***
NOVEL: The Great Divorce
AUTHOR: C.S. Lewis
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1945
REVIEW:
***
I have been reading The Great C.S. Lewis Reread by Matt Mikalatos, which is, exactly as it sounds, an online column in which Mikalatos re-reads as an adult an author who greatly influenced his literary and theological development. I’ve appreciated his thoughtful reflections on the Narnia books, covering both what is lovely about them and some well-considered criticism. After finishing that series, he moved on to analysis of The Great Divorce, which I hadn’t read. It seemed like a good time to rectify that omission, and one recent day, when my husband was at the office and our daughters were both at summer camp, I took myself out to lunch at a French bistro, and read The Great Divorce while enjoying a lobster salad and white wine. (It’s certainly not a bad way to read a novel by C.S. Lewis, or anything else, for that matter.)
***
It’s a short book, easily read in one sitting (especially if you linger over your lunch and order a second glass of wine). There’s not much plot; instead it’s an allegorical journey, a theoretical (and theological) depiction of the afterlife, a meditation about good and evil. If you’re looking for action and adventure, look elsewhere. Evil here is absolutely banal. Satan doesn’t put in an appearance, and there’s no fire and brimstone, or torture. Hell is a gray, boring, rainy, cheerless city, full of unpleasant and selfish people who quarrel and complain. We only see the foothills of heaven, but its denizens come out to welcome a saint–Sarah Smith, an absolutely ordinary woman, not particularly accomplished or brilliant, not famous on Earth, but who was kind and loving and who influenced, for the better, virtually every person she met.
***
And here is what is so wonderful about C.S. Lewis at his best–whether or not you share his Christian faith, his insights about human nature are brilliant. His argument here is about good and evil being an everyday choice–that each of our actions, the many decisions we make throughout our days, and throughout our lives, either bring us closer to evil or closer to good. It’s a comforting theology in many ways–we are our choices, for better or worse, and we absolutely have the decision-making power to alter them…even after our deaths, when we can choose to stay in that unhappy and uncomfortable city, or board a bus to heaven itself. It’s not easy, of course, to change or to improve, but, Lewis argues and illustrates, it can be done, and we get second, third, fourth, fifth, in fact, hundreds of chances. We have to give, to love, to focus on others and not ourselves, on the truly important instead of worldly achievements, and not to succumb to emotional blackmail or cling to what is harmful to us, but to face reality instead of pleasant lies and self-delusions.
***
Brimming with big ideas, literary references, realistic depictions of dysfunctional human beings, and some startlingly beautiful imagery, The Great Divorce is worth your while. It might even change your life.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 4 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and two cockatiels.
Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com.
***
Lead-In Image Courtesy of HarperCollins
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna
Airs Above the Ground, Mary Stewart
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An Almond for a Parrot, Wray Delaney
An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Arthur & George, Julian Barnes
Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson
Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan
Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Everything Happens for a Reason–and Other Lies I’ve Loved, Kate Bowler
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Ghostly, edited by Audrey Niffenegger
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda
H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole
Heretics & Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron
Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis
Kenny & the Dragon, Tony DiTerlizzi
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater
Loveboat, Taipei, Abigal Hing Wen
Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi
Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
New York New York, Richard Berenholtz
Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady
Secrets and Lies, Selena Montgomery
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli
Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh
Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi
Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder
Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes, Lynn Sherr
The Beauty in Breaking, Michele Harper
The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Benjamin Wallace
The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges
The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman
The Great Passage, Shion Miura
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Ice House, Minette Walters
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Madwoman and the Roomba, Sandra Tsing Loh
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo
The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James
The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)
The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker
The Shrinking of Treehorn, Florence Parry Heide
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Three Questions, Jon J Muth
The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang
The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, Joan Dye Gussow
Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt