Name: The Great Divorce
Rating: 4.241176470588235 (85 reviews)
ISBN: 9781661510886

(Clive Staples) Lewis C. S.

The Great Divorce is a theological dream vision by C. S. Lewis, in which he reflects on the Christian conception of Heaven and Hell.

The Great Divorce

Najara Valente

Lizzy Jensen

In other words, there's no proper economic basis for any community life. If they needed real shops, chaps would have to stay near where the real shops were. If they needed real houses they'd have to stay near where builders were. It's scarcity that enables a society to exist. 

“Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith.”

C. S. Lewis

The narrator finds himself in the grey limbo of Hell, where the disgruntled inhabitants take a bus-ride to the plains of Heaven, where they meet angels and the souls of those already in Heaven. This fantasy communicates Lewis's deep spiritual truths through the power of the fantastic.

A Dream

Gracie Marsden

Loved this book! This is a book I could read over and over again and get something different out of it every time. I tried reading this a few years back but it went completely over my head. I am so glad I tried it again!

Cindy Scott

This is my first time reading this and I always look forward to reading C. S. Lewis books over and over because there is always more that I understand with each reading.

In "The Great Divorce", C.S. Lewis employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory, this time exploring the question of heaven and hell. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, the theologian introduces readers to supernatural beings who will change the way we think about good and evil.

Mary Horton

"You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God."

Picked this up on a whim last night and couldn't put it down! The fastest I've read a book in months. 

In true C.S. Lewis fashion, this book was equal parts cozy comfort read by the fire, cup of tea in hand, and deep philosophical discussion in a university library. Thought-provoking and complex yet approachable in the way only Jack can manage.

The perfect way to start my year. It altered my perspective and gave me a lot to ponder as we approach the start of yet another chapter in life. Though I may not completely agree with everything theologically (& the concept was admittedly a bit strange), reading this was enriching and enlightening.

One of the only non-Narnia books of his I've read, and I want to read more of them! Ending with some quotes because his writing speaks for itself.

“Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.”

“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal sufferring, "No future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

Content note: Be advised there's a bit of mild language, if that sort of thing bothers you. Feel free to message me if you want any details!

4 stars

Celeste Richardson

There’s something about the way Lewis strings together his words that has always struck a cord in me. I often have a difficult time connecting to books concerning theology and apologetics, though there is within me a thirst for them. This is never the case with Lewis. The Great Divorce isn’t my favorite of his works, but it still resonates with me in a way that few works from other authors have ever been able to replicate.
I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
The Great Divorce is Lewis’s imagining of a theoretical Hell that allows day visits to the other side. Those who embark on the journey are invited to stay, though most of them end up returning to the bus, eager to head back “home.” The grey town they generally inhabit may be disappointingly sallow and tiresome and boring, but at least they can maintain a semblance of control there. Not so in Heaven. There, the residents of the netherworld find themselves incorporeal ghosts, without the strength to move even an acorn or a feather. The grass hurts their feet, and the bright bodies of the residents there offends their weakened eyesight. These heavenly residents try their hardest to awaken these close-minded visitors and help them to see how much they’ve been missing by remaining in the shadowlands. While many choose to close their ears and return to what they know, the few who choose to stay and acknowledge their faults are radically changed.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
I find Lewis’s theory that hell is escapable but that its residents often choose to stay incredibly interesting. I don’t know exactly how the afterlife works. I believe everything the Bible says about it, but there is a lot left to theorize. While I’m not sold on the idea that people can change their minds after death, I think that’s less because God won’t allow it and more because by that time people are too set in their ways to truly desire change, even if it would decrease their suffering. I believe that God is a giver of not only second chances, but hundredth and thousandth chances, so who knows? The reason that this book is 4 stars for me instead of 5 is twofold: first, I think that Lewis has said almost everything in this book in his other works, and that he did it better; second, the dreamlike quality of the narrative made it difficult to latch onto some of the very important topics covered.
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” 
Any work by Lewis that I read is destined to be heavily highlighted and annotated, so much so that it was almost impossible to narrow down quotations to share. But whatever your theological beliefs, Lewis delivers a lot of fodder for deep thought and interesting discussion in The Great Divorce. It’s a short, dreamlike little book that raises a lot of questions about morality and the inner workings of mankind’s individual hearts and collective conscience. If you’re interested in philosophy and Christian theology, and aren’t opposed to plot and fantasy playing roles in such works, you should give this one a try.

Hannah Montgomery

Caroline

Lauren Hendrix

Gabe Cortez

Sabine

Christine

Nevin Marmion

naj 

C.S. Lewis’s dazzling allegory about heaven and hell – and the chasm fixed between them – is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, as he takes issue with the ideas in William Blake’s ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’.

The Great Divorce

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