In Till We Have Faces I find an interesting connection between the extent that Lewis' nature and personality comes through in the book. There is just this striking aura of Lewis in the book. In some ways it gives me more insight into who Lewis was than his autobiography did. Lewis' extreme intellectual nature comes through in his characters and in the plot of the book. Driven almost entirely by intellectual suspense and questions, it just feels so 'Lewis'. I would agree completely with Joy's remark that she helped Lewis write more like himself.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
posted by Andrew P at 2:41 PM
2 Comments:
I definately see what you're saying. In his narrative as O and his characterization of the Fox you get a picture of how incredibly intellectual his point of view was. My question is this: why is it that Jyo described his writing in this book as more like himself? Isn't all writing coming from the author's mind and therefore all the author's writing is like/of himself? Does this mean that an author assumes a different personality when writing? Or do authors write different aspects of themselves at different times?
Andrew,
I see what you mean, but I think that A Grief Observed showed us a little more of who Lewis was than any of his other books. Maybe it's because I really enjoyed the book, but Lewis' intellectual nature showed through A.G.O as well as his raw emotion. I felt like I encountered Lewis for the first time when I read it.
Till We Have Faces certainly does have it's moments though (the moments that the Fox uses his 'greek logic' make me grin). Personally, I feel like this is the book Lewis always wanted to write but never could until now (or whenever it was published). Sort of like Stephen King's Dark Tower series, the story that he would imagine when he was alone but knew that no one else would really like.
As for Aynsley:
I think that any artist, whether it be a writer, painter, or musician is always a little scared of creating work that is the absolute best they can do. Painters don't try new tecniques that might make their pictures better because they've worked so hard on the already existing painting that they don't want to screw it up.
I imagine that there are some musicians that don't undertake more and more difficult performance pieces because they are intimidated and scared that they can't really do that well.
Even writers, I would dare say, are scared of trying anything new or something that has been on the back of their mind for awhile because they're scared they might disappoint their fans or ruin their writings.
I don't know if that makes sense, but I can see where Joy gets the idea that she helped Lewis maximize his potential. She helped him shed some of his hesitance and write what he really wanted to.
Maybe...?
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