This week, I’m thrilled to release the first of what I hope will become a recurring series: a virtual book discussion with Father Jacob. This episode’s topic is C.S. Lewis’ Great Divorce, a fictional exploration of life after death, contrasting Heaven and Hell.
The book follows the journey of an unnamed narrator as he moves by bus from a drab, grey town (Hell) to “the shining suburbs of Heaven” (per Father Jacob), where everything from the blades of grass to the “bright ones” who exist there are more real, more substantial and more beautiful than anything our narrator has ever seen.
Some of the themes we discuss from the book include: how getting to Heaven involves letting go of where you came from and adapting to where you are; the way humans avoid responsibility for sin and allow it to control them (and how freeing it is when they let sin go); the facades people create and how those, too, inhibit people from becoming their true selves; the way people weaponize pity to manipulate others; and the human tendency toward conditional love of God.
We also touch on similarities between this book and other works of literature (from Dante’s Divine Comedy to The Little Mermaid), as well as: Lewis’ implied assertion that humans have the ability to choose whether they stay in Hell or Heaven; the way Covid lockdowns resembled Lewis’ isolated vision of Hell; and ways the book’s various premises differ from Catholic Church teachings, most especially the concept of purgatory - a cleansing state where God prepares our souls for Heaven (even though Lewis was “very close to becoming Catholic,” says Father Jacob, he remained Anglican to his death).
It’s a slightly longer episode than usual but so worth it, whether you’ve read the book or not. I’m thrilled you have chosen to join us!
As noted earlier, I’d like literature discussions with Father Jacob to be a recurring thing, but next time with questions and discussion topics from YOU instead of just me! So, sometime in the next few episode summaries, stay tuned for my announcement on the stories we’ll read next (and if you have any suggestions for short books or stories we can read in future episodes, please feel free to submit those in the comments as well! We are all ears!)
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