The Literary Life Podcast Episode 66: Til We Have Faces, Ch. 12-15
Writing Advice
- Trust your reader and give them credit for being smart.
- Avoid spoon-feeding, patronizing, and excessive charm when writing.
Judging Workmanship
- Understanding a book's form and intended purpose is crucial for proper interpretation.
- C.S. Lewis emphasizes this in his preface to Paradise Lost, using the analogy of a corkscrew vs. a cathedral.
Importance of Source Texts
- Knowing the source material allows you to identify intentional changes made by the author.
- These changes often reveal the author's main point.
Today on The Literary Life, our hosts discuss chapters 12-15 of C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces. Don't forget that Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare's Roman Plays in October. You can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. We are giving away one spot in the class to someone who shares about the class publicly on social media and tag it #houseofhumaneletters. The winner will be announced on October 2, 2020 on the House of Humane Letters Facebook page!
Angelina opens the discussions with the point that Lewis changes the story of Psyche throughout the book, especially in this section. Cindy shares how the last couple of chapters in this week's reading made her feel and the tension of wanting to choose sides. In these scenes, we see again the theme of disordered loves and the rift in the relationship between Orual and Psyche, as well as Orual's descent further into self-deception. Be back next time when we cover chapters 16-21.
Commonplace Quotes:This is what I recommend to people who ask me how to get published. Trust your reader, stop spoon-feeding your reader, stop patronizing your reader, give your reader credit for being as smart as you at least, and stop being so bloody beguiling: you in the back row, will you turn off that charm. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours.
Hilary MantelHe had an outstanding gift for attracting hatreds.
Rene PichonThe first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship, from a corkscrew to a cathedral, is to know what it is–what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used.
C. S. Lewis The Laws of God, The Laws of Manby A. E. Houseman
The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbor to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong. And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn nor to Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man.
Book List:(Amazon affiliate links)
Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis
Paradise Lost by John Milton
God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis
The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
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