What I Am Reading - The ScrewTape Letters

The Screwtape Letters w/ Screwtape Proposes  a Toast

C.S. Lewis

By C.S. Lewis who is far more notably famous for his work on “The Chronicles of Narnia” and was apparently friends with J.R.R. Tolkien according to Wikipedia.  While I have never read “The Chronicles of Narnia” I have seen the first movie in the series put out in 2005.  While I have not been all that interested in the former, I do know and have a great amount of desire to read a lot of his smaller works.   The first of these being the Screwtape letters.  The book itself is under 200 pages and a really quick read as it is divided into two parts, the letters themselves and what is labeled as ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast.”

Both the letters and the toast have the same plodding demeanor and are formatted along the lines of a satire.  The letters themselves is a one sided correspondence between two Tempters (Demons,) Wormwood and Screwtape. Screwtape being the senior of the two and the correspondence we get to see.  The letters are exactly that, rarely whimsical, always administrative in nature, and full of advice to his dear Wormwood on how to ensure the proper tempting of the human soul in question.  It seems that C.S. Lewis’ attempt is to look at the human condition from the point of a demon who’s only job it is to garner your soul for the dark lord.  It is interesting to see C.S. Lewis’ opinion on what constitutes as corruptible and/or what allows a human soul to go down the road of damnation.  There really are some interesting incites within these and worth your time if you like the subject matter.    With that said, while I thoroughly enjoyed the letters and the direction and incite they provided I found myself glad that there are only thirty-one letters.  When you are reading correspondence from only one side of the equation it got tiring.   My brain naturally wants to read the other side in which Wormwood describes his failings or situations with the human soul they wish to tempt.  Luckily for me, I loved what came after the letters.

Screwtape Proposes a Toast is exactly that.  Dinner in hell and the main Character Screwtape raises the glass and points a shriveled finger and delivers a forked tongue at the vestiges of public education, and overarching political satire in general.  It is fabulous and if nothing else I think it is worth the read alone, and can probably be found for free using an Internet search engine.

I will be reading more C.S. Lewis. I will most likely not be reading The Chronicles series, and will instead be hunting down some of his other short works which apparently fall into the category of “Christian Apologetics.” Mind you I will hunt for these at Half-Priced Books or Amazon used books.