Books With Bean ~ The Screwtape Letters

Title: The Screwtape Letters

Author: C. S. Lewis 

Published: 1942

Genre: religious, Christian, spiritual,  

Summary: This book is a series of letters from a senior devil to his nephew a junior devil. It is Screwtape’s advice to his nephew about how to deal with the man he has been placed with in hopes that the man will be corrupted and spend eternity in hell.

What I liked about it: I first picked up this book many many years ago after the funeral of my great-great aunt. Not for any particular reason, the adults were talking and I was bored and found the library in the church where the service was. I had read most of the chronicles of Narnia at the time and picked up the book mostly just because I knew the author. I only got a few pages in at that time and I will confess I didn’t really get it. It wasn’t until many years later that I picked the book up again and found myself reading one of the best books I had ever found in my life. I have, over the course of Books with Bean, tried not to do more then one book my the same author. It is because once I have introduced one of their books I believe that you are fully capable of discovering more of their works on your own. This book, as it will be my last BwB, is the exception. This is because I believe this book to be so amazing and so much different from the world of Narnia that it really is a bit surprising that it is by the same author. I love the book so much because it really makes a person (if of course they are a Christian) think about their life and how they live it. We tend to become stuck a lot of the time in apathy. Things don’t bother us, so we don’t care about how they play out. But this isn’t good and you probably haven’t stopped to think recently about why you are thinking a certain way that while not exactly how God wants us to think, you tell yourself it’s alright and no big thing to worry about. In the letters Screwtape deals with temptations for Wormwood to try on his man that when you read about you will probably realize you do all the time. It is a book written to make us think, and it does its job very well. 

Language: a little light swearing. It is a book where the main characters are demons so there are a lot of mentions of Hell. 

Romance: None for the characters although it is mentioned that Wormwood's charge is in a relationship later in the book. 

Violence: it mentions a war (which the author says is most likely WWII) and of course it mentions Hell. 

Magic: There is no magic. This is the spiritual world that goes with ours. The invisible to our visible world and while the book is fiction, the spiritual world is very real. 

Recommended Age: This book, while written in simple language that almost anyone can read, is not for a young child like other C. S. Lewis works. It is best I think for at least 13 on up as that is the point where I think most young adults are old enough to go past the strange wording and see the book for what it is. There is also as always no upper age limit this is a good book for teens on up.