The Great Divorce
- ISBN13: 9780061774195
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
What if anyone in Hell could take a bus trip to Heaven and stay there forever if they wanted to? In The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven. The amazing opportunity is that anyone who wants to stay in Heaven, can. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment. Lewis’s revolutionary idea is the discovery that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In Lewis’s own words, “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of… More >>
Available at AMAZON: The Great Divorce
B.T.
April 10th, 2010 at 4:32 pm #
Writing style was interesting enough and content mysterious enough to make me keep turning the pages, but just as I hit the 5th chapter, I started to wonder if they were in a “Purgatory”, and SURE ENOUGH… CS Lewis says “PURGATORY”, that was enough for me! What an unbiblical notion!!
BE CAREFUL CHRISTIANS!!
Rating: 1 / 5
James T Humphrey II
April 10th, 2010 at 4:51 pm #
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.
Rating: 2 / 5
The Little Floresian
April 10th, 2010 at 6:16 pm #
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.
Rating: 4 / 5
Anonymous
April 10th, 2010 at 8:32 pm #
Am I the only one who finds this book mean-spirited, even sadistic? Lewis takes these poor neurotic people and consigns them to hell. They get a chance to go to heaven for a visit. There, they only see Jesus briefly from behind as some kind of celestial bus driver, and God not at all. They are mostly left to shift for themselves, without a single kind word, even though they are obviously in extreme psychological pain. Occasionally heaven deigns to send them a helper in the form of a flaming angel or someone they despised on earth. The outcome is already decided,though, in nearly every case, allegedly by their “choices” on earth (although one expects that they were always neurotic and weak; they just grew that way, like an oak seed grows into an oak tree). Lewis refuses to be drawn into a discussion about predestination, but it is clear he has nothing but scorn for these poor weaklings who didn’t cut the mustard to begin with. There’s no talk of grace here; it seems clear that the inferior neurotics just don’t “deserve” to get into heaven, unlike all the “great” “well-adjusted” Christians who reside there. I suspect what is really going on here is that Lewis despises the neurotic aspects of himself, and has found a way in fantasy to damn them, while celebrating his own rectitude. I would have been much more impressed if the people in heaven had faults and weaknesses, but were full of grace, love and understanding instead of “virtue”; and if Christ had met the neurotics with assurance and love and help instead of just sitting at the front of that d— bus. Lewis’s sneering, superior attitude toward the poor “sinners” in this book is particularly unjustified, in light of what should be apparent to everybody: neurotic sinners usually end up being neurotic believers.
Rating: 1 / 5
John Markle
April 10th, 2010 at 9:48 pm #
As C.S. Lewis’ books go I think that this is not his best book by far. I would recommend reading some of his other works before this because if I had not of known of his amazing writing I would have forever considered him a terrible writer after reading this book.
Rating: 3 / 5