This book truly is a masterpiece of fiction, a beautiful retelling of the myth of Psyche and Venus. In it Lewis weaves compelling characters with a classic tragic tale of gods and philosophers, all the while probing at the deepest questions of life with his characteristic insight.The book is introduced as a complaint against the gods by Oruel, Queen of Glome. In it, she proceeds to tell her story and shape her complaint for their mistreatment and injustice. Oruel is the first of three daughters of the King of Glome, a simple man and a king of marginal quality. After Oruel and Redival's (Oruel's sister) mother dies, the tale is taken up as their father takes a new wife. This wife lives only a year, but gives the king a new daughter, Istra, in Greek, Psyche. This new girl is amazingly beautiful, and becomes the love of Oruel's heart. Oruel cares for her like a daughter. The two of them are tutored by a Greek slave, the Fox, who brings them up in Greek wisdom and philosophy. And they were happy.
But a plague and drought come upon the land of Glome. Redival, mockingly baptized Psyche as a goddess, and tells Oruel and the Fox that Psyche is a goddess. She then suggests to the king that Psyche should be sent out to the people to cure their diseases. And Psyche goes, and the people are glad for the healing she brings with her touch. But the priest of Ungit, the local goddess, worshiped as a pillar of stone in the temple, comes to the place to tell the king that the goddess is demanding a sacrifice to abate the judgment that has come up on Glome. And the sacrifice is to be the chosen one, the king's daughter Psyche, the one who has elevated herself to be a goddess. And the king agrees. So Psyche is dressed up and tied to a tree up high on the mountain, an offering to the goddess Istra and to the Shadowbrute, whose bride she is to become.
A month or two later, after recovering from her own illness and depression over the loss of her beloved sister, Oruel sets out with Barda, one of the kings guards, to find what is left of Psyche and give her a proper burial, but instead she finds Psyche alive. Psyche tells a tale of a god coming to her rescue; she has now become his bride, and lives in a beautiful palace. The god visits her only at night, in the darkness. Oruel is immediately skeptical, because though Psyche brings her to the palace, she sees only grass and trees, though just as she is getting ready to leave, she gets a fleeting glimpse of the glory of the palace. She tries to convince Psyche to leave, but Psyche is happy with the god as her husband, and is obedient to him now.
After returning to Glome, Oruel doesn't know what to do about Psyche—can her story be real, or isn't she just after all delusional. Psyche decides that she must at any cost go up and bring Psyche back from this house of the god, or if not bring her back, then kill her, instead of leaving her to the fate she seems so happy to have obtained. So she makes a return trip back up to the valley, and again finds Psyche there. She convinces Psyche that her lover cannot be what he says. He is certainly a robber who visits her at night, not a god, or if not that, he is certainly not a god but a demon, too terrible to behold. Psyche must, Oruel says, light a lamp during the night and see what manner of man she has wed, for then the truth will come out. Though Psyche is reluctant, Oruel convinces her by threatening her with killing herself and by even stabbing herself with a knife. Psyche agrees in order to save the life of Oruel, and that night sheds light on her companion. Psyche sees the light, and after a moment hears the wailing of Psyche as she retreats in sorrow out of the valley. A flurry of thunder and lightning and a mighty flood of the river proclaim the god's displeasure, and the god comes to Oruel. It tells her that Psyche must go out into exile, and live a har road. And that Oruel shall now also be Psyche, and share in her exile.
Oruel returns to her kingdom, and does her best to forget about the ordeal with Psyche. She becomes queen at her fathers death, and does her best to rule justly. She becomes popular with her people, and forges alliances with the kingdoms around her. But all the while she remembers the loss of her beloved Psyche. As she grows old, Oruel the Queen seeks to undertake a journey into the surrounding lands, and after exploring the kingoms that surround Glome, she comes to a small temple in a land near Glome that is dedicated to the goddess Istra. That being Psyche's name, she asks to hear more, and comes to find that this goddesses story is the story of Istra, but the blame for her misfortune is laid at the feet not of the gods but at the feet of her two jealous sisters who have driven her to her fate. Upon returning to Glome, her treasured lieutenant, Bardia, is taken ill and dies. This finally leads her to conclude her complaint against the gods for giving her so little to love, and then taking even that from her.
But the story is not over. Oruel takes up and writes another book, recounting what happened to her after the complaint against the gods had been written. She came to know that Bardia had died because she had worked him so hard, and that her sister Redival had become so bitter because Oruel had treated her so poorly. Then, during the festival of the new year in Ungit's house, she has a vision that she herself is Ungit, that detestable deity of the land.
Finally, she has a vision where she goes to the land of the dead, and is allowed to read her complaint before the gods and the dead. And she does. She complains that it is too much for humans to bear the existence of gods, even beautiful ones, because the gods take what the humans want to be theirs. In her case, Oruel has lost Psyche to the gods. She is even led to complain, "We'd rather you drank their blood than stole their hearts. We'd rather they were ours and dead than yours and made immortal." Her complaint comes down to the simple assertion, "That's why I say it makes no difference whether you're fair or foul. . . . Theres no room for you and us in the same world. . . . We want to be our own."
"The complaint was the answer." The gods ask if she needs further answer, and she says no. Coming to hear herself, to hear her most inner complaints laid bare, was answer enough. But then, the gods declare that she is now to be judged according to the gods' complaint against her, and she is led into a beautiful hall of pictures to await her judgment.
And finally, Oruel finds herself in the presence of God. Lewis does such a great job of showing, in this imaginative and mythical way, how life is lived before God. Oruel's journey is a great parable of what it means to live in search of God, and helps us explore what it means to find God. This book is highly recommended.
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