Customer Reviews

War in Heaven, A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

"War in Heaven" is a must for any serious reader of Christian fiction. It begins with an interesting murder and quickly evolves into a Quest for the Holy Grail,thus assuming that Those Feet in ancient times, did indeed wander England's mountains green. Along the way, an unlikely triumverate (or should we say Trinity) of good guys battles some very sinister fellows. Touches of humor grace the book, and the theology and the message are sound and inspiring.

Williams was one of a trio of great early 20th century Christian authors, in a little club (The Inklings) with fellow dons C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Today, Tolkien is most remembered for fiction, and Clive Staples Lewis for theology. This is, in part, because Williams wrote in a more formidable style. However, once you get into the syntax and rythym, his words flow smoothly and he is very readable. Press on through the first few pages of any Williams book, and you will be rewarded with a "ripping yarn" on many levels.

This book is recommended not only for those who love Williams' other fiction (Descent into Hell, Place of the Lion, etc.) and nonfiction (Descent of the Dove), but for anyone who would enjoy a serious Christian adventure novel.

There is a strong message of the role of faith, and of eccumenical Christianity in "War in Heaven." Maybe it isn't for sticklers on one denomination's doctrine, but for most, it is well worth ordering.

Just in case you overlooked the Amazon.com review (above), the opening paragraph of this book is well worth repeating as being one of the most outstanding introductions to a detective/mystery/horror novel you've ever come across:

"The telephone bell was rininging wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."

And that isn't just a fluke.
On the contrary, I'd suggest that this is probably one of Williams' most effective novels, in terms of plain story telling, especially in the case of the extremely powerful climax.

Like "Many Dimensions" (which is best read after "War in Heaven", because one character appears in both of those books, but doesn't survive the second), I've only given this book 4 stars because, as other reviewers have indicated, the British literary style of the 1930s is not to everyone's taste - and as far as his style of writing is concerned, Williams' work fits fairly comfortably into that general genre.

Having said that, I'd thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys novels of the occult that invite the reader to go for something more than a mindless blood bath or demonfest.

Owen Barfield, also a member of the Inklings - the writing circle that included Tolkein, C.S. Lewis and Williams - is quoted on the back cover as saying:

"Charles Williams's firm conviction that the spiritual world is not simply a reality parallel with that of the material one, but is rather its source and its abiding infrastructure, is explicit in both the manner and matter of all he wrote."

Well, I haven't read *all* that Williams ever wrote, but I'd say it was most certainly true of this novel, where this interlacing and interaction is an integral part of the plot.

Indeed, far from being a mere examination of "the distinction between magic and religion" (back cover of the book), if you want to look for deeper meanings, the story line holds up well as an allegory of the state of all mankind - those who build, and those who destroy; those who believe, those who only *think* they believe, and those who believe they have no belief; and so on and so on.

As to the apparently antisemitic element in the story, two things are relevant:
Firstly, it was very common in the Britain of the 1930s for the middle and upper classes to regard Jews with a certain amount of disdain. But this was not 'antisemitism' as such. Rather there was a distrust of Levanters (Lebanese, Syrians, Jews/Palestinians and, to a lesser extent, Turks and Greeks) in general which persisted at least into the 1950s.
Secondly, in the passage referred to in a previous review:

"They build and we destroy....One day we shall destroy the world."

The speaker, a character called Manasseh, who is initially introduced into the story as simply "a Jew", is using the word "we" in relation to Satanists, not Jews.
So 'zenophobia', perhaps, but 'antisemitism', I think probably not.

Incidentally, if you haven't yet read the book, or you're planning to read it again, you might be interested in the significance of the name "John", as used in the novel:

1. "John", from the Hebrew "Jochanan" means "God is gracious"

2. The book "The Ascent of Mount Carmel", referred to in the story, on the face of it for no apparent reason, is a real book, a mystical work written by St. John of the Cross.

3. Prester John was, in legend, apparently immortal. In the 12th century he was referred to as the Christian Emperor of Asia. Marco Polo (13th-14th centuries) wrote about him as the lord of the Tartars. In the 14th century he had allegedly become the Emperor of Abyssinia and was still said to hold that office a century later.

Like several previous reviewers, I read this book because of Charles Williams's connection with C.S Lewis and Tolkein. This book has not achieved the lasting fame and adulation of Lewis's Space Trilogy or The Lord of the Rings, and for good reasons. The plot is almost amateurish, and Williams simply could not write as well as Lewis or Tolkien.

BUT, Willims had gifts of another sort. Williams was able to write about spiritual experience in ways that Dan Brown (or pick some other thriller of-the-day writer) could never hope to equal. War In Heaven will challenge the reader to sweat through long stretches of unremarkable prose, that could easily have come from yesterdays advertisements, but perseverence will be rewarded with sweet draughts of unforgettable holiness.

The privilege of reading Chapter X titled The Second Attempt on the Graal, made up for all the book's low points. The internal reaction of Mornington and the Duke to the Graal, and the description of the united effort at prayer to resist the unholy assault on the Graal, represent one of the clearest articulations of faith as the "substance of things to be hoped for" that I have ever yet encountered . In the end, passages like this are the only reason I read fiction at all. Its the reason why War in Heaven must be read.

Williams has often been -- unfairly -- compared to Lewis and Tolkien. Both the other writers are much loved and well-read. Williams' books, however, were very different. Deeper, in many respects; far more serious as literature; and far more committed overtly to Christ. He wasn't a great stylist and sometimes you feel he wrote too quickly, but the intensity of his books is unmatched. WAR IN HEAVEN starts off as a murder mystery, but later becomes a Grail quest. It's the sort of book people of faith should write more of, and the sort of book by a person of faith the secular world should read and praise -- but won't.

Williams' ability to craft a great story nearly escapes the reader because his style is so subtle, and the narrative flows so seamlessly. It is also brilliantly and creatively imagined. He weaves the deft mystery style of Chesterton and Doyle with his own religious background and spiritual experiences. Were it written today, this story might be mistakenly tossed into the same bland, agenda-driven genre of evangelical "spiritual" thrillers, but Williams avoids such a trap by giving his spiritual hero, the Archdeacon of Fardles, a sometimes wavering confidence in his chosen path, and a battle with his own desire to give up.
While the book is certainly not one for those who feel immediately alienated by religious context and setting, it does not require or expect conversion or spiritual agreement in order to be enjoyed. Williams is the forgotten member of the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others), but his writing, especially War In Heaven, stands toe-to-toe with the other great works to emerge from that group.

I started reading this novel merely because I wanted to read something by the least known of "The Inklings." It was very slow going at first and I considered giving up several times. Once I reached Chapter 11, however, the novel really picked up. I could not put it down. The introduction of "the man in grey" gave the novel the air of mystery it was lacking. The book is odd and the characters are so staid and British about everything that at first there is very little suspense. The characters act as though they are discussing everyday mundanities when confronted with murder, the occult, and the miraculous. The last 100 pages of this book are brimming with thrills, atmosphere, and spiritual insight. It is well worth slogging through the first 150 pages of this work to reach the climax. I especially loved the discourse between Batesby and "the man in gray" a wonderful indictment of the liberal relatvist pastor. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Lewis' science fiction trilogy.

This is the first book I have read by Charles Williams, and if it is indicative of what the rest of his books are like, I think I shall be a fan of his. In War in Heaven, Williams depicts a struggle between the forces of evil (which call upon the powers of Hell), and the forces of good (which call upon the power of God), over the Holy Graal, which has turned up in contemporary England (or at least it was contemporary when Williams wrote it). In the course of the struggle, each side draws upon the power of their master, Gregory Persimmons upon Hell and the Arch-Bishop upon God through prayer. It is a very good story, and it reminded me greatly of C. S. Lewis' Interplanetary series, especially That Hideous Strength. Williams wrote this first, so I wonder if this book shaped the one that Lewis wrote. I know that they read each others works, so I find it hard to believe that the fact that they are so similar is a mere coincidence.

A few of Williams theological views were a bit questionable. For example, at one point he attributes evil to God, and claims that God wills evil. Near the very end of the book, it is also said that the church is one path among many to God. He seems to be advocating pluralism, but it was kind of vague, and possibly could have been saying that one can be saved without being a part of the visible church.

In conclusion, this is a very good book which I would recommend to those who like philosophical fiction. If you like the modern kind of mindless reading, where you don't really need to think, you will probably not like this book, for this book makes you think. It raises philosophical questions which it does not necessarily answer, so if you do not like being troubled of mind, this is probably not the story for you. A few previous reviewers have also implied that it is a frightening story, but I do not think you need be wary of reading this if you do not like reading of occult and the such, for there are no demons, only black magic, and I did not find them particularly scary at all. Personally, I think that a few scenes of Ransom and the devil in Perelandra were far more frightening that anything in this book.