OF OTHER WORLDS

The late Professor Lewis' fame began flickering over the wartime roofs of Oxford and Cambridge with the publication of The Screwtape Letters, a witty defense of Christianity in a "satanic" age, meaning the 20th century. But the prolific don had other bits of glitter: The Allegory of Love, a study of medieval tradition; Till We Have Faces, a novel based on the Psyche legend; and a series of fantasies, notably Perelandra, a time-travel conceit concerning a visit to Venus where the temptation of Eve is re-enacted with somersaulting results. One totes out this brief inventory, to which many other credits could be added, since in the posthumous collection of odds and ends here lamentably little of Lewis' formidable literary talents and exuberant intellect is on view. The publisher describes it as a "mixed bag of Lewisiana" bound to "be treasured by his devotees," an assessment more in the tradition of optimistic blurb than statement of fact. The essays have a mild, after-dinner charm, whimsically relaying cultured opinions on the delights of juvenile romances, the follies of highbrow criticism, a formal and informal discussion of science fiction, and some intelligent quibbling with Professor Haldane on ethics and government. The few tales seem tired and coy, though the slight extracts from a projected novel supposedly revamping the Helen in Egypt ploy and the troubles of a victorious, if cuckolded, Menelaus, have a wry, squinting gaiety.