The Great Divorce

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It's a hit!

Though this book uses words like purgatory and speaks about a boy in hell can come out of hell and be saved, it was very good. Many will and have ... (show more)

Though this book uses words like purgatory and speaks about a boy in hell can come out of hell and be saved, it was very good. Many will and have had problems with this, but Lewis prefaces the story by saying that "I beg readers to remember that this is a fantasy... they are not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us."

Lewis does a wonderful job at creating many believable characters whom I read and say "I know him!" His characters represent many whom you or I may know. The story speaks of us on earth as but ghosts, or shadows, compared to the real world in heaven. It is a magnificent thought that we may be more real in heaven than on this earth. It is similar to the idea of the city of God (Augustine), where while we believers are still citizens on earth, we are also citizens in the kingdom of God. Lewis plays this out as if we are believers we have always been in heaven and if we are unbelievers we have always been citizens of hell. This does not quite fit the city of God, but as a Christian meditates on us already being part of the kingdom He must realize that His home is not on this earth but with God. A home for the believer and the Christian are two totally different places even though the two may share the same apartment building. I believe Lewis shows this concept very well.

The only let down is the ending. I wonder if it was a good ending the day he penned it and it had just been over-used since that time; I am not sure. The rest of the story was very imaginative and great to read. (show less)

 

 

by Alex Edwards

No, it's a flop!

Interesting premise about what heaven and hell could be like, but a rather boring and overly didactic read. Didn't even finish. Thought it was funn... (show more)

Interesting premise about what heaven and hell could be like, but a rather boring and overly didactic read. Didn't even finish. Thought it was funny that Lewis' hell would have "bookshops of the sort that sell The Works of Aristotle." (show less)

 

 

by Facebook-gebruiker

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  This is my other favorite book. People can't grasp a God so mean he would send people to hell... well what of a God who would force those who hate him to endure His paradise? To be constantly in His presence, in the goodness they have spent their lives avoiding. What of that God? For if He did that, "allowed" all, rather "put" all in heaven, wouldn't it just be hell then for those that did not want to be there? Lewis sees what he ought to. Far beyond us. Far beyond ourselv... (show more)

  This is my other favorite book. People can't grasp a God so mean he would send people to hell... well what of a God who would force those who hate him to endure His paradise? To be constantly in His presence, in the goodness they have spent their lives avoiding. What of that God? For if He did that, "allowed" all, rather "put" all in heaven, wouldn't it just be hell then for those that did not want to be there? Lewis sees what he ought to. Far beyond us. Far beyond ourselves and who we make ourselves out to be. He has a knowing of things, human and divine. Lewis reaches in deep, to us, and what he finds hidden in those recesses, he casts upward, and what he was pulled from upward, what he has grasped from heavenly reaching, he pulls the two together, and there is the bridge. Between Man and God, Between Heaven and Hell, Between you and me, between me and my maker. And oh, he has reached deep, he has reached high... and he has cast us so well together, and sees what would play out then. Amazing! (show less)

   

  by Lyndsie Read Kelly on Jul 23, 2009 at 01:29PM

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  I'm a big Lewis fan in general and am slowly working my way through his classics. The biggest takeaway for me was learning to think about Time as an object, rather than as an abstract property. Near the end he talks about how we see "freedom" through the lens of Time, and it helped me to think of Time as something that can (and will) be broken.

  My favorite quotes:

  "Shame is like that. If you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very n... (show more)

  I'm a big Lewis fan in general and am slowly working my way through his classics. The biggest takeaway for me was learning to think about Time as an object, rather than as an abstract property. Near the end he talks about how we see "freedom" through the lens of Time, and it helped me to think of Time as something that can (and will) be broken.

  My favorite quotes:

  "Shame is like that. If you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds."

  "And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the end, Hell."

  "No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own..."

  "It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil."

  "She couldn't *fit* into Hell." (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook-gebruiker on Jul 18, 2009 at 02:33AM

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