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I just finished one of the best books I have ever read: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

I started the book over last Christmas break, but I think a better reader could finish it in an afternoon. Often, I would only read a few pages and then feel the need to share what I had just read with anyone who would listen.

The book is a series of letters from a senior devil to a less experienced one. The younger devil is advised on different ways that he could bring down his "patient", like in this passage:

"Another possibility is that of direct attack on his faith. When you have caused him to assume that the trough is permanent, can you not persuade him that 'his religious phase' is just going to die away like all his previous phases? Of course, there is no conceivable way of getting by reason from the proposition 'I am losing interest in this' to the proposition 'This is false.' But, as I said before, it is jargon, not reason, you must rely on. The mere word phase will very likely do the trick."

I think this book is great for at least two reasons: It gives words to so many of my jumbled thoughts, and it allows me to see myself from an outside perspective. Here is another passage:

"[T]he thing to avoid is the total commitment. Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it "for a reasonable period" -and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last. It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.

I do not know whether he is likely to meet the girl under conditions of strain or not. If he does, make full use of the fact that up to a certain point fatigue makes women talk more and men talk less. Much secret resentment, even between lovers, can be raised from this."

Has anyone read this book before? What are your experiences?