The Screwtape Letters

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Summary: A toast for a great book
Review: The masterful style of Jack demonstrates that you do not have to be argumentative to be insightful. Jack was a master of paradox and in this book we get a read that is light but profound, Funny but serious, and Divinely hellish. This book gives laughs to the casual reader and scary insights to the deeper one. Contrary to the usual Christian writer, Jack was a wonderful writer that was a Christian. A must for any personal Christian library.

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Summary: Know thy enemy is this book's premise.
Review: Lewis gives us excellent insight and perspective on the nature of temptation and how Satan works. The work is set up as correspondances between a beaucrat in hell and his nephew Wormwood. The letters are advice and training for Wormwood who is given charge of luring certain people down to Hell. The book is entertaining, humorous, but also deep and should strike a chord with those expiriencing strong temptation in their life towards some form of evil. The best way to fight your enemy is to know him, and this book is an theory on how the devil and his angels might work to take souls away from God. The book is also very easy to read, and without the pretentious philosophical jargon that theologians use. It's down to earth, common sense theology taught in story form. An excellent work!

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Summary: Full of Aha! moments
Review: This masterpiece in Christian writing is full of serendipitous moments. Every time I read it I'm hit between the eyes with a better understanding of how Satan tempts me. I'm giving this book as graduation presents to the High School Senior Boys small group class I lead. Lewis is brilliant and humorous, as always. This should be required reading for all Christians.

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Summary: Lewis Shows Excessive Amounts of Creativity in 'Screwtape'!
Review: C.S. Lewis uses an impressive plot and storyline to deliver a great book to his fans, in 'The Screwtape Letters'. The clever preface gets readers hooked immediately. As much as I understood this book, I think an adult would have more insight to this book than a ten year-old like me.

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Summary: Lewis and Cleese In a Joint Performance
Review: CS Lewis' masterpiece of contra-counter-Christian fiction as performed by John Cleese. A master work by any standard. The text itself is a well known work of moral philosophy, but the Cleese performance (despite a faltering effort with the very difficult ideas expressed at the beginning of side 2 on the tape) elevates this to a supreme work of both art and intellect. Cleese has absorbed the temper of the literature and expressed it in an amazingly precise way. A performance comparable to Muller & "The Green Mile."

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Summary: only for the religious
Review: I was very dissappointed when I read (part of) this book. It's really a religious tract and is only interesting for the very religious people. Everyone else will find it super-dull. It's a long series of discussions on various aspects of religious thought thinly disguised as amusing chatter from a daemon. The characterisation and story don't amount to much and are only there to back up the proselytising message.

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Summary: Tease ID and EGO toward a more perfect life
Review: Lewis is at his best- on a level with his Perelandra series- in this book. We read the letters of a wise Senior Temptor to his nephew with advice and commentary about entrapping the human kind. This gives Lewis a wide ranging ambit to comment on issues which will appeal not just to aspiring Christians, but to solomn morale relatavists as well. There is also a book on tape version, read by John Cleese which is an absolute smash - in my opinion his (JC's) best performance!

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Summary: a wise little book
Review: This book was assigned reading when I was in 8th grade at a Catholic school. I remember I had no appreciation for it whatsoever at the time. I couldn't relate to the protagonist or his travails in wartime England. Perhaps one needs a little time in this world to appreciate the delicious simplicity of Lewis' allegory. Having read it recently I was struck by the wisdom, strength and genuine spiritualism this book exudes. One needn't, as commented upon elsewhere, be a believer to appreciate this work. Lewis never tries to foist any doctrinaire agenda upon the reader. Neither is he didactic. All that comes across (to this reader, at least) is a sense of hard-won wisdom. It offers some hints about how we might find a bit of peace and happiness on this earth if we are willing to think a little less selfishly and are able to set our powerful egos aside for awhile. I wish that those readers who wasted their money on The Celestine Prophecy and thought it provided wonderful spiritual insight would turn their attention Lewis' way. Here is the matter simply stated, without some wayward attempts at new-age jingoism.

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Summary: A Most Amusing and Poignant Work
Review: The Screwtape Letters, which consists of an older Devil, Screwtape, instructing his newphew in the art of temptation, is a brilliantly original way of magnifying the more wily schemes to which the Devil (referred to in the book as 'Our Father Below') resorts. I for one have found this book to be very helpful.

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Summary: Fantastic synergy
Review: Screwtape Letters brings John Cleese and CS Lewis together in an extraordinary coupling. Lewis's genius is presented with great skill and, of course, incredible humour, by Cleese. I loved these tapes and will enjoy them for a long time as there is much to absorb. They are not to be listened to once and then forgotten. These tapes can be enjoyed forever.