What is Hell? This book doesn't dwell on the question so much as it describes what traps lost souls there: the human condition. Instead of a lake of fire, a deserted city with a lonely bus stop is found— the last chance for lost souls to know Christ and make their way into the shadow land, where grass, rock, and water are painful, maybe fatal, and you're the one who is less real than they.
Artistry and Craft
The book is prefaced by Lewis as a creative imagining of what heaven and hell might be like, and in no way an exact 1-to-1 representation of what truly is. Yet, I can't help but feel that Lewis does an excellent job of actualizing the internal struggles that are relatable to the human heart poetically and creatively.
C.S. Lewis remains one of my favourite authors to date, and for good reason. His book The Great Divorce is a great example of why I love his work so much. It's not afraid to look at difficult things like common sins that we all struggle with and call them out, as well as create a world that showcases truth and light in the best and most creative of ways.
He references a beloved author, George MacDonald, whom he uses as one of the main characters to show the narrator truth and light. He becomes a sort of teacher to the main character. The book is allegorical, which surprised me because C.S. Lewis famously disliked allegory and corrected many accounts of people claiming his writings were allegorical.
Funny enough, the main character's name is never mentioned. It's as if he has yet to choose his identity in this land of shadows, and he'll only receive his identity once he chooses, or at least once he recognizes the choice he's been making all along.
I've never thought of intellectual sin before, but the book brings up a great point and an interesting observation. Intellectual sin can be asking questions with no true desire to find the truth, but rather as a means to prop yourself up. As the proper ordering of intellectual pursuits states: "Thirst was made for water as inquiry for truth." So intellectual sin is a perversion of true intellectual inquiry. At the center of intellectual sin is pride.★★★★★
Themes and Messages
C.S. Lewis suggested that the only reason modern society lives close together is because of the necessity of resources or goods. In hell, needing none, they move as far away from each other as they can. Maybe this suggestion gives clarity to the greatest things that hold the individual human back from God: hating people and hating God, not only preferring separation, but being comfortable with it.
Farther on the point of separation is in the very nature of what hell is; a person's orientation around keeping out; keeping the light out, keeping people out to hopefully (ultimately, but vainly) keep out the purifying light that one day comes. Even though this purifying that one day is inevitable will come, the majority don't want to leave because they don't want to give up what is holding them back from becoming right with others and God— what C.S. Lewis describes, as becoming more real.
Some of these things include shame, self-obsession, distrust, pride, denial, dishonesty, and believing God is not good— keep us from Him. The book shows us these in recognizable action, not in abstracts, using characters who have stories and dispositions very similar to a lot of people in real life. C.S. Lewis also explores what keeps us from becoming truly real. All the things that keep us from becoming truly real are, at the end of the day, our choice. This speculation leads the book to lightly touch upon what faith is: trusting in God and His goodness.
Another topic that is in The Great Divorce is how Lewis points out that love isn't enough. On many media platforms, it's popular right now to share an opposing viewpoint to the romantic belief in love —that love is worth everything and even worth worshipping Eros in many cases, like the idea of the "soulmate" or "the one." This counter-philosophy is usually upheld by those who have "lived life" enough to know that the worship of Eros is false, or at least not enough to support, feed, or sustain a life and relationship.
Conversely, C.S. Lewis shows his readers a third way apart from the worship of Eros and the heartsick cynic whose love is fulfilled in sorrow. The book points out that love from a purely human, natural perspective must be buried before it can rise again, with sorrow purifying it. This is a much different take on why love isn't enough, saying that the answer isn't in the worship or cynical rejection of love, but rather in submitting love. In order to truly love someone, love must be purified or almost sanctified, and this can only happen when we step back from possessiveness, worship, or the urge to be cynical, and simply love for the other's sake, not our own.★★★★★
Final Thoughts
The Great Divorce was a refreshing and valuable read that I know I will reread again sometime in the future. I loved the many creative aspects that portray truth, as well as how much the reader has to think about what they are reading in order to understand what Lewis is trying to portray. C.S. Lewis treats his readers like they can understand, showing rather than telling. I rate this book 5 out of 5.
Content Discretion:
Death, greed, control.
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