![]() ![]() It can’t last, of course, because Wormwood (who presumably works on the client’s subconscious) is letting his man slip away into the comforting arms of Christianity. He chides, he cajoles, he sneers he is exasperated, then annoyed, then furious, then so apoplectic with rage that he turns briefly into a large white worm, as a kind of sotto voce footnote explains.Ĭalm restored, Screwtape is a whispery voice of patience, careful explanation, sweet reason. What Cleese does is not a reading but a dramatic monologue of infinite and startling variety. ![]() ![]() They are addressed to Screwtape’s young nephew, Wormwood, a minor tempter who is trying to lure an otherwise unidentified man from the Enemy (God, that would be, in Lewis’ wonderfully inverted scheme) to Our Side. The letters are from Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to Satan (referred to, however, simply as Our Father Below). And an incandescent piece of work it is, a rare and perfect matching of voice and material, to be ranked with Peter Ustinov doing James Thurber and John le Carre reading his own work. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters” on audiocassette (Audio Literature Inc.). Now, in a startling reversal of field, Cleese has recorded C. ![]()
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