The Great Divorce (Paperback)

~ C. S. Lewis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco (January 1, 2001)
• ASIN: B001S37KYM
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #63,819 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful and Profound Tale, August 31, 2009

By	Nick (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This is fiction of a similar kind as *The Screwtape Letters* in the sense that it is indeed fiction, but it also has a heavy philosophical and religious side to it.

The story begins at a bus stop, and you quickly realise this is no ordinary story as the bus takes off into the sky!

The rest is a philosophical tale of faith and faithlessness as newly arrived "dead people" are faced with the after-life. Ghosts meet spirits (two different things), and discussions follow.

C.S. Lewis illustrates all sorts of reasons why we may not embrace faith, even when we think we actually do. And it is too profound for me to summarise very well any of the material included in this awesome little volume.

Recommended!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes You Want To Live Differently!, April 14, 2009

By	millionaireby2014 (Grand Rapids, MI USA) - See all my reviews

Even if you are an aethist and do not believe in God, this book still will challenge your thinking regarding your choices you make daily, and how you shape the people and situations around you.

The book is only 160 pages and easy to read. The audio version of the book is also great to listen to. I enjoyed it in both versions.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet, it IS a plausible picture of the afterlife..., October 31, 2009

By	OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This little book is a total joy to read. I know that the author makes it very clear that one should not suppose that he is factually presenting details of the afterlife, yet, in the end he has created a most satisfying image of a plausible afterlife. As for the title, he is referring to the poet-mystic William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He points out that this is a synthesis that can never be, for to do so would compromise the absolute Goodness of Heaven, thereby making a Hell of both. Perhaps there can one day be a marriage of Heaven and Earth (thereby showing both to really have been Heaven all along), but never of Heaven and Hell.

I loved the imagery of Hell being very much like a never-ending city on Earth where it is always twilight and eternal night always on the verge. Yet, it is not a crowded city for people keep moving apart because they cannot stand each other's presence. That's just it. People dwell in Hell by their own choice. It is the obsessions that separate them from God and the highest Reality that keep them from leaving. It is even shown that such higher impulses as love and pity, if unhealthily indulged in for their own sake and for nothing higher or transcendent, can keep you in Hell. Yet, this Hell is also Purgatory for those who workout their obsessions. In fact, there is a regular bus service to Heaven for fieldtrips that serve just that purpose (I always suspected that the omnibus originated in Hades.)

As for Heaven, it is perpetually just the moment before dawn and eternal day. The idea that Heaven is actually more substantial than Hell, or Earth, is reasonable, since it is after all the more Real of the two being closer to the Creator. Indeed, the visitors from Hell appear as pale and insubstantial deformed ghosts who find the adamantine hardness and density of the higher plane physically painful (even walking upon the grass.) The residents of the realm however are radiant spirits who do everything that they can to point out the mistakes and illusions that the ghostly visitors still cling to- and which are the only thing keeping them from traveling higher up and farther in to the one true goal. The most detailed and believable of these tutelary spirits is Lewis' own spriritual mentor, George Macdonald.