Visible and Invisible

I'm most of the way through C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. It was his last novel and many think his best. I feel as though I know a lot about it, but I've never really worked my own way through the story. Dana read it aloud to me years ago, not long after we were first married, but for some reason I had a hard time staying awake for many of those late-night reading sessions. (Odd but true -- I can read aloud for hours, till I'm hoarse, and not get tired -- but when anyone reads to me for any length of time I often find myself nodding off.) I've also read bits or heard lectures about the book over the years. So I feel I know the story in bits and pieces, but have missed the real power and impact of reading it myself until now.

And it's an amazing book. I can already understand, even before reaching the end, why so many consider this Lewis' most mature and powerful fiction. There's a raw elemental feeling to it; the voice of Orual, the narrator, is one of the strongest (and most bitter, thus far) story voices I've ever read.

I'm struck as I read by the way Lewis worked certain themes over and over into his life's work, like certain colored threads woven into a tapestry, or a refrain line in poetry, or design elements that repeat as a motif in a painting. The one that's really jumped out at me here is his fascination with visible and invisible realities, things "seen and unseen." In Till We Have Faces, there is a crucial scene in which Orual has discovered her sister Psyche is alive, the sister who had been sacrificed by their community to appease what they believed to be a wrathful god. When she finds Psyche alive and well on the mountain, she is stunned to see her beautiful, healthy and full of happiness. And yet she cannot believe her sister that there really is a god, who has turned out to be loving as well as fearful, and that he had taken her as his wife. She believes her sister mad, especially because Psyche insists that they are sitting in the courtyard of a beautiful palace. Although Psyche can describe this great house in detail, Orual sees nothing but rocks, trees, wind and sky. And the two are locked in this moment with a huge chasm opening between them -- one who seems to see into an invisible realm to "what's really there," and one who simply cannot believe anything beyond her own senses, which tell her that nothing beautiful is there.

Lewis plays on this theme again and again in the Chronicles. Having recently re-read the first two, they're freshest in my mind. Of course it's Lucy who sees (actually enters) a world that the others can't, at first, see at all -- when they first go to the wardrobe to verify her seemingly wild account of journeying into a land called Narnia, the doorway is no longer open to it. Even Lucy sees it's "not there" -- or at least doesn't seem to be. But she adamantly sticks to the truth that it was there a moment ago, leading Peter and Susan to ultimately question her veracity and even more, her sanity (though the Professor poo-poohs them for that silly suggestion). I think it's Peter who comments that if things are really real, they're there "all the time" to which Professor Kirke says rather enigmatically "are they?"

We see this theme again in Prince Caspian, when only Lucy can see Aslan at first, but he is clearly there, leading and guiding the party on their way. Eventually all come to see him. And we see it again in The Last Battle (which I've not read in quite a while, so I'm treading on thin ice with my memory here) when at the end of Narnia, when Aslan is leading people into his country, the dwarves are unable to see any of the wonders and beauties around them, insisting loudly and angrily that they're in a filthy place eating terrible food, when all the others can see and taste wonderful things. (Orual reminds me of the dwarves. Her sister offers her honeycakes and wine, and she tastes only mountain berries and water.)

For Lewis, there are invisible realities that can lie hidden (unseen, unrevealed) all around us, and it's only in certain moments and situations, and I would add to certain people who are ready and able to see with the eyes of the heart, that the veil is lifted so that what is truly there can be beheld. This is a deeply Christian view, one confirmed by the Scriptures that teach us of an invisible God who has lovingly revealed himself in the face of his son Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit who is sometimes likened to the wind. The Scriptures also speak of the existence of other realities we can't see with the naked eye, including realms and spirits, both good and bad. It's not a view that sits easily in the modern world, which is perhaps the very reason Lewis chose to explore it through the language of myth and fairy-tale, knowing as he did that the world is in need of "a powerful spell" to break it from "the enchantment of worldliness" it's been living under.

Lots of people point to Lewis' interest in Platonism when they consider these themes. And sure, that's there. (He did, after all, hold a degree in Philosophy as well as Literature.) But I'm struck again by something pointed out by Alan Jacobs in The Narnian, an obvious point I'd somehow overlooked for years -- Lewis was Irish. He himself, in at least one letter he wrote to his father, talked proudly of their shared Celtic temperament and roots. It seems to me that his fascination with "thin places" where the veil is momentarily lifted and one can see realities beyond those we can grasp with our mere senses, where the earthly realm and the heavenly realm intersect and overlap, is a very Celtic trait. As is his fascination with journeys, especially interior journeys of the heart, though often mirrored in outward journeys. The kind of journey that the Celtic saints called peregrinatio, often wild and perilous journeys where one is led through suffering and trial (but also unexpected joy and beauty) to the place of one's resurrection. (That last reflection is shaped out of some reading I'm doing on Celtic prayer in a book by Esther De Waal...more to come on that.)

I think it's that kind of journey that Lucy takes when she steps into Narnia. And that Orual is taking in Till We Have Faces (though I'm less sure about the end of the journey here...stay tuned). Interesting that along they way, they're both learning to live into royalty, into queenship.