War in Heaven, A Novel [Paperback]

Charles Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

Williams gives a contemporary setting to the traditional story of the Search for the Holy Grail. Examining the distinction between magic and religion, War in Heaven is an eerily disturbing book, one that graphically portrays a metaphysical journey through the shadowy crevices of the human mind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"The telephone was ringing wildly," begins Charles Williams's novel War in Heaven, "but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse." From this abrupt--and darkly humorous--start, Williams takes us on a 20th-century version of the Grail quest, with an Archdeacon, a Duke, and an editor playing the old Arthurian roles. Throughout, Williams reminds us that these legends were above all about divine, not just human, romance. While filled with marvels and black magic, the novel also suggests that the devil just might be what the face of God looks like to those who have sought destruction, just as that face is love to those who have sought love. The choice, Williams affirms, is always ours. --Doug Thorpe

About the Author

(1886-1945) An intense, imaginative, magnetic person, Charles Williams was a member of the Inklings, the group of creative Oxford Christians of the 1930s and 1940s that included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Though he excelled in many literary genres, Williams is best remembered for his poetry and his original fiction—contemporary religious novels filled with suspense, mystery, and supernatural conflict.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.; New edition edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802812198
• ISBN-13: 978-0802812193
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars some thoughts on a thought-provoking book..., June 13, 2001

By 

NotATameLion (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War in Heaven, A Novel (Paperback)

Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these...Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." (John 1:50-51)

"War in Heaven," much like the story of humanity, is all about the invasion of the supernatural--the divine and the demonic--into the mundane settings of everyday life.

Charles Williams has a keen sense of what Thoreau called the "lives of quiet desperation" that most people live. The characters in "War in Heaven" are plagued by everyday demons long before they encounter any exceptional ones...Williams takes these lives, and in a most un-quiet way...builds an entrancing story--one that shakes the reader to the core.

This is one of the scariest books I've read in a long while. The presence of evil is palpably felt in the antagonist of the book...a very creepy kind of evil...not your run of the mill stuff.

I don't want to spoil the plot (not to mention that the plot is a little hard to describe-owing to the fact that so much of what is import in this book has little to do with story line--so much of it is "in the moment.") So all I will say here is that the conclusion is well worth the "dry spots" one finds in the prose. It is one of the most beautifully written scenes I have ever come across in English Literature.

I recommend this book...but not to the faint of heart.

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Also is Thou, May 9, 2003

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: War in Heaven, A Novel (Paperback)

Let's start by granting all the cavils of the critics: Charles Walter Stansby Williams wrote bad poetry, worse plays, and worst of all, a handful of obscure, nearly unreadable novels. Nevertheless, Charles Williams is my favorite writer, and War in Heaven my favorite of his books. Let me proceed to explain why.

CW's poetry may miss the mark of some poetic standard, but even now I can recite pieces from Taliessin Through Logres, while I usually find modern poetry uninspiring. His plays may not hold up well in some conventional sense of what plays are supposed to be, but they contain some of the most quotable lines I've ever read, and I would drive to the next state to see one put on. His novels may be dismissed as dense and obscure, but they are among the most gripping books I've ever read. War in Heaven isn't his best novel--that would be All Hallows Eve-- yet it's my favorite. I'm finally up to the point of saying why.

Some college lit classes read Descent into Hell because it takes place on a number of well-defined levels. War in Heaven has wheels within wheels as well, but they aren't so clearly defined. It's not quite his easiest to read novel--that would be Many Dimensions--but it's still one of the easiest. Of all his novels, War in Heaven perhaps falls over into the most categories--it's a supernatural thriller that is sort of a detective novel, kind of a suspense novel, in a way about relationships, about self-growth, spiritual search and discovery, but not in a traditional sense.

Everything that conventional novels are supposed to be these novels are not, which is why people like me who have no desire to read the bestsellers at the supermarket checkout stand yet find themselves taken with Williams' novels. One popular book report topic in college lit classes is to show how the characters "grow" through the book. With War in Heaven I found this difficult to do because reading a Williams book, it seems it's more like the reader who grows. Although the little group who throw in their lot with the Archdeacon in War in Heaven come to live by a typically Williams-esque maxim, "Believe and doubt well," the book seems to end where it began, yet somehow everything is new.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Williams's graal tale trumps "The Da Vinci Code", July 16, 2005

By 

C. V. Manning - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: War in Heaven, A Novel (Paperback)

It gives essentially none of the story away to reveal that the plot of "War in Heaven" revolves around the Graal (per Williams's preferred spelling). Williams's first published novel is full of the blurring of reality that one finds in all of his fiction and, like "The da Vinci Code", involves a struggle between opposing groups drawn into conflict by the Graal. However, unlike "The da Vinci Code"'s ersatz, vapid spirituality--which, where it has flavor at all tastes merely of cheap sideshow spiritualism--"War in Heaven" depicts allies of darkness that are rank with evil even as its friends of light savor of ultimate goodness. In "War in Heaven" one gets a glimpse beyond the veil to see ultimate spiritual reality consisting of powers and principalities swarming in defiance of a holy throne even as the King of Light engages all according to his overarching plan and by his undeniable power. By contrast, in "The da Vinci Code" one finds that the ultimate reality beyond the veil is tantamount to a group of 7 year-olds playing with a Ouija board at a slumber party. So, if you're looking for a "spiritual thriller" of substance that involves the Holy Grail, "War in Heaven" trumps (perhaps greatly trumps?) "The da Vinci Code." 5 stars. An excellent book.