The Great Divorce CD

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Summary: This book will make you think...
Review: I already liked C.S. Lewis, but had never read this book before now. It is about life and death, physical and spiritual, as well as our choices regarding God, good and evil. Being a rather small book, this surprised me. It is written somewhat, in a story format. Still, it makes one think very hard, and in ways one may not normally think. Lewis reminds us once again that life is more than meets the eye, and that our choices in this life count not only for this life, but the hereafter. I still like C.S. Lewis, even more so now. I appreciate how his writings cause me to think on the important things in life, regardless if I may agree with him or not. Heaven and hell are discussed, and more than once I was taken aback at how he looks at humanity, and man's problems, etc. A must read, only make sure you read it all the way through to the end, as well as read the preface.

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Summary: CS Lewis is far better than William Blake.
Review: This book is absolutely amazing. It says in imagery and dialogue what I wish I could in a sermon. It shows the fundamental divorce between those that know God and those that don't. Those who have in the final analysis given up their selfishness indeed become "solid" people who are able to "journey into the mountains" for eternity, transformed and glorious. Those that retain their selfishness stay entrapped in an smokish, empty hell due to their own obstinacy and refusal to come to the truth.

In response to another reviewer, CS Lewis absolutely smokes William Blake when it comes to representing Christianity. Blake simply conjures up his own religion in his book "Marriage of Heaven and Hell." For example, he dialogues with the Biblical prophets Isaiah and Ezekial, and makes them say things that are simply heretical.

CS Lewis' objective, on the other hand, was not simply to make up a fantasy based on his own shoddy metaphysics and obscure philosophies, but was, in response to Blake, to illuminate orthodox theology in an imaginative way, hoping to lead people to truth.

Blake's writings are dangerous if you aren't familiar with Christian teachings, and I would discourage anyone looking for God to look at William Blake. They amount to not much more than the primacy and fulfillment of the natural self, whereas Lewis (and in fact the Christian premise) turns on the ultimate denial of self, in order to find the reality of the kingdom of heaven.

I would encourage everyone to read The Great Divorce by CS Lewis as a visionary book. Though fiction, it gives us some helpful pictures to think about what in fact may be going on in eternity.

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Summary: Misleading title...But ended up good!
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I don't think I'm alone here, but I think Amazon should clarefy the real nature of this book with a very misleading title. My book club friends and I, all bought this book very excited. To our dismey, not only was this book not about the "Great Divorce" of our favorite Olympien, Carl Lewis, which so excited our group of friends because if Carl had gotten a divorce, not only was it "Good" , but "Great!", giving the insinuendo that Carl was ready to date again, but it was not evening wrote by Carl in the first place! But we all read it anyway because we had paid 13.99 for each one. But do you know what? I actually ended up enjoying it alot! It was probably better for my mind to read this anyway, it really made me think about my life and what I can do if I try to change it for the better.

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Summary: Great writing
Review: I adored the imagery in this book. I could feel, see, smell and sense everything he talked about. It was simply beautiful. I appreciate the background info before jumping into the book. I do love his writing though.

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Summary: One of Lewis's most provocative, controversial works
Review: THE GREAT DIVORCE is remarkable for being a book by C. S. Lewis that is as likely to be criticized by Christians as by non-Christians. While MERE CHRISTIANITY is an apology for traditional Christianity, THE PROBLEM OF PAIN an attempt to deal with problems in theodicy, and THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS a help for analyzing psychological dimensions of temptation, THE GREAT DIVORCE can best be described as speculative theology. This is not the only place where Lewis allows himself to speculate on matters theological. For instance, he elsewhere suggests that pets and other animals who have interacted with humans will go to heaven, while wild animals will not, because these animals have gained a personality through human contact. In this work, Lewis speculates about the nature of the afterlife.

Inevitably, Lewis's work will unfairly be compared to Dante, who like Lewis is granted a visit to the afterlife. It is unfair because Dante's DIVINE COMEDY is without debate one or the two or three greatest masterpieces in the history of world literature. THE GREAT DIVORCE is not even one of Lewis's best works. Still, as long as one does not force Lewis's work to compare favorably to Dante's work, the comparison is not uninstructive. Like Dante, Lewis finds a guide. While Dante is shown through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil and through heaven by Beatrice, Lewis's guide is the Scottish theologian and fantasy writer George MacDonald. This is not inappropriate for a couple of reasons. What Lewis is suggesting about heaven and hell in THE GREAT DIVORCE is not precisely orthodox, and MacDonald himself, while devoutly religious, was somewhat heterodox in his advocacy of universalism, i.e., the belief that all humans will be redeemed, and not only Christian believers.

In THE GREAT DIVORCE Lewis tries to take a midpoint between universalism and a traditional belief in eternal damnation in hell of unbelievers. Lewis is hardly the first to attempt this. Origen, the brilliant if eccentric father of the early church, among other things toyed with the idea that being sent to hell might not be a permanent state. Lewis attempts to preserve the notion of the punishment of sins, but shifts the agent of that punishment from God to the individual involved. Basically, people place themselves in hell and prevent themselves from ascending to heaven. All one need do is surrender one's will to God, and cease insisting on one's own conception of things. In a sense, the primary thing an individual can do to receive grace, even in the next world, is to humble oneself.

The great negative to Lewis's view is that it doesn't correspond terribly well with either the views of the New Testament or to traditional Church teaching. The great advantage is that it absolves God of any complicity in sending people to hell. A host of factors will determine whether one will find one or either of these views desirable. Like George MacDonald, I tend to be quite orthodox on most Christian doctrines, but somewhat heterodox on the issue of the damnation of the unsaved. I personally am quite drawn to Lewis's views on the afterlife, and while I concede that they don't mesh well with the Bible's teachings on hell, I believe they mesh well with the Bible's teachings on the loving nature of God. It solves some key issues at the heart of theodicy, or to paraphrase Milton, it justifies the ways of God to men.

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with Lewis, this marvelous book raises some important theological questions. It also complicates the normal picture of Lewis as a staunch defender of traditionalism. We find in it that Lewis was also a bit of a theological rebel.

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Summary: Interesting story, but not very christian
Review: A wonderfully written story with many wonderful moments in it. Lewis paints a very vivid picture in this book, and the allegories in it are for the most part, easily seen. This book is an allegory of Heaven and Hell, and how the realities of Heaven are greater than the realities of Hell. This book follows around some folks from Hell who are given the chance to visit Heaven, and shows how those from Hell want nothing to do with Heaven. Especially delightful is Lewis's understanding of humanity, and why those in Hell would rather choose Hell than Heaven. Of course, some of these things are not doctrinally sound, but Lewis says in his preface that he wasn't trying to be sound in everything to begin with. After all, the Bible says nothing about a bus trip from Hell to Heaven, allowing those who take the trip to possibly say.

As many clever things as there are in this book, I believe Lewis ruins his own book. I was shocked to see a writer who has left such a deep an impression upon Christian thought in the last century to be using unjustifiable profanity throughout this book. The profanity only takes away from the book, and I believe that Lewis deeply misrepresents Christ in using it, and that the Christian reader, no matter how much he has been blessed by the other writings of Lewis, would do well to stay away from this work.

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Summary: How Blake swallows Lewis alive
Review: My opinion of CS Lewis has dropped in recent years, partly because my own spiritual journey has evolved away from the position he tends to take up in his books. But even by more objective criteria his writings often fail to measure up. Take The Great Divorce for example. In his introduction Lewis says he was inspired to write this book because of William Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell". He goes on to state that he would never "consider himself a fitting antagonist for so great a genius" - a typical Lewis disclaimer clause... and then the story begins. We start off in Hell - a dreary, grey, passionless Northern English type town, populated by ghosts. These spiritual "remnants" journey to Heaven - where,they decide, they do not want to remain, in spite of, or even because of, the vibrant "aliveness" of the place... in the end they all board the bus back to Hell, entirely of their own volition. What Lewis has done here, far from correcting Blake's point in "The Marriage", is unknowingly repeat it, right down to an unconscious use of the same symbolism. Lewis's ghosts are Blake's Spectres, while Hell is the State of negative self-absorption that Blake called Satan. Lewis's Heaven contains aspects both of traditional Heaven (peace, bliss, goodness), and all the energy and vibrancy of Blakes "Hell" - the English poet's term for Desire. So in Lewis, as in Blake, Heaven and Hell are married! The point is well taken, but far better to read it in the original.
What has happened here is that Blake's vastly superior imagination has overtaken Lewis's, and dictated to it without the Christian writers conscious knowledge. There is precedent for this in the example of John Milton, hero to both these two writers (though for different reasons....). Milton was both a Blake and a Lewis - a Blake in his creative self, a Lewis in his moral self, and fortunately the creative self was stronger, and over-ruled the moral side of Paradise Lost, as the more perceptive (and imaginative) commentators have noted.
Lewis's book is not completely devoid of interest, there are some memorable and amusing scenes, and the story holds ones interest, but there are better (and deeper) fantasies for adults.