Anosognosia

I finished "Till We Have Faces" a few days ago.

First Reaction


“the primitive thinking of the supernaturally inclined amounts to what his psychiatric colleagues call a problem, or an idea, of reference. An excess of the subjective, the ordering of the world in line with your needs, an inability to contemplate your own unimportance. In Henry’s view such reasoning belongs on a spectrum at whose far end, rearing like an abandoned temple, lies psychosis.” (Ian McEwan, Saturday, p.17).

A fairly straightforward mechanical reflection on the binary nature of faith/belief/god and rationality/reality/”greek thinking.” It ends, rather predictably from the start with the solution to the binary being “god is the answer,” which I feel is kind of a cop out: “I can’t figure it out so there must be something greater than what can be thought out there who can figure it out.” The assumption being is that there is an answer, and that the search for an answer isn’t enough. There must be some end point, in time (end of the world/our selves), but without the ability to accept that end point without some way to get out of it (all united in the godhead after death which is life everlasting).

Other aspects of interest:

* Storytelling, and who gets to tell the story. Psyche’s story told by the priest in contrast to Oural’s version in the book. Additionally her view of her relationship with Bardia and Bardia’s wife’s version. “I must try at any cost to write what is wholly true. Yet it is hard to know perfectly what I was thinking while those huge, silent moments went pst. Byu remembering it too often I have blurred the memorey itself.” (C.S. Lewis, p.117).

An unreflective self caught up in what is true, without questioning the ground on which you stand.

“How restful it must have once been, in another age, to be prosperous and believe that an all knowing supernatural force had allotted people to their stations in life. And not see how the belief served your own prosperity - - a form of anosognosia, a useful psychiatric term for a lack of awareness of one’s own condition.” (Ian Mcwan, Saturday, p.74).

* Eros telling Orual that she is Psyche as a punishment. Then the consequent unfolding of Orual not being aware (blinded, not able to see) of the love of Bardia, the Fox, Redival, and how their love for her crushed out aspects of them. Orual became the devourer. “Some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing.” (C.S. Lewis, p.49).