Tolkien

Still it is probable that Bilbo, her only son, although he looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father, got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side, something that only waited for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father, which I have just described for you, until he had in fact apparently settled down immovably.

* * *

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green . . .

* * *

“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once,” said Bilbo.

* *

“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them…”

* *

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the heart of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountain, caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

* *

… even to Old Took’s great-granduncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul’s head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.

* * *

“Farewell!” they cried, “wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey’s end!” That is the polite thing to say among eagles.

“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks,” answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.

* * *

His rage passes description — the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.

* * *

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

* * *

“May you ever appear where you are most needed and least expected! The oftener you appear in my halls the better shall I be pleased!”

* * *

“A little sleep does a great cure in the house of Elrond,” said he, “but I will take all the cure I can get.”

* * *

Click on image

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. San Diego: Harcourt, 1956 [1984], 313 pages.

I enjoy reading books that have been recommended by people I know. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t. However, I almost always benefit from reading them if for no other reason than I come to know a little better the person who suggested the book.

When someone tells me that a book was meaningful to them, that they enjoyed it, or that it changed them, and I follow-up by reading that book myself, I have connected with that person on a much different level than if I had coffee with them or sat in Sunday School with them.

Thus, when I noticed on Barry Creamer’s blog profile that Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is one of his favorite books, it immediately went to the top of my to-be-read “on deck” stack. I have had the book in my library for years, but it never seemed to work its way to the top of the stack.

Although we rarely seem to make contact, I consider Barry to be one of my most precious friends. I think he is the best preacher of our generation, I admire his commitment to family and church, I am challenged by his understanding of the history of ideas, and,… well, you get the idea. He is an amazing fellow and I looked forward to engaging a book that is one of his favorites.

Thus, I came to the book with pretty high expectations. During the first 100 pages the book fell a little short of those expectations and I found myself wondering just why Barry thought so highly of it. It was interesting, even intriguing, but it was not spectacular. However, I could hardly put the book down during the final two-thirds of the book. I would not go as far as did the New York Herald Tribune when it proclaimed the book, “The most significant and triumphant work that Lewis has yet produced” but I certainly understand why they would think so. It is a great book and without reservation I give it an enthusiastic recommendation.

In Till We Have Faces Lewis reworks the myth of the Psyche and Cupid. It is a compelling story of Love, and Love’s imitators (desire, dependency, etc). Lewis’ adaptation is complete with vibrant characters, an absorbing plot, and many layers of meaning for those who can’t resist the temptation to explore and deconstruct them.

I expect this book to be on my list of favorite books read in 2007. And, I am planning to re-read it soon so it may very well appear on my list of favorite books read in 2008. Lewis once said that if a book was not worth reading multiple times, that it was not worth reading even once. This book has joined the Kevin Canon of books that I periodically re-read.

I hope that you will choose to read it also, and then drop back by to let me know what you think of it.

* * * * * * *

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold.

It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.
~ page 247.

The one sin the gods never forgive us is that of being born women.
~ page 233.

Yet it surprised me that he should have said it; for I did not yet know that, if you are ugly enough, all men (unless they hate you deeply) soon give up thinking of you as a woman at all.
~ page 131.

But if the lords were glum, the common people in the streets were huzzaing and throwing caps in the air. It would have puffed me up if I had not looked in their faces. There I could read their mind easily enough. Neither I nor Glome was in their thoughts. Any fight was a free show for them; and a fight of a woman with a man better still because an oddity–as those who can’t tell one tune from another will crowd to hear the harp if a man plays it with his toes.
~ page 217.

“We’ve had scores of matches together. The gods never made anyone–man or woman–with a better natural gift for it. Oh, Lady, Lady, it’s a thousand pities they didn’t make you a man.” (He spoke it as kindly and heartily as could be; as if a man dashed a gallon of cold water in your broth and never doubted you’d like it all the better.)
~ page 197.

I had known Redival’s tears ever since I could remember. They were not wholly feigned, nor much dearer than ditchwater…. It’s likely enough she meant less mischief than she had done (she never knew how much she meant) and was now, in her fashion, sorry; but a new brooch, much more a new lover, would have had her drying her eyes and laughing in no time.
~ page 63

* * * * * * *