Charles Williams wrote some weird stuff – some really good stuff, yes – but weird. Among the really good and really weird was a novel entitled, Descent Into Hell. Now, if all you know about Williams is that he was one of the inklings, and that, therefore, the weirdness of Descent will be that there’s some random poetry for no apparent reason, and a lot of exalted prose, and that the storylines are highly unconventional, you’d be right. But that’s true of all the Inklings. What makes Williams’ work especially and uniquely weird is the content itself. Descent, just ONE of Williams’ novels has: prophetic dreaming; ghosts; a spirit realm that interacts with the mortal realm; doppelgängers; and succubuses. Yeah, pretty weird right?
Well, Williams takes all that weird and he uses it to write beautiful and guttingly accurate portrayals of the human condition. Particularly in the first scene where we meet the succubus. Lawrence Wentworth is a frustrated, though somewhat celebrated historian. He’s smitten with young Adela Hunt, who is in a relationship with the much younger, handsomer, and arroganter Hugh Prescott. After a romantic failure with Adela and with his academic and professional rival receiving a knighthood, Lawrence is at a particularly low point in his life. Williams talks about how he could have chosen, indeed, he was fully capable of choosing, to rejoice with his rival that a historian with whom he’d had a publishing war was knighted. But instead he chose to hate. And he nursed that hate. And he brooded on his anger at Adela for being interested in Hugh, and not having any interest in him. Wounded pride and vanity become hatred. And then something remarkable happens. You know it’s remarkable because I’m remarking on it! Adela shows up.
Alone.
And then Williams writes this section which may be some of his very best and most brilliant. His insight into human nature, into desire, into the lies we tell ourselves, into how we twist and distort , how even our loves are cruel, Williams captures it wonderfully:
A little way up it stood a woman's figure. The thing he had known must happen had happened. She had come.
He pushed the window up--careful, even so, not to seem to go fast, not to seem to want her. He leaned out and spoke softly. He said: "Is that you?" The answer startled him, for it was Adela's voice and yet something more than Adela's, fuller, richer, more satisfying. It said "I'm here." He could only just hear the words, but that was right, for it was after midnight, and she was beckoning with her hand. The single pair of feet drawn from the double, the hand waving to him. He motioned to her to come, but she did not stir, and at last, driven by his necessity, he climbed through the window; it was easy enough, even for him-and went down to meet her. As he came nearer he was puzzled again, as he had been by the voice. It was Adela, yet it was not. It was her height, and had her movement. The likeness appeased him, yet he did not understand the faint unlikeness. For a moment he thought it was someone else, a woman of the Hill, someone he had seen, whose name he did not remember. He was up to her now, and he knew it could not be Adela, for even Adela had never been so like Adela as this. That truth which is the vision of romantic love, in which the beloved becomes supremely her own adorable and eternal self, the glory and splendour of her own existence, and her own existence no longer felt or thought as hers but of and from another, that was aped for him then. The thing could not astonish him, nor could it be adored. It perplexed. He hesitated.
The woman said: "You've been so long."
He answered roughly: "Who are you? You're not Adela."
The voice said: "Adela!" and Wentworth understood that Adela was not enough, that Adela must be something different. even from Adela if she were to be satisfactory to him, something closer to his own mind and farther from hers. She had been in relation with Hugh, and his Adela could never be in relation with Hugh. He had never understood that simplicity before. It was so clear now. He looked at the woman opposite and felt a stirring of freedom in him.
He said: "You waved?" and she: "Or didn't you wave to me?"
He said, under her eyes: "I didn't think you'd be any use to me."
She laughed: the laugh was a little like Adela's, only better. Fuller; more amused. Adela hardly ever laughed as if she were really amused; she had always a small condescension. He said: "How could I know?"
"You don't think about yourself enough," she said; the words were tender and grateful to him, and he knew they were true. He had never thought enough about himself. He had wanted to be kind. He had wanted to be kind to Adela; it was Adela's obstinate folly which now outraged him. He had wanted to give himself to Adela out of kindness. He was greatly relieved by this woman's words, almost as much as if he had given himself. He went on giving. He said: "If I thought more of myself?"
"You wouldn't have much difficulty in finding it," she answered. "Let's walk."
He didn't understand the first phrase, but he turned and went by her side, silent while he heard the words. Much difficulty in finding what? in finding it? the it that could be found if he thought of himself more; that was what he had said or she had said, whichever had said that the thing was to be found, as if Adela had said it, Adela in her real self, by no means the self that went with Hugh; no, but the true, the true Adela who was apart and his; for that was the difficulty all the while, that she was truly his, and wouldn't be, but if he thought more of her truly being, and not of her being untruly away, on whatever way, for the way that went away was not the way she truly went, but if they did away with the way she went away, then Hugh could be untrue and she true, then he would know themselves, two, true and two, on the way he was going, and the peace in himself, and the scent of her in him, and the her, meant for him, in him; that was the she he knew, and he must think the more of himself. A faint mist grew round them as they walked, and he was under the broad boughs of trees, the trees of the Hill, going up the Hill, up to the Adela he kept in himself, where the cunning woman who walked by his side was taking him, and talking in taking. He had been slow, slow, very slow not to see that this was true, that to get away from Hugh's Adela was to find somewhere and somehow the true Adela, the Adela that was his, since what he wanted was always and everywhere his; he had always known that, yet that had been his hardship, for he must know it was so, and yet it hadn't seemed so. But here in the mists under the trees, with this woman, it was all clear. The mist made everything clear.
If you missed the tragi-comic hideous beauty of this passage because the language is a bit fine and fancy (or if the quote was a tl;dr kinda thing) let me explain. Lawrence was in love with Adela. But he also hated her. His fixation and fantasization created a love that the real Adela could never live up to. Notice how Lawrence recognizes that the real Adela’s laugh always has a bit of condescension. Adela is arrogant and aloof and while she’s beautiful and bright she doesn’t put one at ease. In short, she’s her own person with her own wants, desires, needs, goals, aspirations, talents, and weaknesses, virtues, vices, frailties, and sins. Adela, like all people are a mixed bag of blessing and curse. But the Adela of Lawrence’s fantasy is perfect. And she’s devoted to Lawrence. The real Adela is not.
But here comes Adela – the Adela that Adela could never be; and she’s everything that Lawrence ever wanted. And notice what she tells Lawrence when he questions why this Adela would want him. She says that he doesn’t think about himself enough.
And he agrees.
And this is the key and central motif/ theme/ tragic flaw in Lawrence. He’s only thinking about himself, but he’s convinced himself that deep down he’s a very kind and gracious and selfless person.
And this is where the demon exploits him. For this Adela is a demon; she’s the succubus Lilith. She tells Lawrence that he needs to think of himself more, which is the exact opposite of what he needs. And she leads him by the hand into a succubitic liaison – his descent into Hell comes through an act of pleasure with a demon telling him to be more selfish.
And isn’t that always the way it goes? I mean, not that people experience coitus with the ancient demon of Jewish legend, but that the descent into Hell, the path to a truly demonic, mind comes through thinking about oneself?
Williams’ concept here is a fascinating one and one that is particularly pertinent to, and prescient of today’s moral dilemma. We are a society of narcissists who are constantly thinking of how we’ve been victimized and taken advantage of, and yet, blindly, ironically, comically, we’re a society that cannot see other people AS people, but only means to our own enjoyment!
Lewis’ concept of the demonic in Screwtape is particularly present in our society. In Lewis’ demonology, Satan and his servants exist and expand their selfhood only through the consumption of other selves. Selfhood is a zero-sum-game in Hellspeak. Which is utterly foreign to the biblical concept of selfhood, which states that the expansion of ourselves comes not through absorbing and subjugating others, but through self-sacrifice. By making ourselves smaller we become greater. But the monadic philosophy of Hell will have none of this. Satan can only be bigger if you become smaller. Yet, God makes himself higher by stooping low in humility, even humiliation. I think Lewis’ instincts and insight here are necessarily true and make sense of the seeming challenge of Triune mutual love and glorification.
Christian societies know this, and that’s why, among many reasons, Christian societies reject pornography and prostitution. Pornography and prostitution objectify and commodify, they victimize, not only because pornography and prostitution are sinful, but because they make a person less than they are by creating a fantasy version of them. Of course, these things happen in essentially all human relationships. Very few of us have significantly accurate notions of other people, as they themselves truly are. Some of that isn’t our fault: human beings are mysteries even unto ourselves. And the fact that we have gaps in our knowledge about others ought to be an invitation to explore other people’s personalities and find the treasures stored up in others. On the other hand, some of our inaccurate, incomplete, and inadequate notions about others ARE our fault and are actively destructive.
It is impossible to truly love someone as they are unless you know them as they are – at least not fully and actively. Loving our neighbors, if it’s to be more than platitudes, means knowing them as they truly are. Which will not always be pleasant. Despite what tattoos and internet memes suggest, walking a mile in someone else’s shows doesn’t always vindicate them; it may validate your suspicions that they’re deeply rotten people – but at least you’ll understand the mechanisms that operate in their own unique rottenness.
And again, let’s return to Williams and the irony of being a society of self-proclaimed victims while simultaneously ignoring the fundamental humanity of others. I’ve mentioned how porn and prostitution, as well as all kinds of other forms of dehumanization are destructive and contrary to the Christian ethos. But just as dangerous is the valorization of victimhood. I’ve written and spoken about this topic at length, but there is one point in particular that bears careful consideration, because Williams’ insight is new to me and is worth reading this whole essay – at least it was worth me writing it!
All I wish to add is that Williams sees positioning ourselves as the victim as a very safe and secure descent into Hell. It removes agency and precludes self-examination. Lawrence made himself the victim and once he did he lost the ability to accurately assess himself.
What Williams realizes is that Lawrence, by making himself the victim, does to himself exactly what he did to Adela: he dehumanized himself. And going to Hell is a process; a process of dehumanization. Surely that’s not ALL going to Hell is, but Hell wouldn’t be Hell if it were not the infinite and eternal dehumanization of the Hellions. The danger of valorizing victimization, of emphasizing and congratulating people for expressing grievances, for only considering how we’re sinned against and not sinners, creates a false version of self, a demonic version of self, an idol, a doppelgänger in our own skin! When we celebrate victimhood we’re celebrating people engaging in the process of dehumanizing themselves. When we make victimhood virtuous, we accelerate the process of dehumanization – we encourage people in their descent into Hell.