Thumbs up for Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C. S. Lewis. Fantasy.
I don’t know how, but when I was reading the Greeks back in my salad days, the story of Cupid and Psyche must have passed me by. When I learned that this book was a retelling of it, I carefully avoided anything about the original so I could enjoy this in its own right. I’m glad I did, because then I had the pleasure of not knowing anything that was going to happen; but in the end I don’t think it matters, because Till We Have Faces is a powerful book more than capable of standing on its own. It is a book about humanity, and we are never so human as when we are fighting with the Gods. Orual, Bardia, the Fox: these are people (not mere characters) I will remember for a long time to come. One of the best novels I’ve read.
We were down in the foothills now, almost (if one could have seen through the rain) in sight of the house of Ungit. My heart did not conquer me. I perceived now that there is a love deeper than theirs who seek only the happiness of their beloved. Would a father see his daughter happy as a whore? Would a woman see her lover happy as a coward? My hand went back to the sword. “She shall not,” I thought. Come what might, she should not. However things may go, whatever the price, by her death or mine or a thousand deaths, by fronting the gods “beard to beard” as the soldiers say, Psyche should not – least of all, contentedly – make sport for a demon.
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