Till We Have Faces: The Fulfillment of All Heroic Journeys

Fantasy For Our Time

C. S. Lewis's final novel Till We Have Faces is a novelization and adaptation of the Roman myth "Cupid and Psyche." Rather than tell the story from Psyche's perspective, Lewis tells it from her sister's, a character with no name in the original myth. In this multi-layered and very difficult novel, the main character hears a strange pronouncement about her fate from the god of love. "You are also Psyche."

This short sentence is one of several short pronouncements that acts like keys to unlocking the layers of meaning of the novel, which sometimes are multiple layers deep. I couldn't understand it for a long time. But then it hit me.

Till We Have Faces is a novel about becoming truly human. Its answer to the "how" of that proposition is shocking, even provocative. But it is ultimately a hopeful one because it is the resolution of every journey, both of the hero and the heroine.