#Til we have faces

[sunshineandrosesnoraincamemyway]

(Grouped by series to make room in the poll)

Leave your answer in the tags!

[tomato-bird-art]

Why must holy spaces always be dark spaces?

(I reread Til We Have Faces and it is up there as one of my favorite books still…)

[angevinyaoiz]

Got an ask about my yaoiz recommendations, so I wrote a VERY long response post. I talk about manga and anime ofc but also some books, TV, and my general approach and philosophy to teh yaoiz especially as I've become less directly weeb (but still informed by its perspectives) over the past couple years haha.

Anyways I do love answering stuff like this and talking about media....it's so fun

[no-where-new-hero]

Have you read Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis? I’m citing it alongside Fire and Hemlock in my thesis as Cupid and Psyche retellings (though of course Fire and Hemlock is many things) and I am always fascinated by the ways the texts play off each other.

Ahhh love when people come into my inbox to talk about F&H!!!!

I did read Til We Have Faces, years before I started reading Diana Wynne Jones, actually, which means I don't remember a lot of it except that it had some of the most beautiful prose I had encountered up to that point. But it absolutely did cement my interest in the Cupid & Psyche story, and I still remember appreciating how Lewis--as he did with everything he wrote--drew out or drew attention to the philosophical/religious aspects in the idea. Love and faith must be blind, sometimes. Sometimes, you cannot (and should not) see the thing you are striving toward because you're just not ready yet. For him, that was how to craft a relationship to God. But I think F&H does echo that in a lot of ways! Polly can't save Tom (or herself) until she's old enough to see all around their friendship and who he is as a person. It's not just understanding her feelings for him; it's understanding how she can save him and herself at the same time. I'm sure DWJ must have had TWHF in mind when she wrote F&H, just knowing her connections to Lewis and also the very purposeful and erudite way she put so many motifs in that book!

Also, good luck on your thesis! It makes me so happy that you're putting some more DWJ-related scholarship out in the world!

[tithe2hell]

Til We Have Faces still goes so hard...the prose flows like water and the way it describes the visceral feeling of both abjection, pain, and fear, but also pride and possessiveness and stubbornness is so good

[twitch-upon-the-thread]

so are there any modern novelizations of Ancient Greek/Roman myths and legends that aren’t gay or feminist retellings?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

El Greco :: Boy Blowing an Ember

* * * *

"Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood."

~ C.S. Lewis, 'Til We Have Faces'

[pathfinderswiftpen]

Reading C.S. Lewis's Til we have faces and as an asexual afab enby it is Doing Things

being Not Woman Enough and maybe not even wanting to be woman enough

And the later chapters with the combat training and the consequential things aaaahhh

[audaciousinretrospect]

*slams fist on table*

Why is “til we have faces” by C.S. Lewis so under read and under analyzed by the catholic community ???

[zwlemon]

These lyrics have been replaying through my head the last couple of days.

"Hold us together when the fear tears us apart Lovers, forever, you are the answer to the dark"

When I hit my lowest point in life, I was forced to ask myself "What's The Point of Living?" I was having a hard time coming up with much of anything that could justify my existence. I felt a sense of extreme dread as I pondered the possibility that nothing in my life would amount to anything and that the circumstances in my life may never improve.

In my hopelessness, I found one answer that was sufficient to justify living. "Love". When everything else in my life was stripped away, Love was the only reason I had to move forward and continue. I thought about all the people that I love and all the people that cared about me. If things never improved, or I never amounted to anything, it would be worth it to at least be with those I love and those that truly care about me.

Which circles back to the lyrics I quoted. I though these lyrics were a bit cheesy when I heard this song, but when I went through my darkest hour, they turned out to be true. Love is the only thing I found that was strong enough to get me through hopelessness.

(BTW this song is amazing, and so is the band Silent Planet. I would definitely recommend checking them out.)

[anonymous-witness777]

ok for a moment there I was like "hmm not relatable ig" and then I remembered that one of my favorite books is Til We Have Faces. lol

if you're not obsessed with a fucked up female character i hope that changes for you soon. becoming obsessed with a genuinely deranged fictional woman will change your life.

[angevinyaoiz]

My actual, for Real Recommendation for people who enjoyed The Song of Achilles is Til We Have Faces. The writing style, the angst, a much earlier "side character retelling," fictional society but still very ancient feeling, both very old/folkloric/pagan feeling but also very postmodern in some of the way it's constructed. Also you can read it through a siscon lens because it's kind of unavoidable

[freewriterevangeline]

... And Jason happens to pick Til We Have Faces again. I didn't plan this. It's just what he picked in the library. The thing that came to mind.

[benjaminalphabet]

i grew up in a blue house with big windows.

sunshine painted rooms that weighed so much.

for two short years, i ran home from the bus stop everyday.

i was terrified until i met you.

you walked slowly, quietly.

you took it all in, i slowed down to walk beside you.

i slowed down.

i got off at the stop before mine to walk with you to the edge of your driveway,

then i’d cut through the playground,

and walk alone the rest of the way through bradburry ranch.

it was a longer walk,

but it felt worth it to be near you.

you made me so much less afraid than before.

those years seem so gentle to me now.

they were so loud back then.

i met you in the first flannel days.

the young ones, the restless ones.

green and yellow summers, falls that were still orange.

i knew back then i was incomplete.

i had never imagined anyone fitting me the way you did.

i did not know i could melt so perfectly into someone else.

we were always the same colors.

even as chameleons,

somehow, we understood each other.

sweet summer days were filled with bandaids and open blinds,

tree bark impressions in our skin.

the creek water never got warmer but we swam in it anyway.

i can never capture the way it all felt to be there.

but you remember, you must.

like spirits in a world that has not evolved, it was like we were entirely alone.

i used to think of you as the center.

the sun. yellow.

i was the blue solar system that clung to you.

when you went away, i changed color.

i became darker.

i had to learn how to turn on the street lamps.

you saw the world with gentle eyes.

i had never known things could be so simple,

they say it’s blissful to live like that.

you saw the broken pavement and chipped paint in a way only someone brand new could.

as if it was not a fault to be damaged,

because you did not understand how it felt.

that was when we revered the snow because it allowed us to be closer,

because it made everything so quiet,

it muffled all our noises so only we could hear the things we’d whisper to each other.

i still haven’t forgotten how winters with you felt like finally coming home.

i wanted to build us a home in the arctic,

so it could stay that way forever.

our last winter together is still silver in my mind.

we never knew what was coming.

adventurers sharing secrets,

bedsheets, and innocence.

we were learning to connect.

holding your hands out so i could push mine against them,

comparing our bodies like museum artifacts,

treating each other like renaissance paintings.

sometimes i wish you did not make it so easy,

sometimes i’m afraid it will never be that easy ever again.

that was before the flood,

before you were ripped from me.

i had to love you before i had to lose you,

and that was the cruelest part.

i was never able to prepare for the way it would feel;

when i looked up from the wreckage and you were nowhere to be seen.

i never found you again.

i never felt like that again.

when you started coughing i knew the end was coming.

we couldn’t stay forever in that perpetual bliss.

we were mortals, and we had forgotten that.

we could not tie the knots tight enough,

and eventually they began to unravel.

you learned that we were not entirely alone,

and that i had kept that secret from you.

you never looked at me the same.

when you started seeing ugly things in me,

you finally saw the truth.

i hissed, and clawed, and lashed out.

i was a rabid dog to anyone else who tried to come near you.

i promised to break all my bones,

i’d use my ribs to build a home for you.

it wasn’t enough.

you had already started building your sailboat,

you had already left me in too many ways.

there was nothing i could do

and you never saw the fits that racked my body once i knew it was over.

you never saw the way my eyes glazed over after i read your last letter to me.

nothing i have touched since then has been as sweet,

it’s all haunted with the scent of cleansing sage and holy water.

i worked so hard to feel that innocence,

but it’s gone.

you said flowers grew in your chest,

but the garden was not mine.

i was engulfed in flames.

by the time you looked over your shoulder to find me,

i had found a reckoning elsewhere.

i was paying my debt to the world for having kept you for so long.

i was giving penance for the time i had spent pretending i was innocent.

thieves never keep the pearls for very long.

i can only talk about losing you as if it were Noah losing the ark.

the death was not only mine.

there was no one left to rebuild when the water drained.

the doves had nowhere to go.

i built coffins to sleep in, i reminded myself that trust was a dirty thing.

since then too many confessions have been ripped from my zip-tied lips.

i wanted so much more for us.

i forgot how to be so holy,

i forgot how to keep my goodness accidental.

i touch perfect things differently now.

i ask them how they have maintained this,

i beg them for answers.

i try so hard to be gentle with them but i can get so angry.

the truth is that i loved most all those things about you i knew we could never share.

you were faultless in a way i could not be.

even when we first met, you had so much less to carry.

i stare down courtroom accusers and hang my head in shame,

i am guilty.

i gave you too much.

i told you things you didn’t need to know.

it is because of me that you learned love can be a poison.

it is because of me you had to first feel your heart break.

our love was justice in action.

scales balanced on each other.

we swallowed affection like fresh water,

and we carried each other’s burden when it was over.

we had to tend to the wounds in our hips when the stitches were ripped open,

and we were not attached anymore.

these are scars i might never be rid of.

i remember you the way historians remember ancient stories.

biblical and indisputable.

you were something that happened a long time ago.

before the white tennis shoes,

before the concrete steps,

before the brick buildings and safe havens.

nothing has come close to your legacy.

new soul, nothing ever will.

i’m sorry i said you set the fires for fun.

time has aged me, time has changed so much.

i know now i was the one setting the fires;

building sacrificial alters to worship before you.

it’s true you were the younger soul,

but i had not learned that lesson yet.

i did not know that love does not ask for broken knees and hands closed in prayer.

i wander this world alone now.

i try to respect the imprint you left on me,

i try to remember what you taught me.

i try so hard

to make it all mean something.

we loved each other in a polished glass bowl,

we loved each other with white knuckles and good intentions.

we loved each other before the sunset.

it was not dark back then.

our old neighborhood was your kingdom before it was mine.

i miss old versions of you more than i miss ones of me.

i mourn what you lost so much more than i regret what i took.

you have become a phantom,

and i am so deeply haunted.

new soul, i was the one holding the blade.

new soul, i still have confessions to make.

new soul, i remember every word you said.

new soul, i loved you more than i ever should have.

new soul, i am someone much different now,

and i’m sorry it ended the way it did.

3.6.23 || “star kid’s final letter”

[anonymous-witness777]

SCREAMING

I am literally never going to be over the fact that Eustace's first instinct was to threaten to sue absolutely any and everyone and he just did not give it up for like, a week and a half or something

Even after being confronted with a talking mouse and all the other normal Narnian nonsense, he really thought he was going to succeed in dragging one of those guys into an English court of law in full armor with a sword, and somehow this would constitute a victory for him

Child. Cross-dimensional lawsuits aren't a thing. And if they were, you would not want C. S. Lewis to be the one who wrote it

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Rickrickrickrickrickrick