When The Screwtape
Letters first began appearing in The
Guardian, a now-defunct Anglican newspaper, C. S. Lewis was approached by
an Oxford undergraduate who asked: “How many letters are there to be in the
end?”
Lewis’ response was quick and to the point: “Thirty-one.
Something diabolical for each day of the month.”
Now, on the seventieth anniversary of the publication of The Screwtape Letters in book form,
thirty-one additional, diabolical letters are about to appear. Sadly, these are
not lost letters from Screwtape to Wormwood, penned by C. S. Lewis. However,
they are, perhaps, the next best. Walter Hooper, Lewis’ secretary for a brief
period in 1963, says of the book, As One
Devil to Another, “It reads as if C. S. Lewis himself had written it.” As
much as I admire and trust Walter Hooper, I could hardly believe such praise
until I read this collection of letters from Slashreap to Scardagger for
myself.
This is indeed a collection of letters, not emails. One
might have expected the latter in a book that purports to be an updated Screwtape, but apparently, the devils
have not been “dumbed down” to the extent that humans have. The author, or
should we say, translator or editor, of this correspondence, Richard Platt,
writes with the same elegance, felicity and sarcastic wit that Lewis did
seventy years ago. In addition, Platt reveals a theological sagacity and
psychological acumen that almost matches Lewis’ own. I found myself, by turns,
chuckling at the humor laced throughout this demonic correspondence, but then,
the next moment, moved by the depth of spiritual insight and application to my
own life.
As One Devil to
Another reads almost like a great Whodunit; the author keeps his reader
guessing until the very end about what will happen to both the beloved human
characters and the delightfully hateful devilish characters in this story.
Along the way, the content of these letters illuminate both the everyday
temptations that haven’t changed much since Lewis’ time, as well as the
societal shifts since the mid-twentieth century that have introduced new quirks
to the devil’s game. The result of reading this slim volume is not mere
entertainment. On the contrary, the reader is reminded of two of the most
important spiritual principles in the universe: that individual souls form the
battleground for cosmic forces, and that each soul matters to God, or the
“Adversary” as Slashreap and his cohorts like to call him.
In short, if you enjoyed and benefitted spiritually from
reading The Screwtape Letters, you
will have a similar experience reading these thirty-one, artfully-crafted
spiritual nuggets, even if you do have to turn the book upside-down to gain the
nourishment provided.
To learn more about the book and/or to purchase, click here:
To learn more about the book and/or to purchase, click here:
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