(Sorry for the late post tonight. I had an eye exam, preparatory to cataract surgery [to which I very much look forward], today. They dilated my eyes, and I’m only now regaining the ability to see my computer screen clearly.)
What had looked at Lester from Evelyn’s eyes, what now showed in her own, was pure immortality. This was the seal of the City, its first gift to the dead who entered it. They had what they were and they had it (as it seemed) forever.
Lester Furnival (Lester, in this case, a woman’s name) is a ghost. As All Hallows Eve begins, the war is over, but she fell victim to a freak accident, a commercial plane dropping from the sky near Westminster Bridge. She has now entered a parallel but different City – the City of God. But she’s still disoriented.
With her is her “friend” Evelyn, a petty-minded and voluble woman who happened to be with her when they died. But as they wander the familiar streets, now strange and strangely unpeopled, Lester finds herself drawn into the troubles of another friend – Betty. Betty is the daughter of Simon Leclerc, a charismatic healer and preacher of peace who is now attracting a world-wide following. No one guesses that Simon is in fact the Antichrist, a magician. He has a plan to make contact with the eternal through killing his daughter and using her spirit as a messenger, to bring him news of the future. He’s already been sending her on such journeys in trances, and it’s in that state that she encounters Lester, who feels a divine compulsion to help her before she can move on into higher Heaven.
Meanwhile, Lester’s husband, Richard, is mourning her and lamenting his failures as a spouse. Lester’s friend Jonathan, a renowned painter, wants to marry Betty – unaware of her father’s plans for her. To please Betty’s mother, he paints a picture of Simon – one which infuriates the mother, but – surprisingly – pleases Simon himself.
That’s the setup for All Hallows Eve, Charles Williams final novel. Like all his books, it’s eccentric and challenging. I’ve always enjoyed it, and I quite enjoyed re-reading it.
Williams was a writer utterly at odds with modern literary fashions. Where we all (I include myself) struggle to be terse and precise in our prose nowadays, Williams unleashes a flood of words on the reader. But he does it the right way. He is not – like so many bad writers – just throwing words at his ideas, hoping a few will stick. Rather, he revels in an abundance of words, saying the same thing over and over in different ways, faceting his (often surprising) spiritual insights.
I would say, in fact, that Charles Williams’ fiction was just another stream of his poetry. Almost literally a stream – more like a torrent. One launches one’s boat into it and drives with the current.
Some people like Williams; some can’t stand him. I like him a lot (as a writer, not necessarily as a man). If you haven’t tried this strangest member of the Inklings, All Hallows Eve is a good place to start. But be prepared to wrestle with it.
