The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is through the point of view of a devil named Screwtape, who writes letters to his nephew- Wormwood- about his mission of converting humans into Satanist.
After reading just the first couple chapters, my initial thought was that this book would tell a story about how the “patient”, Wormwood’s assigned target, will progress through the eyes of Screwtape, however, each letter starts to become more of a lesson about humanity and how different moral values can affect our life. There’s a lot of irony found in this book such as Screwtape calling God, “The Enemy”, while the readers wouldn’t think of God in that sense.
The preface tells the readers about the overall idea of the story from C.S. Lewis’s point of view. There was one thing he advised the reader about devils and Screwtape, saying that the devil is a liar and that not everything Screwtape says is true. Now thinking about this, it kind of reminds me a little bit of The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak because both books have this entity as the narrator of the story. I remember talking about how Death as a narrator was not reliable due to his personal attachment to Liesel. Because of the reliability of the narrator in The Screwtape Letters and the time period of the story, I have some ideas about this novel following a modernism style.
This book also reminds me of this new television show named Evil on CBS. Evil is about a skeptical female psychologist named Kristen Bouchard, who joins David Acosta, a Catholic priest in training, to investigate the church’s backlog of unexplained mysteries that include, demonic possession, miracles, and other crazy phenomenons. Michael Emerson, who plays Dr. Leland and supposedly the devil himself, gives his patients advice that makes them do immoral actions. I am seeing come connection between this show and the book, which excites me as Evil is really good, so I have this book follows in the same way.
Read React Review 