The Screwtape Letters / Screwtape Proposes a Toast

It is a very clever take on spiritual warfare. I like the matter of fact approach to the concept of demons. C.S. Lewis even has a bit of fun at his own expense, with the demon encouraging his underling to have the human quote more Lewis, and spend less time studying the Bible. ( )

Scathing little comedic commentary on human nature. Wonderfully scary that Lewis knows all this stuff. ( )

I'll 'fess up: I went through my C. S. Lewis phase. Some of them haven't held up too well over the years, but this was one of the better ones. ( )

Really, really smart and a heck of a lot of fun to read - 200 pages from CS Lewis has made me feel wiser and, well, more like a better, more religious person, than 11 years of Sunday school. I think there are some parts where Lewis lost me, and not in a good way, and the included "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" in my edition falls kind of flat after the other stories, but this is definitely a capital-C Classic. ( )

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Screwtape Letters
Series: ----------
Author: C.S. Lewis
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Non-fiction/Theology
Pages: 138
Words: 37K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to his nephew Wormwood, an inexperienced (and incompetent) tempter.

In the 31 letters which constitute the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining God's words and of promoting abandonment of God in "the Patient", interspersed with observations on human nature and on the Bible. In Screwtape's advice, selfish gain and power are seen as the only good, and neither demon can comprehend God's love for man or acknowledge human virtue.

My Thoughts:

This is a very short book at only 138 pages. With there being 31 chapters, it is easy to read one here, read one there and go from there. I read this in one sitting, as I hadn't read this since my teen or Bibleschool days, and I wanted to eat the thing in one go.

I found this easy to assimilate. The ideas behind what Screwtape was talking about are easy to reverse to get the correct message. Lewis does an admirable job of presenting the wrong view to showcase just what the right view should be. I don't envy him though, trying to write a book by a demon.

One thing that did stick out to me was Screwtape saying how they wished all humans were either atheists or magicians (occultists in my terminology). To either not believe in the devil at all or to believe in him so much that one becomes entrapped. I wonder if Lewis put that in there so that anyone reading this wouldn't be tempted to dig deeper into the occult to “learn” about demons and such. Lewis didn't write this so people could learn about demons, but so that they could learn about Jesus. In that regards I simply disregarded everything whenever Screwtape started talking about hell and anything related to that subject. I differ enough from Lewis anyway in how we think of hell so it wasn't a problem for me.

This would be a great study book, as each chapter is so short. Read one chapter, take notes and then discuss with others. Next time I read this, I certainly won't be rushing through it in one sitting. As I'm sitting here, I'm actively considering reading it again next year and making it a Project.

★★★★½ ( )