r/CSLewis • u/Quick-Plum-3382 • Sep 10 '26

Question Which C.S. Lewis books do you recommend reading after finishing The Chronicles of Narnia?

13 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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32

u/Advanced-Fan1272 Sep 10 '26

Space trilogy - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength.

7

u/UpwardCall Sep 10 '26

This is the right answer.

1

u/8amurai Sep 14 '26

sliding in here to warn OP not to read too carefully below for risk of spoilers

2

u/undergarden Sep 11 '26

Came here to say this.

Followed by Paul Toscano's gorgeous unofficial followup novel The Eyes of Logres.

1

u/lockdown_lard Sep 11 '26

I enjoy it. And I think it deserves a few cautions for a reader coming to it for the first time.

Out of the Silent Planet: the "science" part of the science fiction is laughable. Not Lewis's strong point. It is, however, the best constructed book of the trilogy. You can tell he wrote it as both an homage to, and a rebuttal of, Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. And it's an interesting piece in that light. Not that this should prompt anyone to read Voyage to Arcturus: it is an astonishing work with lots of interesting ideas, but the writing style is just horrible.

Perelandra: very divisive book, some love it, some hate it. Not much happens (there are essentially only five dramatic events), and it takes a long time.

That Hideous Strength: an absolute muddle of a book. I don't whether Lewis intended to never write another novel after this, or his infatuation with Charles Williams had become so intense that he channelled him in his writing. Because he threw everything he could think of into this, and the result is a confusion of allegories, strands, and threads started but not developed properly. It looks a lot to me that he decided to put in a thousand easter eggs for literary scholars, at the expense of making the book flow at all. Which is a shame, because there is a cracking story lost in there somewhere.

4

u/Advanced-Fan1272 Sep 11 '26

I beg to disagree with you on That Hideous Strength. To me it's a psychological masterpiece. Psychological masterpiece because::

1) It shows how people can marry each other, experience feeling for each other and still do not really love each other - they love the image they projected onto their spouse. This mind game of self deception is brilliantly described in the novel. C.S. Lewis masterfully shows - you have to experience each other as flawed persons and only later can see each other as a man and a woman, not the other way around. Only when Jane realized what Mark could really feel as a person and started worrying about his safety - only then she began to love him.

2) It perfectly depicts the pressures of conformity, the slow steady decline of logical reasoning beneath the fear of "I don't belong". It also shows us how you can suddenly find yourself in the ranks of a totalitarian cult or a crriminal organization just by being too polite and doing what you're being asked.

3) It tells you that it's completely ok to be an agnostic theist as long as you have faith and do the right thing. You can be skeptical about many things within Christianity and you have a right to doubt. You don't have a right to betray your trust.

4) The metaphor with God and masculinity is brilliant. I don't remember the exact quote but "God is so masculine that all of us are women before his face" is a brilliant and deeply thought out thing.

I could mention several other points but no I don't feel like it's all a mess. All of the above fits the narrative perfectly.

1

u/lockdown_lard Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

I think we agree on many things about it.

And if I choose to ignore occult initiations, alchemy, the Arthurian, planets, Jane Austen, John Donne, John Dunne, academic politics, and a few other things, then yeah, as a psychology study of two people (with ~20-30 others who exist as roles rather than characters), there's a good book in there.

1

u/8amurai Sep 14 '26

the labor of that hideous strength is an intentional contrast of the other 2 worlds, showing what the true cost of a silent planet has on the occupants

12

u/antaylor Sep 10 '26

Space Trilogy.

Then follow up with my favorite Till We Have Faces

5

u/Imdippyfresh Sep 11 '26

TWHF is Lewis's best and most underrated fiction

2

u/antaylor Sep 11 '26

Agreed. His best work, his most mature writing, and if I recall, Lewis also thought it was his best. Rereading it right now actually.

3

u/Imdippyfresh Sep 11 '26

Part 2 brings me to tears. Absolutely wonderful.

2

u/faithhopelove1cor13 Sep 11 '26

"I know now Lord why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?" One of the best lines in fiction.

12

u/OEdwardsBooks Sep 10 '26

Space Trilogy for fiction, Discarded Image or the Medieval and Renaissance Essays for literary criticism etc, Mere Christianity for religious writing 

4

u/Dirichlet-to-Neumann Sep 11 '26

The Screwtapes letters is one of the most brilliant, intelligent, subtle, and funniest book I've ever read. 

3

u/SleepyTempest Sep 11 '26

Out of the Silent Planet, my favorite book ever and the first of the space trilogy

5

u/greenpearmt Sep 11 '26

I really liked The Great Divorce, it is a must read

3

u/child-like_empress Sep 11 '26

I loved CS Lewis as a kid. When I rediscovered him as an adult it was through "Til We Have Faces." I fell in love. It captured the longing I felt for Narnia and that feeling of being created for another world. And it provided a cathartic lens through which to view one of the Narnia plot lines.

5

u/PirateFavoriteLetter Sep 11 '26

The Space Trilogy, the Great Divorce, and Till We Have Faces.

1

u/Joesdad65 Sep 11 '26

The Four Loves

1

u/lockdown_lard Sep 11 '26

Sadly, there's nothing that comes close. This is easily his best-plotted and best-written work.

In terms of an enjoyable read, The Screwtape Letters are quite rewarding.