Appearance
The Great Divorce
Just plain boring, and difficult to read because of that. I just wanted to get it over with. The book just seems to be preaching about all of our human pitfalls. Yeah, no kidding - we see that that every single day on the news and on every so-called reality TV show. I won't be reading any more from this author.
The Great Divorce
This is the best book ever written. What else needs to be said? Lewis artfully mixes Platonism, Orthodoxy, and Imagination to the benefit of the reader. A tale full of deep Christian metaphors. Lay mysticism at its best.
The Great Divorce
Very disappointed in the audio book, it's like trying to listen to a Theatrical Movie with a British accent that was hard to understand. I feel like it was 10% good and the rest of that 90% just filler.
The Great Divorce
On an artistic level I would personally rate this work by C.S. Lewis very poor. Characters are two-dimensional. Plot is developed from the perspective that Christianity is the only truth, Heaven and Hell exist for a certainty, and that there is justification for eternal damnation for those who won't see the light. Due to the heavy moralizing, this is more like a religious pamphlet than a work of fiction. Then, why four stars? Despite what I perceive to be flaws in this book,there are some extremely penetrating representations of rationalizing, manipulative behavior. These little vignettes of lost souls willfully denying joy to themselves and trying to deprive others of it also, leaves a haunting impression that Lewis has truthfully revealed the modus operandi of much of mankind. We are allowed to eavesdrop on some conversations between the saved and the damned in which it is obvious the lost souls actually prefer remaining in the Hell they have created for themselves rather than give up their obsessive behavior. Whether or not we agree this is grounds for eternal damnation, I think there is a good lesson here, illustrated quite effectively, to work toward honest relationships free of game-playing. On further reflection, I think this title more worthy of three stars due to the dreary blend of moralizing and fiction.
The Great Divorce
Not only does "The Great Divorce" contain too many abstract allegories, but what makes it worse is these allegories are also inaccurate and in some cases false considering this book is written by a Christian author, who seems to believe in hell as being equivalent to annihilation, as alluded near the end of the book. This book talks about C.S Lewis trying to describe the characteristics of people who are supposedly in heaven and hell, much too-humanized ones to the point that they sound bland and dull; those in hell represented by the characters called "the Ghosts"; and those in heaven represented by "the Spirits" by contrasting their joy and misery; happiness and sorrow; love and hatred; charity and malice, respectively. He is trying to put together the secular and biblical views into these characters and the result is ugliness and awkwardness. Even for readers with a great imaginative power to interpret what the true meaning behind the conversations and events surrounding these Ghosts and Spirits is, I still doubt they would be able to resolve the ambiguity. Heaven and hell are the subjects that require more careful and studious efforts to illustrate than what Lewis has done here. For those who are interested in them, I have not read any good fictions about them, but I would suggest Jonathan Edwards' "Heaven: A World of Love", and "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners" or his famous "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," that readers could access online free of charge. Among many other books that Lewis wrote, some of which are excellent ones, but this one is to be avoided.
The Great Divorce
I find C.S. Lewis to be a mixed bag. Sometimes he is incredibly insightful, especially on the foibles and depth of human nature and sin (see Screwtape Letters). However, he has some serious difficultly presenting certain doctrines of Christianity well, esp. Predestination/Free Will, simply because he works very hard to make sure it is above all *reasonable*. Many Christians believe in a higher standard above reason (the Scriptures), and some have found that it makes statements that just cannot be made reasonable to the critic without screwing up their meaning.The Great Divorce is an example of this. His presentation at the end of Free Will and Predestination is utterly unhelpful, having people choose and yet having the people be little more than chessmen on a chessboard shows forth the meanderings of a human trying to grope something God did not fully reveal to us. If you are looking for an answer drawn from the Bible on the subject of Free Will and Predestination, I would encourage studying Romans 9 and Chemnitz' presentation in The Book of Concord, Formula of Concord Solid Declaration, Article XI.However, he does do an excellent job portraying humans sinfulness and rejection of eternal life in a very artful way. For this, I give the book 2 stars. I deeply regret having read this as my first dive into Lewis (I loved Screwtape Letters, give that two thumbs up)... I found the Bible's answers far more mysterious and satisfying.