Shadows of Ecstasy

by Charles Williams

Book Overview

First published in 1933, "Shadows Of Ecstasy" is a fantasy novel by British writer Charles W. S. Williams. Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886 - 1945) was a British theologian, novelist, poet,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802812236
• ISBN13: 9780802812230
• Release Date: January 1950
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Not for apologists only

I am sorry to see comments to the effect that this novel is less appealing because it is "dated." In some ways, that is what I love about it. Are we so convinced of the irrelevance of past times that there's nothing to be found in a book that takes a snapshot of attitudes and behaviors at an earlier time and place? That aside, the beauty of this, all of Williams' books, and indeed all the work of the Inklings is that you don't have to be a Christian to admire the authors' respective abilities. (Sometimes I feel as if educated Christians and I are the only ones reading these books.) I have an atheist intellect and a pagan temperament, but relish Williams and Lewis, especially, for their deftness at capturing psychological types; specifically, the human ability to indulge one's personal immaturities while pretending to oneself and others that one has only the loftiest goals and is completely justified. Deep portraits? Perhaps not, but we've all seen people play the games with themselves (and others) that these characters do, caught up in supernatural dramas of one sort or another. That's what's most telling in a way: the knack Williams has for showing how his characters approach even miraculous happenings through their own preconceptions, just as we do with more mundane events every day. And back to "dated" -- in some ways it's the most delicious part. When the African "heir apparent" makes his identity known, the response of one character -- straight from a reading of Rider Haggard -- is rich with both nostalgia and the ironic reminder that novels like Haggard's were often all even educated people once knew about the non-European world. Williams is a quirky miniaturist, but a skilled and generous-hearted one. This may not be Williams' "best" to some people's minds, but that's possibly because so much of the plot is ambiguous. The average religiously-inclined writer is all too ready to make it foot-stampingly clear whether his characters are on the side of the angels or the devils. Thirty and more years after my first reading of this book, I still can't decide what I think of the immortal Nigel Considine.

A view of reality to engage

Reading "Shadows..." I was constantly reminded of the whipsaw changes that are so characteristic of GK Chesterton in, say, "The Man Who Was Thursday" or "The Napoleon of Notting Hill". Rapid, unexpected alterations in perception-as one gets flashing glimpses through a glass no longer quite so darkly of the Christian reality at the core of each man's participation in existence-occur at nearly every turn. There is also a flavor of fellow Inkling CS Lewis's works, with some particular similarities in the setting, mood, and characterizations that one finds in "That Hiddeous Strength". Beyond giving the potential reader the ideas of similarly flavored works, however, it is difficult to unfold the story line in a short review - and probably of no particular value to the potential reader. Williams must be read and his reality swum in to get even a hint of understanding at the driving truths of his Christian faith - namely, that the things of this world all point to a reality beyond that is infinitely more real; and, that actions in this world reverberate into eternity in an actual and final way. I find less of another of the central themes of Williams's life-that of truly substitutionary intervention between men-but there are hints of that stream of understanding as well. All in all, though perhaps not quite as well done as the Chesterton or Lewis mentioned previously, a worthwhile read in the sense that something of worth can be taken from the book and incorporated into living.