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Lewis, C. S.
The Screwtape Letters.
(Audiobook, Unabridged).
Ashland, OR: Blackstone Audiobooks, [1942, 1959, 1961] 2006.
ISBN 978-0-7861-7279-5.
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If you're looking for devilishly ironic satire, why not
go right to the source? C. S. Lewis's classic is in the
form of a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon
in the “lowerarchy” of Hell, to his nephew
Wormwood, a novice tempter on his first assignment on Earth:
charged with securing the soul of an ordinary Englishman in
the early days of World War II. Not only are the letters
wryly funny, there is a great deal of wisdom
and insight into the human condition and how the little
irritations of life can present a greater temptation to
flawed humans than extravagant sins. Also included
in this audiobook is the 1959 essay “Screwtape
Proposes a Toast”, which is quite different in
nature: Lewis directly attacks egalitarianism,
dumbing-down of education, and destruction of the
middle class by the welfare state as making the tempter's
task much easier (the original letters were almost
entirely apolitical), plus the preface Lewis wrote for
a new edition of Screwtape in 1961,
in which he says the book almost wrote itself, but
that he found the process of getting into Screwtape's
head very unpleasant indeed.
The book is read by Ralph Cosham, who adopts a dry,
largely uninflected tone which is appropriate for
the ironic nature of the text.
This audiobook is distributed in two parts, totalling 3 hours and 36
minutes. Audio CD
and print editions are
also available.
January 2008