Letters of Balamut

When the Second World War began , Lewis enlisted in the militia. And if his attitude to the First World War was as if to something absolutely meaningless, now he considered the war as another battle in an endless chain of battles between the universal forces of Good and Evil. Lewis was invited to speak, then to the pilots, then to the radio (not as a philologist, but as a preacher) ^[2] , and that was when it occurred to him to describe the most ordinary temptations on behalf of and the name of the demon. Conceived as a sermon and designed to raise the spirit of the war, Balamut's letters (originally titled “From Devil to Demon” or “Like a Devil”) were published in The Manchester Guardian in 1941 ^[3] . However, Lewis became famous only after 1943 , when the Letters of Balamut were reprinted in America ^[4] .

The work has the appearance of a series of letters written by the old demon Balamut ( Eng. Screwtape ) to his young nephew, the tempter demon - Gnusik ( born Wormwood - the bitter wormwood , the source of bitterness). Balamut holds an administrative position in the bureaucracy of Hell , but acts more like a mentor than the head of Gnusik, ending each letter with a touching signature “Your loving uncle Balamut” ( English Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape ).

A total of thirty-one letters are presented in the book, in which Balamut makes detailed recommendations for undermining faith and encouraging sin in man.

The short story "Balamut proposes a toast", written in 1958 and being a continuation of "Letters", was first published in 1959 . As Lewis later wrote, he was not going to continue the story of Balamut, on the contrary, it would be nice to write the balancing instruction of the archangel , but when The Saturday Evening Post asked him to write something, the idea to say “important things through the devil” was formed in “Balamut proposes a toast. ” ^[5]

In essence, this essay is a criticism by Lewis of public education . As a terrible example, the US education system is considered (Lewis himself wrote about this in the preface to the American edition), where the problem of confronting the alleged “enemy” (the Cold War is just going) is acute, and trade union membership and so-called equality are actively flourishing .

The plot boils down to the fact that as an honored guest Balamut proclaims a toast at the Graduation Banquet of devils tempters.

In early 2007, it was announced the start of work on the full-length eponymous adaptation of "demonic correspondence". The company 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to film "Balamut Letters" back in 1950 . They decided to work on the 20th Century Fox film with the production company Walden Media (they had already worked together on the “Chronicles of Narnia: The Conqueror of the Dawn” tape). The initial release date was set for 2008 ^[6] , but was later postponed to 2010 .

According to the Internet Movie Database, the film director is still unknown ^[7] . Randy Arge ( eng. Randy Argue ), Douglas Gresham ( eng. Douglas Gresham ) and Ralph Winter, who have already worked with Walden Media on the screenings of The Chronicles of Narnia ^[8] , are invited to produce the film.

The film was supposed to combine the live actors and computer characters ^{[9] [10]} , but critics are skeptical about the possibility of an adaptation of a limited novel from a series of letters ^[11] .

• Balamut offers toast
• The Snark Hunt

• Letters of Balamut in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• English-Russian parallel translation of "Balamut Letters".