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Screwtape Proposes a Toast
The only official sequel, penned by Lewis himself, to the ever-popular ‘Screwtape Letters’ – published alongside other short essays.
One of the most popular books ever to come from the pen of C.S. Lewis was written in the name of Screwtape, a senior devil, experienced in the art of luring his ‘patients’ on earth to their own damnation in service of ‘our father below’ – and training others to do the same.
Screwtape’s correspondence with his nephew, an apprentice devil, came into Lewis’s hands, he said, by a route he would not disclose, and many a reader has finished the collection longing for more of the insights they gained from its wisdom.
Much to Lewis’s resistance, this after-dinner speech, given by Screwtape to a graduating class of demons at a college in hell, came to light a few years after the publication of the original letters. Now 75 years later, the speech is reproduced in full once more, along with a short collection of Lewis’s other lesser-known, but perennial works.
Many people will have forgotten about the only official ‘sequel’ that exists to Screwtape; the 75th anniversary of Screwtape’s publication is the perfect opportunity to bring this back.
One of the most popular books ever to come from the pen of C.S. Lewis was written in the name of Screwtape, a senior devil, experienced in the art of luring his ‘patients’ on earth to their own damnation in service of ‘our father below’ – and training others to do the same.
Screwtape’s correspondence with his nephew, an apprentice devil, came into Lewis’s hands, he said, by a route he would not disclose, and many a reader has finished the collection longing for more of the insights they gained from its wisdom.
Much to Lewis’s resistance, this after-dinner speech, given by Screwtape to a graduating class of demons at a college in hell, came to light a few years after the publication of the original letters. Now 75 years later, the speech is reproduced in full once more, along with a short collection of Lewis’s other lesser-known, but perennial works.
Many people will have forgotten about the only official ‘sequel’ that exists to Screwtape; the 75th anniversary of Screwtape’s publication is the perfect opportunity to bring this back.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
50 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
C.S. Lewis
1,012 books47.5k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.
Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]
Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.
Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
November 19, 2024
Set at a banquet after the events of the first book. It was quite interesting to me how the demons used celebrities to draw people in and influence them. It's all too true in the real world!
March 11, 2020
Short and to the point. Screwtape is not communicating with Wormwood via letter in this sequel to The Screwtape Letters. Rather, he is addressing the graduating class of devils in a commencement ceremony.
One of the things Lewis hits on heavily here is democracy and the twisted view of many to see the greater good as more important than the individual soul. For example, lowering the expectations on society to the lowest common denominator.
I'd rate this book a PG.
One of the things Lewis hits on heavily here is democracy and the twisted view of many to see the greater good as more important than the individual soul. For example, lowering the expectations on society to the lowest common denominator.
I'd rate this book a PG.
March 7, 2025
This is an interesting piece, written again through the personae of Screwtape, a senior demon, explaining to young demons, about to graduate and set out to capture souls, how their work may be done. What Lewis mostly addresses here is the role education, or a lack thereof, can play in corrupting souls and holding back potential.
Some serious issues addressed, which I think he would be sad to see have gotten worse (as he predicted) instead of better over the years of supposed progress. Written in 1962, I suppose the path had been fairly well laid out in both England and the U.S.
Some serious issues addressed, which I think he would be sad to see have gotten worse (as he predicted) instead of better over the years of supposed progress. Written in 1962, I suppose the path had been fairly well laid out in both England and the U.S.
December 8, 2024
This book hit very differently reading it this time. I believe that is for a few reasons. Some of which are: One I now believe this is part of the Ransom cycle, more on that below. Two looking back on my life from my mid 50’s I can see thinks, I hope, a little better. As a father of three teenagers, and a child in her late 20’s growing up in this day and age I am even more concerned about the trials and temptations they face. I know I read this volume a number of times in University, but that was before I started keeping a list of everything I have read, which I started in October of 1995. At the time of writing this review according to Goodreads there are over 800 editions of The Screwtape Letters available. Interestingly enough some editions contain this work at the end; there are some notes on that in this edition:
“C. S. Lewis had finished putting this book together shortly before his death on 22nd November 1963. It is devoted almost entirely to religion and the pieces are derived from various sources. Some of them have appeared in They Asked for a Paper (Geoffrey Bles, London 1962, 21s.), a collection whose subjects included literature, ethics and theology. ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’ was initially published in Great Britain as part of a hard-covered book called The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast (Geoffrey Bles, London 1961, 12s. 6d.). This consisted of the original ‘The Screwtape Letters’, together with the ‘Toast’, and also a new preface by Lewis. Meantime, ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’ had already appeared in the United States, first as an article in The Saturday Evening Post and then during 1960 in a hard-covered collection, The World’s Last Night (Harcourt Brace and World, New York)”
The preface ends with:
“At the end of his preface to They Asked for a Paper, Lewis wrote: ‘Since these papers were composed at various times during the last twenty years, passages in them which some readers may find reminiscent of my later work are in fact anticipatory or embryonic. I have allowed myself to be persuaded that such overlaps were not a fatal objection to their republication.’ We are delighted that he allowed himself to be persuaded in the same way over this paperback collection of pieces on religious themes.”
Lewis himself in the new preface included in this volume states:
“I was often asked or advised to add to the original “Screwtape Letters”, but for many years I felt not the least inclination to do it. Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment. The ease came, no doubt, from the fact that the device of diabolical letters, once you have thought of it, exploits itself spontaneously, like Swift’s big and little men, or the medical and ethical philosophy of “Erewhon”, as Anstey’s Garuda Stone. It would run away with you for a thousand pages if you gave it its head. But though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.”
And over the years there have been numerous attempts to update or modernize Screwtape including:
Flambeau@Darkcorp.com - Don Hawkings
The Snakebite Letters - Peter J. Kreeft
The Gargoyle Code - Dwight Longenecker
Lord Foulgrin's Letters - Randy Alcorn
As One Devil to Another - Richard Platt
The Gravedigger File - Os Guinness
(Now published as The Last Christian on Earth)
And those are just the ones that come to mind and that I have encountered. I have read half of that list but before I started writing reviews. And from what I recall those I have read paled in comparison to this volume. As can be seen from this list and even Lewis’s own preface Screwtape has often been imitated but never replicated. Even Lewis did not attempt that. The work sin this volume are:
Preface and Acknowledgements
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: An Address
The Inner Ring: An Oration
Is Theology Poetry?: A Paper
On Obstinacy in Belief: A Paper
Transposition: A Sermon
The Weight of Glory: A Sermon
Good Work and Good Works: A Paper
A Slip of the Tongue: A Sermon
Footnotes
About the Author
Other Books By C.S. Lewis
A note before I continue:
Recent scholarship published found a handwritten preface to manuscript edition of The Screwtape Letters in the C.S. Lewis Archive in Wheaton, IL. This note indicates the letters were found and translated by Dr. Ransom. And that they were written in Old Solar. Thus linking the 3 Ransom novels, the 2 Screwtape pieces and the partial fourth Ransom novel into one series. As such this reading of this volume is in the order of it being volume 3 of 6 in that reading order.
I could have read the edition of this piece that was at the end of the letters, but historically I have always read an edition that is separate and I decided to do so again. It is also fitting that the remaining pieces in this collection are derived from sermons, talks, or articles by Leis on the topic of religion, faith and life.
This volume is powerful. But in a very different way the the letters. The first piece is of course my primary concern when reading it as part of the Ransom cycle, but the other pieces fit in well especially as I am now well into That Hideous Strength, as I write this review. I cannot help but feel the other pieces in this serve so well as a counter to N.I.C.E. and what they are trying to achieve. The description of this edition of this work states:
“The only official sequel, penned by Lewis himself, to the ever-popular ‘Screwtape Letters’ – published alongside other short essays.
One of the most popular books ever to come from the pen of C.S. Lewis was written in the name of Screwtape, a senior devil, experienced in the art of luring his ‘patients’ on earth to their own damnation in service of ‘our father below’ – and training others to do the same.
Screwtape’s correspondence with his nephew, an apprentice devil, came into Lewis’s hands, he said, by a route he would not disclose, and many a reader has finished the collection longing for more of the insights they gained from its wisdom.
Much to Lewis’s resistance, this after-dinner speech, given by Screwtape to a graduating class of demons at a college in hell, came to light a few years after the publication of the original letters. Now 75 years later, the speech is reproduced in full once more, along with a short collection of Lewis’s other lesser-known, but perennial works.
Many people will have forgotten about the only official ‘sequel’ that exists to Screwtape; the 75th anniversary of Screwtape’s publication is the perfect opportunity to bring this back.”
I highlighted a few passages while reading this work, some of them are:
“The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.”
“The sort of souls on whose despair and ruin we have—well, I won’t say feasted, but at any rate subsisted—to-night are increasing in numbers and will continue to increase. Our advices from Lower Command assure us that this is so; our directives warn us to orient all our tactics in view of this situation.”
“As for the poor who benefited by this, they were behaving in a most disappointing fashion. Instead of using their new liberties—as we reasonably hoped and expected—for massacre, rape, and looting, or even for perpetual intoxication, they were perversely engaged in becoming cleaner, more orderly, more thrifty, better educated, and even more virtuous. Believe me, gentledevils, the threat of something like a really healthy state of society seemed then perfectly serious.”
“The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid resounding lie.”
“Now this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to the humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices.”
“Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level.”
“All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: “Oh God, make me a normal twentieth-century girl!” Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly, “Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.””
“The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic”.”
“For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering.”
“The ultimate value, for us, of any revolution, war, or famine lies in the individual anguish, treachery, hatred, rage, and despair which it may produce. I’m as good as you is a useful means for the destruction of democratic societies. But it has a far deeper value as an end in itself, as a state of mind, which necessarily excluding humility, charity, contentment, and all the pleasures of gratitude or admiration, turns a human being away from almost every road which might finally lead him to Heaven.”
All of those quotes come from the preface of the Toast. This is one of those volumes that people today will often scoff at or deride, both the toast and most of the other pieces as well. Even in many Christian circles. Those who do take its warnings could face opposition from friends, family and other Christians. But it is an important work, both as part of the Ransom cycle and just on its own. It is a work I am going to encourage my youngest two read.
I have struggled with the works of C.S. Lewis, when I was in university 35ish years ago he was immensely popular in Campus ministry, with evangelicals, and even mainline protestants. I also know many Catholic scholars, teachers and priests who love his works and use them extensively today. There have been debates of weather he would have converted to Catholicism or if he lived a sort of Catholicism. All I know is that I have hardly read any of his books in decades and that was my loss. And after my recent readings I can greatly appreciate why he is loved by both Catholics and evangelicals.
So my recommendation is if you are Catholic, or evangelical or nondenominational that you give this volume a read with an open heart. And see if you are not changed and challenged by the end of the work. And consider reading the Ransom cycle in the order outlined above. By the end of this volume you will see how they all fit so well together and how we are in need of this great wisdom.
“C. S. Lewis had finished putting this book together shortly before his death on 22nd November 1963. It is devoted almost entirely to religion and the pieces are derived from various sources. Some of them have appeared in They Asked for a Paper (Geoffrey Bles, London 1962, 21s.), a collection whose subjects included literature, ethics and theology. ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’ was initially published in Great Britain as part of a hard-covered book called The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast (Geoffrey Bles, London 1961, 12s. 6d.). This consisted of the original ‘The Screwtape Letters’, together with the ‘Toast’, and also a new preface by Lewis. Meantime, ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’ had already appeared in the United States, first as an article in The Saturday Evening Post and then during 1960 in a hard-covered collection, The World’s Last Night (Harcourt Brace and World, New York)”
The preface ends with:
“At the end of his preface to They Asked for a Paper, Lewis wrote: ‘Since these papers were composed at various times during the last twenty years, passages in them which some readers may find reminiscent of my later work are in fact anticipatory or embryonic. I have allowed myself to be persuaded that such overlaps were not a fatal objection to their republication.’ We are delighted that he allowed himself to be persuaded in the same way over this paperback collection of pieces on religious themes.”
Lewis himself in the new preface included in this volume states:
“I was often asked or advised to add to the original “Screwtape Letters”, but for many years I felt not the least inclination to do it. Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment. The ease came, no doubt, from the fact that the device of diabolical letters, once you have thought of it, exploits itself spontaneously, like Swift’s big and little men, or the medical and ethical philosophy of “Erewhon”, as Anstey’s Garuda Stone. It would run away with you for a thousand pages if you gave it its head. But though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.”
And over the years there have been numerous attempts to update or modernize Screwtape including:
Flambeau@Darkcorp.com - Don Hawkings
The Snakebite Letters - Peter J. Kreeft
The Gargoyle Code - Dwight Longenecker
Lord Foulgrin's Letters - Randy Alcorn
As One Devil to Another - Richard Platt
The Gravedigger File - Os Guinness
(Now published as The Last Christian on Earth)
And those are just the ones that come to mind and that I have encountered. I have read half of that list but before I started writing reviews. And from what I recall those I have read paled in comparison to this volume. As can be seen from this list and even Lewis’s own preface Screwtape has often been imitated but never replicated. Even Lewis did not attempt that. The work sin this volume are:
Preface and Acknowledgements
Screwtape Proposes a Toast: An Address
The Inner Ring: An Oration
Is Theology Poetry?: A Paper
On Obstinacy in Belief: A Paper
Transposition: A Sermon
The Weight of Glory: A Sermon
Good Work and Good Works: A Paper
A Slip of the Tongue: A Sermon
Footnotes
About the Author
Other Books By C.S. Lewis
A note before I continue:
Recent scholarship published found a handwritten preface to manuscript edition of The Screwtape Letters in the C.S. Lewis Archive in Wheaton, IL. This note indicates the letters were found and translated by Dr. Ransom. And that they were written in Old Solar. Thus linking the 3 Ransom novels, the 2 Screwtape pieces and the partial fourth Ransom novel into one series. As such this reading of this volume is in the order of it being volume 3 of 6 in that reading order.
I could have read the edition of this piece that was at the end of the letters, but historically I have always read an edition that is separate and I decided to do so again. It is also fitting that the remaining pieces in this collection are derived from sermons, talks, or articles by Leis on the topic of religion, faith and life.
This volume is powerful. But in a very different way the the letters. The first piece is of course my primary concern when reading it as part of the Ransom cycle, but the other pieces fit in well especially as I am now well into That Hideous Strength, as I write this review. I cannot help but feel the other pieces in this serve so well as a counter to N.I.C.E. and what they are trying to achieve. The description of this edition of this work states:
“The only official sequel, penned by Lewis himself, to the ever-popular ‘Screwtape Letters’ – published alongside other short essays.
One of the most popular books ever to come from the pen of C.S. Lewis was written in the name of Screwtape, a senior devil, experienced in the art of luring his ‘patients’ on earth to their own damnation in service of ‘our father below’ – and training others to do the same.
Screwtape’s correspondence with his nephew, an apprentice devil, came into Lewis’s hands, he said, by a route he would not disclose, and many a reader has finished the collection longing for more of the insights they gained from its wisdom.
Much to Lewis’s resistance, this after-dinner speech, given by Screwtape to a graduating class of demons at a college in hell, came to light a few years after the publication of the original letters. Now 75 years later, the speech is reproduced in full once more, along with a short collection of Lewis’s other lesser-known, but perennial works.
Many people will have forgotten about the only official ‘sequel’ that exists to Screwtape; the 75th anniversary of Screwtape’s publication is the perfect opportunity to bring this back.”
I highlighted a few passages while reading this work, some of them are:
“The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.”
“The sort of souls on whose despair and ruin we have—well, I won’t say feasted, but at any rate subsisted—to-night are increasing in numbers and will continue to increase. Our advices from Lower Command assure us that this is so; our directives warn us to orient all our tactics in view of this situation.”
“As for the poor who benefited by this, they were behaving in a most disappointing fashion. Instead of using their new liberties—as we reasonably hoped and expected—for massacre, rape, and looting, or even for perpetual intoxication, they were perversely engaged in becoming cleaner, more orderly, more thrifty, better educated, and even more virtuous. Believe me, gentledevils, the threat of something like a really healthy state of society seemed then perfectly serious.”
“The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid resounding lie.”
“Now this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to the humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices.”
“Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level.”
“All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: “Oh God, make me a normal twentieth-century girl!” Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly, “Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.””
“The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic”.”
“For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering.”
“The ultimate value, for us, of any revolution, war, or famine lies in the individual anguish, treachery, hatred, rage, and despair which it may produce. I’m as good as you is a useful means for the destruction of democratic societies. But it has a far deeper value as an end in itself, as a state of mind, which necessarily excluding humility, charity, contentment, and all the pleasures of gratitude or admiration, turns a human being away from almost every road which might finally lead him to Heaven.”
All of those quotes come from the preface of the Toast. This is one of those volumes that people today will often scoff at or deride, both the toast and most of the other pieces as well. Even in many Christian circles. Those who do take its warnings could face opposition from friends, family and other Christians. But it is an important work, both as part of the Ransom cycle and just on its own. It is a work I am going to encourage my youngest two read.
I have struggled with the works of C.S. Lewis, when I was in university 35ish years ago he was immensely popular in Campus ministry, with evangelicals, and even mainline protestants. I also know many Catholic scholars, teachers and priests who love his works and use them extensively today. There have been debates of weather he would have converted to Catholicism or if he lived a sort of Catholicism. All I know is that I have hardly read any of his books in decades and that was my loss. And after my recent readings I can greatly appreciate why he is loved by both Catholics and evangelicals.
So my recommendation is if you are Catholic, or evangelical or nondenominational that you give this volume a read with an open heart. And see if you are not changed and challenged by the end of the work. And consider reading the Ransom cycle in the order outlined above. By the end of this volume you will see how they all fit so well together and how we are in need of this great wisdom.
September 13, 2018
Fascinating, almost prophetic word to our culture about the direction Satan and his horde of demons want to take our society. Touching on issues of education, government, and the morals of our society this book will make you wonder how CS Lewis could so accurately depict today!
May 6, 2020
A perfect sequel to Lewis's Screwtape Letters, this short story builds on everything good about the original book and in some ways supasses it.
This story features Screwtape giving an after dinner speech to some Oxbridge graduates, sorry I meant demon-school graduates. What a wonderful and inventive setting, I love how both the Screwtape stories have unobtrusive worldbuilding going on in the background. I mean if you think about it Lewis uses setting and mythology in the Narnia series to trick people into reading his doctrine. Isn't this the same thing just a little more transparent. I love it.
Lewis makes some more scathing comments about humanity, all of which hit home. He attacks the state a bit. I love his description of "a twentieth century girl" - " a minx, a moron and a parasite."
He also seems to be prophetic in his prediction of the hipster generation. "The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Maybe I'm old fashioned but he argues very convincingly.
Five stars from me, I cannot fault this story. The perfect epilogue to the Screwtape Letters and a perfect demonstration of how to CAUTIOUSLY AND INFREQUENTLY revisit your characters.
This story features Screwtape giving an after dinner speech to some Oxbridge graduates, sorry I meant demon-school graduates. What a wonderful and inventive setting, I love how both the Screwtape stories have unobtrusive worldbuilding going on in the background. I mean if you think about it Lewis uses setting and mythology in the Narnia series to trick people into reading his doctrine. Isn't this the same thing just a little more transparent. I love it.
Lewis makes some more scathing comments about humanity, all of which hit home. He attacks the state a bit. I love his description of "a twentieth century girl" - " a minx, a moron and a parasite."
He also seems to be prophetic in his prediction of the hipster generation. "The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Maybe I'm old fashioned but he argues very convincingly.
Five stars from me, I cannot fault this story. The perfect epilogue to the Screwtape Letters and a perfect demonstration of how to CAUTIOUSLY AND INFREQUENTLY revisit your characters.
February 16, 2020
En una semana pesada es bueno recordar a quien le perteneces
November 14, 2022
Volné pokračování Rad zkušeného ďábla, ve kterém jde místo pokoušení jednotlivce o pokoušení společnosti. Ďáblíci-zelenáči při slavnostním přípitku dostávají radu, jak do pekla ve velkém dostat hříšníky. Bude stačit překroutit slovo “demokracie” na “nerozdílnost” a “průměrnost”. Lidé, toužící být jen a právě takoví, jako jsou jejich sousedé - tím peklu propadnou nespočetné masy malých a (k tomu, co je na světě důležité) lhostejných hříšníků.
May 24, 2020
Once again enjoying a work by C.S. Lewis. When Lewis wrote this and The Screwtape Letters he dedicated them to J.R.R. Tolkien. This novella (of sorts) is written in a satirical style, A senior Devil is addressing the graduating class of the Devil’s College before being sent out into the World to reek havoc. A delightful read.
January 16, 2021
Merece la pena asomarse a la perspectiva que presenta Lewis con estos libros. Pocas veces he visto de una forma tan sencilla la asunción de la existencia del mal.
March 12, 2013
Un excelente libro que nos hace reflexionar sobre lo que es ser cristiano. Me gusto especialmente "el diablo propone un brindis", "el circulo cerrado", "el peso de la gloria" y "un lapsus linguae" por su capacidad de provocar en el lector una introspección.
March 5, 2019
It's hard to imagine that this commentary was originally published in 1942. It's so very relevant to contemporary "democratic" culture in America, that it could have been written today in 2019.
October 27, 2019
Since I don't own a copy of this story, it was read to me. My ability to create imagery for and comprehend language read to me is better than my ability to comprehend what I read silently or out loud to myself, using the Lindamood-Bell visualizing and verbalizing program. Also short stories should be easier to understand and remember than books, and this one followed The Screwtape Letters, a much more complex and convoluted story. Yet I found it difficult to engage with it. Perhaps it was my fatigue. It was also a lot of stress that badly affected my cognitions.
This story may or may not take place after Screwtape wrote his letters to his nephew Wormwood, but since CS Lewis wrote it a long time after, I read it as if it did. Here, Screwtape is called upon to speak to the newest graduating class of junior tempters, about to be sent out to their new postings around the world. Their mission: capture human souls for their Father Below. The teachers, Screwtape, and the class have just finished a feast of souls and are now into the speechifying part of the event. Screwtape opines on the feast. As is the wont of old men, he waxes nostalgic on dinners past, manages to bite his colleagues in that oh-so-British way, which also serves to tell us a little something about the kinds of things that lead us humans to be easy marks for junior and senior tempters, alike.
Like in his letters to Wormwood, Screwtape lies by omission and commission about himself and them -- and God aka "The Enemy." You have to read the letters to get the frisson from behind-the-scenes knowledge that is being hidden from the new graduates.
I'm not sure if Screwtape Proposes A Toast adds to our understanding of the battle of good and evil. Yet it does shed light on 21st century ideas, showing us that though we may think we've advanced in our thinking, we haven't changed one iota in decades. What is considered of new concern today, the diminishment of education, began at least a century ago. Perhaps more. And our human propensity towards jealousy and resentment allows demons to nourish othering, especially a particular way of seeing ourselves in competition with others. You'll have to read the story to understand what I mean.
Those last two points I was unable to remember at the time of writing this review (Oct 27) even though I discussed it at length with the person who read it to me and even though I've thought about the last point many times in my life. Competition serves no one, except in sport and then only a particular tone of competition. Refreshing my memory, three weeks after I finished the story, on CS Lewis's main point took mere seconds of reading a sentence or two to flash back all the imagery into my consciousness. I still have a long way to go in restoring my reading and ability to remember -- and stress during the time I'm reading has a deleterious effect on my comprehension and long-term recall -- but the fact that it takes very little rereading to restore my memory is heartening.
The story is rich in sensory details. There are deep ideas and descriptions of what consumed humans decades ago interesting enough to chew over. But it's not as engaging as The Screwtape Letters. Perhaps, for me, part of that arises out of the fact that it still takes me awhile before I engage with a story to the point that I begin to care about it and desire to know what comes next. So far, I'm about two-thirds of the way (and weeks) into a book before that happens. You can see that would be problematic for a short story.
If you want more of Screwtape, read it. If Screwtape's letters are satisfying enough, you can skip this one.
This story may or may not take place after Screwtape wrote his letters to his nephew Wormwood, but since CS Lewis wrote it a long time after, I read it as if it did. Here, Screwtape is called upon to speak to the newest graduating class of junior tempters, about to be sent out to their new postings around the world. Their mission: capture human souls for their Father Below. The teachers, Screwtape, and the class have just finished a feast of souls and are now into the speechifying part of the event. Screwtape opines on the feast. As is the wont of old men, he waxes nostalgic on dinners past, manages to bite his colleagues in that oh-so-British way, which also serves to tell us a little something about the kinds of things that lead us humans to be easy marks for junior and senior tempters, alike.
Like in his letters to Wormwood, Screwtape lies by omission and commission about himself and them -- and God aka "The Enemy." You have to read the letters to get the frisson from behind-the-scenes knowledge that is being hidden from the new graduates.
I'm not sure if Screwtape Proposes A Toast adds to our understanding of the battle of good and evil. Yet it does shed light on 21st century ideas, showing us that though we may think we've advanced in our thinking, we haven't changed one iota in decades. What is considered of new concern today, the diminishment of education, began at least a century ago. Perhaps more. And our human propensity towards jealousy and resentment allows demons to nourish othering, especially a particular way of seeing ourselves in competition with others. You'll have to read the story to understand what I mean.
Those last two points I was unable to remember at the time of writing this review (Oct 27) even though I discussed it at length with the person who read it to me and even though I've thought about the last point many times in my life. Competition serves no one, except in sport and then only a particular tone of competition. Refreshing my memory, three weeks after I finished the story, on CS Lewis's main point took mere seconds of reading a sentence or two to flash back all the imagery into my consciousness. I still have a long way to go in restoring my reading and ability to remember -- and stress during the time I'm reading has a deleterious effect on my comprehension and long-term recall -- but the fact that it takes very little rereading to restore my memory is heartening.
The story is rich in sensory details. There are deep ideas and descriptions of what consumed humans decades ago interesting enough to chew over. But it's not as engaging as The Screwtape Letters. Perhaps, for me, part of that arises out of the fact that it still takes me awhile before I engage with a story to the point that I begin to care about it and desire to know what comes next. So far, I'm about two-thirds of the way (and weeks) into a book before that happens. You can see that would be problematic for a short story.
If you want more of Screwtape, read it. If Screwtape's letters are satisfying enough, you can skip this one.
March 11, 2023
If someone is going to read The Screwtape Letters, I would suggest for them to also go ahead and read Screwtape Proposes A Toast immediately after. It’s even shorter, and it’s just a better book if nothing for the fact that it gives more specific examples that are relevant to the modern age. I also appreciate the focus on the concept that evil multiplies itself and that Satan wants to not only pit people against God, but Satan also wants people to disciple each other in sin; he wants people not only against God, but people who are pitting other people against God. It’s Satan strategy of multiplying evil from one individual to another.
December 17, 2024
*Short story*
"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence - moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the encantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods?... I have said that to secure the damnation of these little souls, these creatures that have almost ceased to be individuals, is a laborious and tricky work. But if proper pains and skill are expended, you can be fairly confident of the result." -Screwtape
"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence - moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the encantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods?... I have said that to secure the damnation of these little souls, these creatures that have almost ceased to be individuals, is a laborious and tricky work. But if proper pains and skill are expended, you can be fairly confident of the result." -Screwtape
November 21, 2025
Delightful!
C.S. Lewis “was resolved to never write another ‘letter. Thankfully, after time, he was willing and able to write the graduation address to graduates of the Tempters’ Training College for young Devils.
“How often you will envy the humans their faculty of sleep.”
“Yes, but the Enemy (for whatever inscrutable and perverse reason) thought them worth trying to save.”
The Enemy “did not create the humans — He did not become one of them and die among them by torture — in order to produce candidates for Limbo; ‘failed’ humans. He wanted to make Saints; gods; things like Himself.”
C.S. Lewis “was resolved to never write another ‘letter. Thankfully, after time, he was willing and able to write the graduation address to graduates of the Tempters’ Training College for young Devils.
“How often you will envy the humans their faculty of sleep.”
“Yes, but the Enemy (for whatever inscrutable and perverse reason) thought them worth trying to save.”
The Enemy “did not create the humans — He did not become one of them and die among them by torture — in order to produce candidates for Limbo; ‘failed’ humans. He wanted to make Saints; gods; things like Himself.”
March 21, 2020
RATING 5.0 STARS
This is a fantastic sequel to the SCREWTAPE LETTERS. It is so insightful and accurate that it is equally saddening. It is somewhat depressing to realize how blindly society has followed the progression described here. Whether it's the grasping for equality by tearing down anyone who succeeds or the classroom scenes described in the efforts normalizing formal education to keep everyone from excelling - all in the name of not offending anyone.
It is a reminder that we seriously need a path to follow out of this mess...
But the writing is well worth the read.
This is a fantastic sequel to the SCREWTAPE LETTERS. It is so insightful and accurate that it is equally saddening. It is somewhat depressing to realize how blindly society has followed the progression described here. Whether it's the grasping for equality by tearing down anyone who succeeds or the classroom scenes described in the efforts normalizing formal education to keep everyone from excelling - all in the name of not offending anyone.
It is a reminder that we seriously need a path to follow out of this mess...
But the writing is well worth the read.
August 22, 2024
It's an enjoyable sequel of Screwtape Letter, this time in a short article about a Devil addressing young devils. One of the most exciting things is how Lewis hits on a topic heavily here: democracy and the twisted view of many who see the greater good as more important than the individual soul.
However, there are also seven more articles about diverse topics that are very well written; some of them look ahead of their time and are a must-read.
Lewis is a great writer, and this book is an excellent example.
However, there are also seven more articles about diverse topics that are very well written; some of them look ahead of their time and are a must-read.
Lewis is a great writer, and this book is an excellent example.
January 3, 2022
Fantastic assortment of essays. Very complex ideas simply expressed- a true pleasure to read. Some essays are quite sartorial in nature while others seem to have more levity thus providing the reader with a pleasing balance of both the writer’s sense of the world or milieu and Lewis’ take on deep, lingering questions existing in many cultures for hundreds if not thousands of years.
July 17, 2023
I last read this many years ago, and subsequently read everything C S Lewis wrote. The Screwtape books are as relevant today as they were then and I would recommend his books to anyone looking to have an insight into Christianity. He was one of the 20th century’s greatest Christian writers and shouldn’t be put aside.
February 3, 2024
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C.S. Lewis "knew" No Child Left Behind (where every child is kept back to the lowest common denominator) was in the future. Same with participation awards.
Loved the Vintage Pharisee wine at the end. Nice touch .
Might be unfair to rate this a 3 out of 5 but since I just finished "The Screwtape Letters", the comparison was inevitable.
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C.S. Lewis "knew" No Child Left Behind (where every child is kept back to the lowest common denominator) was in the future. Same with participation awards.
Loved the Vintage Pharisee wine at the end. Nice touch .
Might be unfair to rate this a 3 out of 5 but since I just finished "The Screwtape Letters", the comparison was inevitable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2019
Nice little addition to screwtape letters
Talks mainly about how more freedoms/"democracy" leads to "equality" which is really just the dumbing down of everyone to the level of the masses, IE to the lowest common denominator
Talks mainly about how more freedoms/"democracy" leads to "equality" which is really just the dumbing down of everyone to the level of the masses, IE to the lowest common denominator
March 3, 2024
I think it was a great addition to the Screwtape Letters. I think I found it a bit more interesting (not by much), but I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it without reading the Screwtape Letters first.
December 21, 2024
Obviously this and The Screwtape Letters are both Christian polemics, but being letters to Wormwood, rather than just a speech, there was an extra dimension and charm to The Screwtape Letters which this book lacked.
February 11, 2019
A faithful sequel to the screwtape letters. Less confrontational than most of his works, this makes for an easy listen.
September 16, 2019
After reading this Brexit suddenly makes sense
March 24, 2020
This is just a short little follow up to the screwtape letters.
April 29, 2021
Wow! You would think he was talking in 2021. Fabulous narration. And the content REALLY makes you think.
I listened to this using chirpbooks.com.
I listened to this using chirpbooks.com.
May 3, 2021
Absolutely essential.
His words on Education and Democracy cut like a knife. Even more relevant right now.
His words on Education and Democracy cut like a knife. Even more relevant right now.
November 13, 2021
Thought provoking
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