are not impervious to the influence of such demons, especially during complacent acceptance of the "Historic Point of View" (Letter XXVII).
In Letter XXII, after several attempts to find a licentious woman for the Patient "to promote a useful marriage", and after Screwtape's narrowly avoiding a painful punishment for having divulged to Wormwood God's genuine love for humanity (about which Wormwood had promptly informed the Infernal authorities), Screwtape notes that the Patient has fallen in love with a Christian girl and through her and her family a very Christian way of life. Toward the end of this letter, in his anger Screwtape becomes a large centipede, mimicking a similar transformation in Book X of Paradise Lost, wherein the demons are changed into snakes. Later in the correspondence, it is revealed that the young man may be placed in harm's way by his possibly civil defence duties (it is stated in an earlier letter that he is eligible for military service, but it is never actually confirmed that he was indeed called up). While Wormwood is delighted at this and by the war in general, Screwtape admonishes Wormwood to keep the Patient safe, in hopes that they can compromise his faith over a long lifetime.
In the last letter, the Patient has been killed during a World War II air raid and has gone to Heaven, and for his ultimate failure Wormwood is doomed to suffer the consumption of his spiritual essence by the other demons, especially by Screwtape himself. Screwtape responds to Wormwood's final letter by saying that he may expect as little assistance as Screwtape would expect from Wormwood were their situations reversed ("My love for you and your love for me are as alike as two peas ... The only difference is that I am the stronger."), mimicking the situation where Wormwood himself informed on his uncle to the Infernal Police for Infernal Heresy (making a religiously positive remark that would offend Satan).
I can certainly see why Lewis had great pains in writing in such a style. It was almost, in effect, having to go into the psyche of a demon, write its thought process, and come out unscathed. It's certainly an intellectual way of viewing evil and how it influences us in such subtle, everyday ways. His short sequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, is an addendum to The Screwtape Letters; the two works are often published together as one book. Toast takes the form of an after-dinner speech given by Screwtape at the Tempters' Training College for young demons. The Cold War opposition between the West and the Communist World is explicitly discussed as a backdrop to the educational issues going on in Britain in Lewis' day. Screwtape and other demons are portrayed as consciously using the subversion of education and intellectual thought in the West to bring about its overthrow by the communist enemy from without and within. In this sense Toast is more strongly political than Letters, wherein no strong stand is made on political issues of the day, such as World War II.
Book Review Score: 3.5/5
(Amazon US, Canada, UK)
Next Book: Miracles (Author: C.S. Lewis)