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Aspects of Power #4
The Greater Trumps
Would someone really kill for a pack of cards?
But these are no ordinary cards. This is the original tarot deck, from which all other tarot decks have sprung. Their fate is entwined with a set of gold figurines representing the Major Arcana, which continually dance around a tabletop much like a chess board—the archetypal forces of the universe in miniature. Whoever can bring the deck and the figurines together will wield power over heaven and earth.
Nancy’s father has come into possession of the cards, but doesn’t know what he has. Her fiancé, Henry—of gypsy heritage—does. His family is in possession of the figurines, and he is determined to possess the cards as well. His offer to buy them refused, Henry makes plans to do whatever it takes to gain his prize, no matter who it hurts....
The Greater Trumps is one of Williams’ most thrilling and enjoyable novels—and at the same time, it is perhaps his most symbolically rich.
But these are no ordinary cards. This is the original tarot deck, from which all other tarot decks have sprung. Their fate is entwined with a set of gold figurines representing the Major Arcana, which continually dance around a tabletop much like a chess board—the archetypal forces of the universe in miniature. Whoever can bring the deck and the figurines together will wield power over heaven and earth.
Nancy’s father has come into possession of the cards, but doesn’t know what he has. Her fiancé, Henry—of gypsy heritage—does. His family is in possession of the figurines, and he is determined to possess the cards as well. His offer to buy them refused, Henry makes plans to do whatever it takes to gain his prize, no matter who it hurts....
The Greater Trumps is one of Williams’ most thrilling and enjoyable novels—and at the same time, it is perhaps his most symbolically rich.
182 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
72 people are currently reading
954 people want to read
About the author
Charles Williams
84 books385 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Walter Stansby Williams is probably best known, to those who have heard of him, as a leading member (albeit for a short time) of the Oxford literary group, the "Inklings", whose chief figures were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He was, however, a figure of enormous interest in his own right: a prolific author of plays, fantasy novels (strikingly different in kind from those of his friends), poetry, theology, biography and criticism. — the Charles Williams Society website
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Walter Stansby Williams is probably best known, to those who have heard of him, as a leading member (albeit for a short time) of the Oxford literary group, the "Inklings", whose chief figures were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He was, however, a figure of enormous interest in his own right: a prolific author of plays, fantasy novels (strikingly different in kind from those of his friends), poetry, theology, biography and criticism. — the Charles Williams Society website
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
June 1, 2020
"The Greater Trumps" is a powerfully conceived work brilliantly constructed on the basis of the ancient Tarot Card Deck. Williams studied the works of A.C. Waite and his novel is apparently using the images created for the Rider Deck designed by Patricia Coleman-Smith under the direction of Waite.
The images of this deck were a perfect focus for the imagination of Charles Williams who was able to transfigure their already powerful iconic meanings into transcendental images of profound spirituality. To the deck itself he adds a strange board with the images represented by moving figures based on those in the deck. Throughout, Williams links the desires, actions, decisions, and personalities of various characters to their equivalents in the 22 cards that form “The Greater Trumps”.
The characters themselves are quite unusual. Nancy is deeply in love with the rather sinister Henry Lee who sees her primarily as a tool to learn to control the Greater Trumps and thus gain tremendous power. Nancy’s father Lothair Coningsby has possession of the original Tarot pack which contains the most accurate representations of the images. However Mr Coningsby sees the world as an utterly matter-of-fact physical reality with no deeper spiritual dimension. Thus, the cards are useless to him. However, they are his, and he has no intention of giving them to Henry or Aaron Lee, Henry’s even more sinister uncle—the possessor of the dancing figures on the board.
Then there are two sisters. Aaron’s sister is the terrible, mad Joanna who lives in a nightmarish world of evil hatred infused with Egyptian mythology searching for a dead child. Sybil Coningsby, Lothair’s sister is the opposite. She worships the creative Love which infuses the universe and has become a mystic aware of the world but untainted by it.
Sybil is probably the triumph of the book. It is exceedingly difficult for an author to create a believable and interesting character who is also very good. Consider how Fielding failed in Tom Jones. Squire Allworthy is the touchstone of goodness, generosity, etc. And he is quite boring. Is one interested in Satan or Christ in "Paradise Lost"? Sybil is very much a figure personifying the saintly mystic. Some have called her a “female Christ”. Thus she could easily become a mere icon without a distinctive personality. But she has gone through suffering and anguish to achieve her inner calm. Henry is aware of Sybil’s special nature:
“She’s got some sort of a calm, some equanimity in her heart. She—the only eyes that can read the future exactly, and she doesn’t want to know the future. Everything’s complete for her in the moment.”
She acts as a foil to her brother who is uninterested in—and perhaps afraid of—spiritual energy and vision. But she loves her brother dearly and this is because she knows that deeper than his irritating ways and petty concerns lies the capability of love—which reaches its fruition at the end.
Nancy trusts her and perhaps is on the path that will allow her to find the same calm as her aunt. At one point as she faces the hateful Joanna—the evil parallel to Sybil—she has a vision of the terrible anguish that lies behind such despair:
“The litany of anguish poured out as if it were the sound of the earth itself rushing through space, and comfortless for ever the spinning globe swept on, turning upon itself, crying to itself; and space was the echo of its lament, and time was the measure of its sobs.”
This vision appals Nancy. It is a possible future.
“Joanna stood in the way; beyond her the way led to Sybil. She could see Sybil—ever so far off, in that descent upon which the great stairs opened.”
Moments like this resonate through the novel. They make for fascinating reading.
The images of this deck were a perfect focus for the imagination of Charles Williams who was able to transfigure their already powerful iconic meanings into transcendental images of profound spirituality. To the deck itself he adds a strange board with the images represented by moving figures based on those in the deck. Throughout, Williams links the desires, actions, decisions, and personalities of various characters to their equivalents in the 22 cards that form “The Greater Trumps”.
The characters themselves are quite unusual. Nancy is deeply in love with the rather sinister Henry Lee who sees her primarily as a tool to learn to control the Greater Trumps and thus gain tremendous power. Nancy’s father Lothair Coningsby has possession of the original Tarot pack which contains the most accurate representations of the images. However Mr Coningsby sees the world as an utterly matter-of-fact physical reality with no deeper spiritual dimension. Thus, the cards are useless to him. However, they are his, and he has no intention of giving them to Henry or Aaron Lee, Henry’s even more sinister uncle—the possessor of the dancing figures on the board.
Then there are two sisters. Aaron’s sister is the terrible, mad Joanna who lives in a nightmarish world of evil hatred infused with Egyptian mythology searching for a dead child. Sybil Coningsby, Lothair’s sister is the opposite. She worships the creative Love which infuses the universe and has become a mystic aware of the world but untainted by it.
Sybil is probably the triumph of the book. It is exceedingly difficult for an author to create a believable and interesting character who is also very good. Consider how Fielding failed in Tom Jones. Squire Allworthy is the touchstone of goodness, generosity, etc. And he is quite boring. Is one interested in Satan or Christ in "Paradise Lost"? Sybil is very much a figure personifying the saintly mystic. Some have called her a “female Christ”. Thus she could easily become a mere icon without a distinctive personality. But she has gone through suffering and anguish to achieve her inner calm. Henry is aware of Sybil’s special nature:
“She’s got some sort of a calm, some equanimity in her heart. She—the only eyes that can read the future exactly, and she doesn’t want to know the future. Everything’s complete for her in the moment.”
She acts as a foil to her brother who is uninterested in—and perhaps afraid of—spiritual energy and vision. But she loves her brother dearly and this is because she knows that deeper than his irritating ways and petty concerns lies the capability of love—which reaches its fruition at the end.
Nancy trusts her and perhaps is on the path that will allow her to find the same calm as her aunt. At one point as she faces the hateful Joanna—the evil parallel to Sybil—she has a vision of the terrible anguish that lies behind such despair:
“The litany of anguish poured out as if it were the sound of the earth itself rushing through space, and comfortless for ever the spinning globe swept on, turning upon itself, crying to itself; and space was the echo of its lament, and time was the measure of its sobs.”
This vision appals Nancy. It is a possible future.
“Joanna stood in the way; beyond her the way led to Sybil. She could see Sybil—ever so far off, in that descent upon which the great stairs opened.”
Moments like this resonate through the novel. They make for fascinating reading.
September 29, 2007
This and the following books by Charles Williams are not like any other books I have ever read. They bent my mind out of shape and sort of gave it a new shape, if that makes any sense.They are very well written and very good mystical stories with real meaning.
May 18, 2022
Here is a summary and review of this novel on my Charles Williams website: https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.co....
May 29, 2013
It's hard to describe Charles Williams high Anglican fantasy religious novels of manners without sounding like a character in a Charles Williams novel - I pick them up, find myself falling into another world, finish it, recommend it to someone else - and then I look at the book again, and find it unreadable and the experience I had undiscoverable - sometimes I can't even find the words I remember so well. Imagine a novelist engineered by grafting CS Lewis onto Henry Green rootstock - with a crossing from Graham Greene at his most sin-obsessed, and a bit of Stella Gibbons but without the irony. Or think of certain Tolkien characters, but all wearing cloche hats or good county tweeds, and located very much in the lower upper-middle-class of the 30s. In a typical novel, two young women meet on a London bridge - there are taxis around, buses, tugboats in the Thames, all is normal; they walk into the park, have a rather fraught conversation, but you imagine them well dressed and at least in CW's phrase semi-educated and semi-cultured, - and while you are trying to figure out the significance of the conversation, the narrator ends the chapter: "Then the two dead girls walked out of the Park." Or in this novel, after a Christmas eve storm, the meditations of a maiden aunt spilling into the Great Dance: - "hot drinks--yes; and a hot bath--yes; and a complete change [of clothes]--yes. Drinks and baths and changes were exquisite delights in themselves, ... and in general movemement for repose, repose for movement, and even one movement for another, so highly complex was the admirable order of the created universe."
The other secret - is that despite his limitations, CW is a far greater myth-maker than his friendly acquaintance TS Eliot (more than CS Lewis too, though I can't read very much of him) - a mythmaker in the Blakean sense, who starts with the Christian myth, but is not afraid to go far beyond it at times, Dante-esque in its ambition to encompass the whole in a man's ordinary experience.
So - on to The Greater Trumps. We have the slightly unpleasant and slightly unpleasant lower upper-middle-class London family - widowed father, 19-ish daughter, 13-ish son, maiden aunt. Father is annoyed at his daughter, who to be fair seems very affected - we learn that she is engaged to a young barrister the father calls a "gypsy." Only we learn that it isn't just an insult - he really is a Gypsy - and the novel revolves around the mystery of the Tarot cards (a myth which I for one have always found rather tedious). But they're not. And the way the novel bursts through the seams of Christianity without fear - encompassing Gypsies, the Egyptians who the Tarot claim to derive from (though they do not, the novel says), "or Jew or Christian heretic - Paulician, Bogophil, or Nestorian" encompassed in a very 1930s conception of the universe as a Dance - well, it's a wonderful argument for the West, and makes me proud to have been a part of it. A really surprising and continually thrilling novel, my favorite of .
The other secret - is that despite his limitations, CW is a far greater myth-maker than his friendly acquaintance TS Eliot (more than CS Lewis too, though I can't read very much of him) - a mythmaker in the Blakean sense, who starts with the Christian myth, but is not afraid to go far beyond it at times, Dante-esque in its ambition to encompass the whole in a man's ordinary experience.
So - on to The Greater Trumps. We have the slightly unpleasant and slightly unpleasant lower upper-middle-class London family - widowed father, 19-ish daughter, 13-ish son, maiden aunt. Father is annoyed at his daughter, who to be fair seems very affected - we learn that she is engaged to a young barrister the father calls a "gypsy." Only we learn that it isn't just an insult - he really is a Gypsy - and the novel revolves around the mystery of the Tarot cards (a myth which I for one have always found rather tedious). But they're not. And the way the novel bursts through the seams of Christianity without fear - encompassing Gypsies, the Egyptians who the Tarot claim to derive from (though they do not, the novel says), "or Jew or Christian heretic - Paulician, Bogophil, or Nestorian" encompassed in a very 1930s conception of the universe as a Dance - well, it's a wonderful argument for the West, and makes me proud to have been a part of it. A really surprising and continually thrilling novel, my favorite of .
June 21, 2022
This is a Charles Williams novel, which means it's completely unlike anything written by anyone else (even
That Hideous Strength
, which is sometimes, with some justification, described as a Charles Williams novel written by C.S. Lewis).
I read it first while at university in the late 1980s; a friend owned most of the novels in paperback, and lent them to me. This version from Open Road is, not typically for them, quite a clean scan, with only a couple of minor errors.
Williams wrote books that these days would be described as "cosmic," based on his own mystical Christian theology combined with occult symbolism, and nowhere is this more marked than in this book, based on the Tarot. The premise is that the original Tarot deck has turned up in a collection of rare old card decks left to a middle-aged, fussy, irritable Englishman by a friend of his. By coincidence (which I assume we are supposed to conclude was orchestrated by cosmic powers), his daughter is engaged, or something very similar to engaged, to a man of Roma descent, whose grandfather is the keeper of a set of magically animated three-dimensional images of the Tarot that was separated from the deck many years before. The young man wants to reunite them, and invites the cards' new owner, the daughter, and the owner's saintly maiden sister to his grandfather's house for Christmas.
When I say "saintly," she is saintly in very much a mystical, meditative way, not at all in the sense of being dreamy, but in that she is just herself and is always perfectly content with whatever happens and completely surrendered, in a quiet and unspectacular way, to the will of Divine Love. It's difficult to convey exactly what she's like; Williams does it brilliantly and memorably. She is, at the same time, very ordinary and completely extraordinary, and in many ways she is the heroine of the story, except that her niece Nancy is also, in a different and more active way, the heroine of the story.
English books of the early 20th century often have these middle-class characters who are more or less lacking in self-insight and more or less ridiculous as a result, who get mercilessly mocked by the author for it; that's not what Williams does, though it at first looks as if he might. Mr. Coningsby, for example, the owner of the cards, is a man of very limited insight, but he's not actually a bad person, or cowardly, or despicable, when it comes down to it. Even Ralph, his son, who at first seems like one of the vague English wasters so often encountered in P.G. Wodehouse, shows strength of character when it's needed.
And it is needed, because much of the last part of the book is an extended sequence of trials, beginning with a conjured snowstorm, in which the various characters battle with and against the power of the Tarots for what they value - which is ultimately each other, or at least human connection. The language is heightened, almost poetic, and a few times we get sentences that go on and on for a page or more because the author is so caught up in his own attempts to describe something that is, ultimately, indescribable.
It's a rich meal. There's a lot of depth of thought behind it, which isn't dished out in expository lumps but alluded to in the context of the events; you'd probably have to read Williams' nonfiction works to really get to grips with all he was talking about, and even then you might not grasp it. But it's also a tension-filled, compelling story, and succeeds very well at that level, and also at the level of depicting ordinary human characters with flaws who are nevertheless and at the same time also creatures of great cosmic dignity and importance. I'm not aware of anyone writing today who can come anywhere close to it; contemporary "cosmic" fiction tends to be philosophically shallow, New Agey and amateurishly written, in my experience, though perhaps that's sample bias.
It's rich enough that I wouldn't want to make a steady diet of it, and I won't jump straight into another Williams (I bought a few of the ebooks when they were on sale some time ago). But it definitely belongs on my Best of the Year list for 2022.
I read it first while at university in the late 1980s; a friend owned most of the novels in paperback, and lent them to me. This version from Open Road is, not typically for them, quite a clean scan, with only a couple of minor errors.
Williams wrote books that these days would be described as "cosmic," based on his own mystical Christian theology combined with occult symbolism, and nowhere is this more marked than in this book, based on the Tarot. The premise is that the original Tarot deck has turned up in a collection of rare old card decks left to a middle-aged, fussy, irritable Englishman by a friend of his. By coincidence (which I assume we are supposed to conclude was orchestrated by cosmic powers), his daughter is engaged, or something very similar to engaged, to a man of Roma descent, whose grandfather is the keeper of a set of magically animated three-dimensional images of the Tarot that was separated from the deck many years before. The young man wants to reunite them, and invites the cards' new owner, the daughter, and the owner's saintly maiden sister to his grandfather's house for Christmas.
When I say "saintly," she is saintly in very much a mystical, meditative way, not at all in the sense of being dreamy, but in that she is just herself and is always perfectly content with whatever happens and completely surrendered, in a quiet and unspectacular way, to the will of Divine Love. It's difficult to convey exactly what she's like; Williams does it brilliantly and memorably. She is, at the same time, very ordinary and completely extraordinary, and in many ways she is the heroine of the story, except that her niece Nancy is also, in a different and more active way, the heroine of the story.
English books of the early 20th century often have these middle-class characters who are more or less lacking in self-insight and more or less ridiculous as a result, who get mercilessly mocked by the author for it; that's not what Williams does, though it at first looks as if he might. Mr. Coningsby, for example, the owner of the cards, is a man of very limited insight, but he's not actually a bad person, or cowardly, or despicable, when it comes down to it. Even Ralph, his son, who at first seems like one of the vague English wasters so often encountered in P.G. Wodehouse, shows strength of character when it's needed.
And it is needed, because much of the last part of the book is an extended sequence of trials, beginning with a conjured snowstorm, in which the various characters battle with and against the power of the Tarots for what they value - which is ultimately each other, or at least human connection. The language is heightened, almost poetic, and a few times we get sentences that go on and on for a page or more because the author is so caught up in his own attempts to describe something that is, ultimately, indescribable.
It's a rich meal. There's a lot of depth of thought behind it, which isn't dished out in expository lumps but alluded to in the context of the events; you'd probably have to read Williams' nonfiction works to really get to grips with all he was talking about, and even then you might not grasp it. But it's also a tension-filled, compelling story, and succeeds very well at that level, and also at the level of depicting ordinary human characters with flaws who are nevertheless and at the same time also creatures of great cosmic dignity and importance. I'm not aware of anyone writing today who can come anywhere close to it; contemporary "cosmic" fiction tends to be philosophically shallow, New Agey and amateurishly written, in my experience, though perhaps that's sample bias.
It's rich enough that I wouldn't want to make a steady diet of it, and I won't jump straight into another Williams (I bought a few of the ebooks when they were on sale some time ago). But it definitely belongs on my Best of the Year list for 2022.
March 5, 2024
I felt a bit lost while reading The Greater Trumps, partially because it is a deliberately strange novel, partially because I'm not entirely sure Williams held a concrete picture of physical events in every scene, and partially because I don't know anything about tarot and very little about Egyptian gods/goddesses.
I believe it was Evensong by Gail Godwin where I read a quotation about prayer that made me want to read its origin source. Worth it. I tracked with Williams' message so much, I felt like it was written just for me! But I also find it hard to track with dream sequences (Phantastes) and even though the fantasy portions of The Greater Trumps are not dream sequences...they are mystical-vision-coded and were similarly hard for my wee brain to follow.
Aunt Sybil was a real highlight, and Nancy sure grew on me. They and Lothair made me think that The Greater Trumps is like the weird spiritualist cousin of The Fortnight in September. I know that doesn't make a lick of sense without context but they were published in 1932 and 1931, respectively, and I feel like both novels are answering some of the same questions in discrete ways.
This is also a Christmas book in the sense that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. And I feel I'm free-associating with The Greater Trumps all over the place now because I have such a small frame of reference with which to connect it. A grown-up, 1930s, occult version of A Wrinkle in Time! That's the one.
Overall, I'm still gathering my thoughts. I don't think I could completely pick them all up and order them until I've read The Greater Trumps a few more times. The weirdness I was promised in Williams was present in spades. There was also a humor and down-to-earth humanity I did not expect and greatly enjoyed. I am not coming up with any deep thoughts but am savoring the passages I've quoted from below.
-----
"'The mystery of love.' But what else was in her heart? The Christmas associations of the verse had fallen away....'Rise to adore the mystery of love.' What on earth were they doing, singing about the mystery of love in church? They couldn't possibly be meaning it. Or were they meaning it and had she misunderstood the whole thing?" (122-123)
"[Sybil] emptied her mind of all thoughts and pictures; she held it empty till the sudden change in it gave her the consciousness of the spreading out of the stronger will within; then she allowed that now unimportant daily mind to bear the image and memory of Nancy into its presence. She did not, in the ordinary sense, 'pray for' Nancy; she did not presume to suggest to Omniscience what it would be a thoroughly good thing if It did. She merely held her own thought of Nancy stable in the midst of Omniscience. She hoped Nancy wouldn't mind, if she knew." (157)
"Nothing was certain, but everything was safe--that was part of the mystery of Love." (221-222)
I believe it was Evensong by Gail Godwin where I read a quotation about prayer that made me want to read its origin source. Worth it. I tracked with Williams' message so much, I felt like it was written just for me! But I also find it hard to track with dream sequences (Phantastes) and even though the fantasy portions of The Greater Trumps are not dream sequences...they are mystical-vision-coded and were similarly hard for my wee brain to follow.
Aunt Sybil was a real highlight, and Nancy sure grew on me. They and Lothair made me think that The Greater Trumps is like the weird spiritualist cousin of The Fortnight in September. I know that doesn't make a lick of sense without context but they were published in 1932 and 1931, respectively, and I feel like both novels are answering some of the same questions in discrete ways.
This is also a Christmas book in the sense that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. And I feel I'm free-associating with The Greater Trumps all over the place now because I have such a small frame of reference with which to connect it. A grown-up, 1930s, occult version of A Wrinkle in Time! That's the one.
Overall, I'm still gathering my thoughts. I don't think I could completely pick them all up and order them until I've read The Greater Trumps a few more times. The weirdness I was promised in Williams was present in spades. There was also a humor and down-to-earth humanity I did not expect and greatly enjoyed. I am not coming up with any deep thoughts but am savoring the passages I've quoted from below.
-----
"'The mystery of love.' But what else was in her heart? The Christmas associations of the verse had fallen away....'Rise to adore the mystery of love.' What on earth were they doing, singing about the mystery of love in church? They couldn't possibly be meaning it. Or were they meaning it and had she misunderstood the whole thing?" (122-123)
"[Sybil] emptied her mind of all thoughts and pictures; she held it empty till the sudden change in it gave her the consciousness of the spreading out of the stronger will within; then she allowed that now unimportant daily mind to bear the image and memory of Nancy into its presence. She did not, in the ordinary sense, 'pray for' Nancy; she did not presume to suggest to Omniscience what it would be a thoroughly good thing if It did. She merely held her own thought of Nancy stable in the midst of Omniscience. She hoped Nancy wouldn't mind, if she knew." (157)
"Nothing was certain, but everything was safe--that was part of the mystery of Love." (221-222)
August 14, 2008
This was assigned reading in one of my college courses, presented, in the words of my professor, as a graphic example of how not to write a book. My professor was right. This is NOT how a book should be written. I resented the time I had to spend reading this dreck.
March 8, 2016
I really wanted to like this one, but it just doesn't work as a story. And, stylistically, it was a little too self-conscious. (I imagine Williams at his writing desk looking over his shoulder at the works of Virginia Woolf on the shelf.) As for his theology, a bit too fuzzy, a bit too romantic for my taste; and, regrettably, marked with that smug self-satisfaction typified in the theological writings of his fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis.
March 1, 2024
Just barely cracked 4 stars for me.
Really enjoyed it, but Williams got a little heavy handed at times. Till We Have Faces is such good example of a story that masks meaning in myth without ever smacking you with it; The Greater Trumps crossed that line a few times.
Otherwise, though, very enjoyable. The moments where Williams as theologian shone through piqued my interest. I’ll need to read some of his nonfiction now, too.
Overall, worthwhile. And this will probably be one I read again.
Really enjoyed it, but Williams got a little heavy handed at times. Till We Have Faces is such good example of a story that masks meaning in myth without ever smacking you with it; The Greater Trumps crossed that line a few times.
Otherwise, though, very enjoyable. The moments where Williams as theologian shone through piqued my interest. I’ll need to read some of his nonfiction now, too.
Overall, worthwhile. And this will probably be one I read again.
February 22, 2018
Summary: An legacy of a singular pack of tarot cards that correspond to images of the Greater Trumps arranged in a dance on a platform of gold in the retreat of a gypsy master drives his grandson to risk love and life to uncover the powers of the cards.
Charles Williams is known as one of the members of the Inklings who wrote supernatural fantasy thrillers. Lesser known was his interest in the occult arts, particularly through the influence of A. E. Waite and his Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. This work reflects some of those interests, centered around the Tarot.
Lothair Coningsby, an English civil servant of undistinguished refinement, inherits a small legacy from a friend including various packs of cards. Among them is a most unusual early set of Tarot cards representing the Greater Trumps, a suit of twenty-two cards. As it happens, his daughter Nancy is deeply in love with Henry Lee, a descendant of Gypsies, whose grandfather, Aaron is a master who has devoted his life to the studies of occult mysteries. In his home is an inner sanctum with a gold table on which the figures of the Greater Trumps are arranged in the dance. When Henry sees the cards he realizes that they are the exact visual counterparts of the statues on his grandfather's table. To bring the cards together with the statues would be to unleash great power, and great insights into the mysteries of the universe.
Henry explains their powers to Nancy:
“It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”
There is only one problem. Coningsby will not part with the cards. So Henry and his grandfather invite the Coningsbys to spend the Christmas holidays. This includes not only Lothair and Nancy, but also Sybil, the most spiritually centered, who seems to have a mystical communion with the world about her, and brother Ralph, a young man who lives in a common-sense, practical world. Coningsby reluctantly brings the cards and permits them to be tested in the presence of the figures, which come to life in a glorious dance. When Coningsby continues to withhold the cards, Henry determines to "borrow" the cards, and use them to whip up a super cyclonic snow storm to strand Lothair, out for his Christmas walk, and bring about his death.
He succeeds in whipping up the storm, but Nancy catches him in the act, disrupting his efforts, but also the power to end the storm. Lothair is saved when Sybil braves the storm, and with the help of Henry's half-crazed Aunt Joanna, brings him back to the house. But this is only a temporary respite as the unleashed powers behind the snow storm threaten the destruction of the house, and all those in it.
Is there a power greater than that unleashed by the cards? When arcane knowledge cannot save, is there anything else that can? Nancy, Sybil, and even Lothair and Henry in their own ways choose in different ways to lay down their lives. Will they succeed, and what will happen to them in the process? What will happen to crazed Joanna, and will she find the lost child?
Like William's other works, seemingly unremarkable people in an ordinary English village and manor house become caught up supernatural events reflecting unleashed spiritual powers in a sequence of fantastic and sometimes bizarre events (like the gold cloud). Christians who have reservations reading about the "occult" may decide this work is not for them. Yet what Williams portrays is both the perils of the pursuit of spiritual power and hidden knowledge, and the great power of love.
Charles Williams is known as one of the members of the Inklings who wrote supernatural fantasy thrillers. Lesser known was his interest in the occult arts, particularly through the influence of A. E. Waite and his Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. This work reflects some of those interests, centered around the Tarot.
Lothair Coningsby, an English civil servant of undistinguished refinement, inherits a small legacy from a friend including various packs of cards. Among them is a most unusual early set of Tarot cards representing the Greater Trumps, a suit of twenty-two cards. As it happens, his daughter Nancy is deeply in love with Henry Lee, a descendant of Gypsies, whose grandfather, Aaron is a master who has devoted his life to the studies of occult mysteries. In his home is an inner sanctum with a gold table on which the figures of the Greater Trumps are arranged in the dance. When Henry sees the cards he realizes that they are the exact visual counterparts of the statues on his grandfather's table. To bring the cards together with the statues would be to unleash great power, and great insights into the mysteries of the universe.
Henry explains their powers to Nancy:
“It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”
There is only one problem. Coningsby will not part with the cards. So Henry and his grandfather invite the Coningsbys to spend the Christmas holidays. This includes not only Lothair and Nancy, but also Sybil, the most spiritually centered, who seems to have a mystical communion with the world about her, and brother Ralph, a young man who lives in a common-sense, practical world. Coningsby reluctantly brings the cards and permits them to be tested in the presence of the figures, which come to life in a glorious dance. When Coningsby continues to withhold the cards, Henry determines to "borrow" the cards, and use them to whip up a super cyclonic snow storm to strand Lothair, out for his Christmas walk, and bring about his death.
He succeeds in whipping up the storm, but Nancy catches him in the act, disrupting his efforts, but also the power to end the storm. Lothair is saved when Sybil braves the storm, and with the help of Henry's half-crazed Aunt Joanna, brings him back to the house. But this is only a temporary respite as the unleashed powers behind the snow storm threaten the destruction of the house, and all those in it.
Is there a power greater than that unleashed by the cards? When arcane knowledge cannot save, is there anything else that can? Nancy, Sybil, and even Lothair and Henry in their own ways choose in different ways to lay down their lives. Will they succeed, and what will happen to them in the process? What will happen to crazed Joanna, and will she find the lost child?
Like William's other works, seemingly unremarkable people in an ordinary English village and manor house become caught up supernatural events reflecting unleashed spiritual powers in a sequence of fantastic and sometimes bizarre events (like the gold cloud). Christians who have reservations reading about the "occult" may decide this work is not for them. Yet what Williams portrays is both the perils of the pursuit of spiritual power and hidden knowledge, and the great power of love.
September 15, 2024
Sooooo boring. I read 20% of the book and nothing had happened except for some vaguely racist gypsy talk.
June 2, 2020
Before I review the book, I want to correct a great deal of misinformation that I have seen in other reviews of his books. Yes, Charles Williams was a late addition to the Inklings writing group, whose other members were C.S. Lewis, Warren “Warnie” Lewis, Owen Barfield, J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, Nevill Coghill, David Cecil, J.A.W. Bennett, James Dundas-Grant, Adam Fox, Colin Hardie, Robert E. “Humphrey” Havard, Gervase Mathew, R.B. McCallum, C.E. Stevens, John Wain, and C.L. Wren. They met weekly on Thursday nights in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College to share their writing and get feedback from one another. It was a revolving attendance with only a few there every week. While they did meet on Tuesdays at The Eagle and Child (“The Bird and Baby”) for lunch, the discussions were informal, if not often boisterous, and centered around current events, philosophy or theology. Somehow this storied history was morphed into, “The Inklings were C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers. They met at The Bird and Baby to talk about their work.” While not an actual member of the Inklings, Sayers was a good friend of Lewis and would often seek his opinion on her writing and give her feedback on his. A great source of information on this amazing creative collaboration is the wonderful book, Bandersnatch, by Diana Pavlac Glyer.
This is the third book by Williams that I have read. Even though they are all about a variety of semi-occultic subjects and generally have very spiritual underpinnings, they are most consistently about one thing, love. Not love for your puppy or your spouse, but real LOVE. Agape love. The kind of unconditional, unselfish love wherein we would willingly give ourselves up to save another. Even if that other is a stranger or rather unlovable. It is the kind of love that gives itself away in waves and gladly takes on the pain of others. In essence, it is about Co-inherence, which was a belief held by Williams and spawned groups of followers. Essentially, it is the taking of the pain and guilt of another onto yourself and giving them love and forgiveness in return. The idea being that if a group took it on, a burden shared was a burden lessened. This is based on the idea that we share the divine interrelationship of the Trinity and we should mirror that in our connections with each other. Williams continually stresses the freedom that comes with full, unfettered love. Freedom from judgment, of yourself and the other, and full, sincere acceptance. We recognize the imperfections of others and still love. A world that truly embraced this would be a wonderful world indeed. Williams did his part to make it that way. If only everyone else would, starting with me.
This is the third book by Williams that I have read. Even though they are all about a variety of semi-occultic subjects and generally have very spiritual underpinnings, they are most consistently about one thing, love. Not love for your puppy or your spouse, but real LOVE. Agape love. The kind of unconditional, unselfish love wherein we would willingly give ourselves up to save another. Even if that other is a stranger or rather unlovable. It is the kind of love that gives itself away in waves and gladly takes on the pain of others. In essence, it is about Co-inherence, which was a belief held by Williams and spawned groups of followers. Essentially, it is the taking of the pain and guilt of another onto yourself and giving them love and forgiveness in return. The idea being that if a group took it on, a burden shared was a burden lessened. This is based on the idea that we share the divine interrelationship of the Trinity and we should mirror that in our connections with each other. Williams continually stresses the freedom that comes with full, unfettered love. Freedom from judgment, of yourself and the other, and full, sincere acceptance. We recognize the imperfections of others and still love. A world that truly embraced this would be a wonderful world indeed. Williams did his part to make it that way. If only everyone else would, starting with me.
December 19, 2015
A couple of weeks ago my Dad and I went to John K. King Rare and Used Books in downtown Detroit (a remarkable place, I highly recommend it) for the express purpose of seeking out the novels of Charles Williams. For those familiar with the name, he is mostly remembered as "The Third Inkling." The Inklings were an informal early to mid-twentieth century Oxford literary group that famously included C.S Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield, amongst others. I recently read a stellar book about The Inklings, and it kindled for me an interest in Williams' work.
My Dad and I were able to find three of Williams seven novels, in three different sections of the store, amusingly; the three sections being general fiction, Christianity, and fantasy. Williams wrote what have been called "spiritual thrillers," with his High Anglican faith always carefully weaved into the books' mystical themes and plot lines. Amongst those who greatly admired Williams' novels were C.S. Lewis, T.S. Elliott, W.H. Auden, and Dorothy Sayers. The three novels of his that Dad and I found were Many Dimensions, Shadows of Ecstasy, and the one being reviewed here, The Greater Trumps.
So, what about the actual book, you ask? I liked it but didn't love it. Williams had an incredible imagination and was a profound thinker, of that there can be no doubt. There were moments in the plot that thrilled me, and there were ideas that stimulated my intellect; at other times I was frustrated by the obscure syntax and by the sense that I wasn't quite "getting" what Williams was after. I really want to hunt down copies of his three most highly regarded novels, those being The Place of the Lion, Descent into Hell, and All Hallow's Eve. My Dad at one time owned paperbacks of the latter two; we scoured his house, but they seem to have been lost. I see they are available on Amazon, although when it comes to rare books, that always feels a little like cheating... I will definitely read more of this fascinating writer's work, I find him to be worth the considerable challenge his style presents. Others may well disagree...
My Dad and I were able to find three of Williams seven novels, in three different sections of the store, amusingly; the three sections being general fiction, Christianity, and fantasy. Williams wrote what have been called "spiritual thrillers," with his High Anglican faith always carefully weaved into the books' mystical themes and plot lines. Amongst those who greatly admired Williams' novels were C.S. Lewis, T.S. Elliott, W.H. Auden, and Dorothy Sayers. The three novels of his that Dad and I found were Many Dimensions, Shadows of Ecstasy, and the one being reviewed here, The Greater Trumps.
So, what about the actual book, you ask? I liked it but didn't love it. Williams had an incredible imagination and was a profound thinker, of that there can be no doubt. There were moments in the plot that thrilled me, and there were ideas that stimulated my intellect; at other times I was frustrated by the obscure syntax and by the sense that I wasn't quite "getting" what Williams was after. I really want to hunt down copies of his three most highly regarded novels, those being The Place of the Lion, Descent into Hell, and All Hallow's Eve. My Dad at one time owned paperbacks of the latter two; we scoured his house, but they seem to have been lost. I see they are available on Amazon, although when it comes to rare books, that always feels a little like cheating... I will definitely read more of this fascinating writer's work, I find him to be worth the considerable challenge his style presents. Others may well disagree...
November 28, 2022
I picked up this 1932 book because it was cited affectionately by a number of commenters in an article about stories about the Tarot. I like a good story about mysterious workings of the world, so I thought I'd check it out.
This is one of those stories that is probably remembered fondly in distant hindsight, but doesn't hold up as well today. The Tarot are associated with gipsies (as Williams calls them) and there are some derogatory stereotypes delivered throughout. Also a slur involving minstrel shows.
Besides that, the language is old-fashioned, very formal with some very long run-on sentences with multiple dependent clauses, especially when the author is straining for a philosophical metaphor. This is the type of book that dwells on Love (capitalized when he's talking about it as a concept, but not when referred to between two characters), in almost maudlin terms.
The actual portrayal of the Tarot and the characters who manifest themselves from it is pretty good, and suitably creepy and ambiguous. The final scene with the 'golden mist' taking over the house is effective.
However, the book's language is so difficult to wade through in many places that it's not a comfortable read. And then there's those stereotyped portrayals. All in all, not pleasant.
This is one of those stories that is probably remembered fondly in distant hindsight, but doesn't hold up as well today. The Tarot are associated with gipsies (as Williams calls them) and there are some derogatory stereotypes delivered throughout. Also a slur involving minstrel shows.
Besides that, the language is old-fashioned, very formal with some very long run-on sentences with multiple dependent clauses, especially when the author is straining for a philosophical metaphor. This is the type of book that dwells on Love (capitalized when he's talking about it as a concept, but not when referred to between two characters), in almost maudlin terms.
The actual portrayal of the Tarot and the characters who manifest themselves from it is pretty good, and suitably creepy and ambiguous. The final scene with the 'golden mist' taking over the house is effective.
However, the book's language is so difficult to wade through in many places that it's not a comfortable read. And then there's those stereotyped portrayals. All in all, not pleasant.
May 13, 2024
As much as I hate to say it, given how much I still treasure the experience of reading Descent Into Hell—a book that I think does hold up somewhat—this one sucked. A bumbling vehicle for Williams’ idiosyncratic (but not in an interesting way) Christian theology, peopled by characters somehow both robotic and melodramatic. A story that goes nowhere but abstraction—I had to really push through the last bits. So boring. Just really bad tbh, and I am predisposed on a number of levels to approach this one generously. Two stars rather than one because it’s a book only Williams could’ve written, and he went for it.
April 17, 2022
On re-reading it, I lost patience partway through. The beginning is promising, but the mist/mystical stuff leaves me cold. I didn't care about the hands, or the lovers, or Love, or the commentary on the characters, or the run-on sentences, etc., etc.
July 21, 2009
My favorite of CW fiction.
May 14, 2025
Loooooooved this. What and insanely interesting and original concept. With the strength in prose of his companions Tolkien and Lewis the story is incredibly visceral and well-defined yet completely otherworldly. The ability to write like this is evident in but a few.
Though it was partially slow-moving in the beginning, the later 2/3 of this book were fast-paced and suspenseful but still successfully developed these characters with such tender care.
HOWEVER I have to reduce this too a 3.5 because of racism and sexism so casually woven into the story, and so unnecessarily. I fear if you're using the n-word off-handedly as a part of a list you may not need it to begin with! Also deffo racist towards Romani people that was like the whole beginning of the book.
"mystical womanhood, unprotected helplessness, was abandoned within and must be saved" Give me a BREAK.
Though it was partially slow-moving in the beginning, the later 2/3 of this book were fast-paced and suspenseful but still successfully developed these characters with such tender care.
HOWEVER I have to reduce this too a 3.5 because of racism and sexism so casually woven into the story, and so unnecessarily. I fear if you're using the n-word off-handedly as a part of a list you may not need it to begin with! Also deffo racist towards Romani people that was like the whole beginning of the book.
"mystical womanhood, unprotected helplessness, was abandoned within and must be saved" Give me a BREAK.
November 12, 2021
Nearly finished with a reread of this astonishing man's novels. Either he was a witch, a mystic, or a heavy user of drugs.
January 8, 2021
Reading this book was the equivalent of picking at a super-tough shoelace knot for multiple hours. It's a weird shape, it's irritating, little bits of fluff come off if you use anything sharp, and you get massive rushes of serotonin every time a new bit comes free. Every time I turned a page, I found a sentence worthy of ALL the cross-stitching...and I also found something that made me want to throw it against the wall.
This is very much a book of its time, which is seen so clearly in its structure, prose, and character. It's structure is more of a three-act play than a true novel--the first part reads more like a traditional thriller of the time, the second act is more of a locked-room murder mystery where the tool is an uncontrollable supernatural force, and the third act is a giant metaphysical morality allegory where everyone is on shrooms. While I'm actually a fan of all three types of writing AND am fine with all three in the same book, such a weird "shape" of the plot would have worked better if Williams had done a bit more with his characters. While I understand is a bit unfair to "ding" a genre author from this particular time period on character depth, I truly think stronger characters would have grounded the story a bit.
Additionally, its prose--again, reminiscent of the time it was written-- firmly bucked against the modern trend of beautifully flowing sentences that your eyes just fly over and were constructed in a way that forced the reader to slow down, chew carefully, and re-read almost everything. It wasn't that the writing was particularly hard, it was more that Williams wrote in a stilted manner similar to the opening of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House, where everything was just a few degrees off, forcing the reader to hunker down for a closer look.
However, the one thing about this book that propelled it out of "average old stuff that we only read to better understand the genre" was the sheer originality that popped off the page. Charles Williams looked at all the crazy experimental writing being done by his contemporaries and told them to hold his beer. Williams literally stepped up and said, "I'm going to write a book outlining how Platonic ideals, Kantian philosophy, and Christianity can all be combined. As a side note, I will also talk about undeserved love. Oh, and I'll do it with a plot about Tarot cards. You know, the things that tend to make people in the latter two groups squirm."
...And it somehow worked.
I just know I'm going to have to read this book again, hopefully with Google and essays on the subjects he addresses on hand. Williams is much smarter than me, and most of this read was me just squinting, shrugging, and moving on. While a slow "second act", meh character work, and a little too much overly chewy prose force me to give this 3/5, I'm definitely down to attack more of his stuff.
This is very much a book of its time, which is seen so clearly in its structure, prose, and character. It's structure is more of a three-act play than a true novel--the first part reads more like a traditional thriller of the time, the second act is more of a locked-room murder mystery where the tool is an uncontrollable supernatural force, and the third act is a giant metaphysical morality allegory where everyone is on shrooms. While I'm actually a fan of all three types of writing AND am fine with all three in the same book, such a weird "shape" of the plot would have worked better if Williams had done a bit more with his characters. While I understand is a bit unfair to "ding" a genre author from this particular time period on character depth, I truly think stronger characters would have grounded the story a bit.
Additionally, its prose--again, reminiscent of the time it was written-- firmly bucked against the modern trend of beautifully flowing sentences that your eyes just fly over and were constructed in a way that forced the reader to slow down, chew carefully, and re-read almost everything. It wasn't that the writing was particularly hard, it was more that Williams wrote in a stilted manner similar to the opening of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House, where everything was just a few degrees off, forcing the reader to hunker down for a closer look.
However, the one thing about this book that propelled it out of "average old stuff that we only read to better understand the genre" was the sheer originality that popped off the page. Charles Williams looked at all the crazy experimental writing being done by his contemporaries and told them to hold his beer. Williams literally stepped up and said, "I'm going to write a book outlining how Platonic ideals, Kantian philosophy, and Christianity can all be combined. As a side note, I will also talk about undeserved love. Oh, and I'll do it with a plot about Tarot cards. You know, the things that tend to make people in the latter two groups squirm."
...And it somehow worked.
I just know I'm going to have to read this book again, hopefully with Google and essays on the subjects he addresses on hand. Williams is much smarter than me, and most of this read was me just squinting, shrugging, and moving on. While a slow "second act", meh character work, and a little too much overly chewy prose force me to give this 3/5, I'm definitely down to attack more of his stuff.
November 2, 2015
Williams could have done so much more than he did with the raw material of the novel's premises, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The "original" Tarot deck is rediscovered by a Gypsy family who are guardians of its companion set of magical figures. Supernatural mischief ensues when they attempt to steal it and wield their combined powers. CW's Romantic Theology heavily informs the plot.
What I enjoyed most about this novel in comparison to the previous four, is that it is the least overtly Christian. If not for a few passages on the Athanasian Creed and knowledge of his quirky theology, one could read this as "generically" supernatural fiction. It is also interesting that the holy object is entirely occult in origin in contrast to the Graal and Stone (War in Heaven and Many Dimensions respectively) which are both rooted in Abrahamic faith. This has a universalist subtext that will not sit well with typical Christians (I can hear my Bible college professors shouting "syncretism" as if that's an insult), but I consider a strength. The portrayal of Romantic Theology can also be read non-dogmatically, even secularly--although this effect is destroyed by reading his Outlines of Romantic Theology as I am doing now.
P.S. Check out The Oddest Inkling's review as well.
What I enjoyed most about this novel in comparison to the previous four, is that it is the least overtly Christian. If not for a few passages on the Athanasian Creed and knowledge of his quirky theology, one could read this as "generically" supernatural fiction. It is also interesting that the holy object is entirely occult in origin in contrast to the Graal and Stone (War in Heaven and Many Dimensions respectively) which are both rooted in Abrahamic faith. This has a universalist subtext that will not sit well with typical Christians (I can hear my Bible college professors shouting "syncretism" as if that's an insult), but I consider a strength. The portrayal of Romantic Theology can also be read non-dogmatically, even secularly--although this effect is destroyed by reading his Outlines of Romantic Theology as I am doing now.
P.S. Check out The Oddest Inkling's review as well.
September 24, 2007
Williams is the least known of the Inklings, the group of writers who met weekly in a pub in Oxford. (The others are C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Dorothy Sayers.)
Like Lewis, he was a devout Christian, and all his novels, adult fantasies, are written to teach something. His background is complex, though. He was active in several esoteric groups for years before committing to Christianity and I find the influence those teachings as dominant as the Christian themes in his books.
The Greater Trumps is about the Tarot and serves as a good introduction to it. It's full of frightening scenes and the characters are well-drawn.
I think all of Williams' novels are worth reading as curiosities, as introductions to esoteric ideas, or as very original understandings of Christian thought.
They're pretty compelling as novels, too, but they're dated....less...more
Like Lewis, he was a devout Christian, and all his novels, adult fantasies, are written to teach something. His background is complex, though. He was active in several esoteric groups for years before committing to Christianity and I find the influence those teachings as dominant as the Christian themes in his books.
The Greater Trumps is about the Tarot and serves as a good introduction to it. It's full of frightening scenes and the characters are well-drawn.
I think all of Williams' novels are worth reading as curiosities, as introductions to esoteric ideas, or as very original understandings of Christian thought.
They're pretty compelling as novels, too, but they're dated....less...more
February 13, 2016
I don't have the vocabulary or the depth of intellect to analyze the attraction I feel for the novels of Charles Williams. I've each one at least four times, and I nurture the hope that if I keep reading them, eventually I will understand them.
Part of the problem is that his writing is deeply imbue with Christian theology, and yet he was a friend of the occult as well, a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. His understanding of Tarot is as deep as that of Christianity. In this book he merges the two, or rather reconciles what might appear to be contradictions and conflict between them.
All his books tantalize this way with the feeling that there is something in the subtext or just on the edge of understanding, that if we could fathom, all would be revealed.
Endlessly fascinating.
Part of the problem is that his writing is deeply imbue with Christian theology, and yet he was a friend of the occult as well, a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. His understanding of Tarot is as deep as that of Christianity. In this book he merges the two, or rather reconciles what might appear to be contradictions and conflict between them.
All his books tantalize this way with the feeling that there is something in the subtext or just on the edge of understanding, that if we could fathom, all would be revealed.
Endlessly fascinating.
July 9, 2020
The first half of this book is delightful, shaping up to be among William’s best. But for me the experience instantly and completely collapsed during the chapter “Nancy.” Sybil’s glib mysticism becomes hard to stomach, and when it infects Nancy, who proceeds, from a state of shock, to whisper sweet nothings to her user-lover, the man who tried to use sorcery to kill her father and instead unleashed potential destruction on the world, the story loses all plausibility for me and its saccharine sweetness becomes nauseating. I love William’s settings and concepts, his characters are never terrible, his prose is engaging if a little opaque at times, and his theology is, usually, at least intriguing. But here it becomes merely silly, taking the rest of an otherwise fine construct with it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 12, 2021
Charles Williams novels can struggle when the protagonist achieves enlightenment and sounds much less charming than they did 20 minutes ago, and this one solves that problem nicely by moving some of the enlightenment into something else. Also love its sympathetic, almost fatherly understanding of the unenlightened figures left to deal with its ending.
September 12, 2013
Intriguing 1/3, so-so second third, atrocious ending.
May 24, 2017
Excellent
Great read. Very mysterious and the writing creates a unique mood. Williams is a master craftsman. It's hard to believe thiswas written so long ago,
Great read. Very mysterious and the writing creates a unique mood. Williams is a master craftsman. It's hard to believe thiswas written so long ago,
April 15, 2023
goes all in on the mystical and otherworldly and the story benefits from it.
October 3, 2021
You may wonder how I--who make humble attempts at spiritual fiction writing--can dare to give a novel by Charles Williams--close companion of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis--a 3 star review? I do not presume to judge the book on its own merits, but offer this review of my subjective experience reading the book. The Greater Trumps is an allegorical fantasy, similar in genre to the fictional works of George MacDonald and CS Lewis. The storyline is based on the images of the tarot deck (with, I believe, some variations from the Rider-Waite version). It involves a holiday meeting of two families, connected by the engagement of the son and daughter, and greater cosmic forces mirrored by the cards. My enjoyment of the book was lessened by the nature of the work; unlike the spiritual fantasies written by MacDonald or Lewis, The Greater Trumps makes sense only on the level of a metaphor. At the Back of The North Wind or Out of the Silent Planet or The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, can be enjoyed as good stories in their own right, even if the reader does not understand fully the Christian symbolism. The metaphors serve as an additional level to a good rousing tale. By contrast, The Greater Trumps relies on the readers' knowledge of both Tarot and also Christian theology: lacking these connections, it seems like a lump of one-dimensional characters and absurd happenings. Williams does offer valuable insights into reality: I intend to quote the novel at several points in future sermons and I wish I had written an essay on this one for the seminary class that I took on mythopoetic fiction. But I would have been as happy if he had written "An Essay on Christianity and the Tarot Deck," and not tried to pass it off as a narrative.
November 24, 2021
Williams' writing is filled with ecstatic wonder. The world we see is not the totality of the world, rather, there exist potent and tangible forces of Love at work. While I can't help but imagine Ted Dekker and Frank E. Peretti were inspired by Williams, he outdoes both simply by consistently portraying this more real reality with wonder rather than fear. It's telling that Williams' avenue to the divine in this novel is a pack of Tarot cards. He has no typical evangelical fears of "dark evil forces," rather, if there is a transcendent Good in the world, it is forcefully behind everything. More than any theologian or apologetic, Williams' fiction manages to convince me that genuine Christ-like love is not only possible but accessible, and that simply loving our neighbours and sharing their burdens may be the most cosmically important thing a person can do. I didn't understand half of the themes and symbols Williams is working with, but I understand how it made me feel, and sometimes that's just as important.
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