Re-reading The Great Divorce sounded like a great reason to start this blog, a place where friends can gather to talk about this book...and maybe to talk about other Lewis books too, on down the line!
It's been fifteen years (at least) since I first read this book, and I thought I'd kick off our conversation by beginning at the beginning -- with the preface.
There are a lot of books where I'd probably just skip an introduction or preface, or at least skim them, but that's never true of a book by C.S. Lewis. If he wrote it, I want to read it. You've heard the old line about certain actors you'd listen to if they were quoting the phone book? Well, Lewis is that kind of writer for me!
And there's a lot to like in this little preface. Lewis' humility when comparing himself to "so great a genius" as Blake. Lewis' gratitude to the unknown author (of a magazine short story) who gave him one of his key ideas for the book. And a couple of wonderful quotes, which ring with major echoes from other Lewis writings:
"You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those two into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision."
So true, and so important for any storyteller to contemplate when writing!
And then there's this one:
"Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to be 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."
Which reminded me of "Ask for the Morning Star and take (thrown in) your earthly love." I know that's a Lewis quote...and it's one that comes back to me a lot...but I couldn't remember where he said it. (I went looking, and apparently it's one of his poems.) I think there's also a "higher up and further in" feel to that quote. One reason I love Lewis so much is for the repeated meaningful themes/motifs that pop up all over his work.
And then there's this one:
ReplyDelete"Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to be 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."
This reminds me of something Barry McGuire said once. I can only remember seeing Barry McGuire in concert three times in my life, and I was never a huge fan of his music, but I could listen to him talk forever, and to this day some of the things he said stick with me. At any rate, he was talking about being at Denny's once with a group of friends and everyone talking about how "plastic" everything there was. One of the girls in the group piped up with, "You know, for those of us who are bound for heaven, this world is a close to hell as we'll ever get." Everybody thought that was pretty cool, imagining the plasticity of Denny's as the worst thing they would ever experience. Then the same girl said, "And for those of us bound for hell, this is as close to heaven as we will ever get." That shut everyone up, imagining Denny's as the *best* some people would ever experience. And it motivated everyone to want to make sure they--and as many other people as possible--were going to be bound for heaven!
Great story, Dana! Is that Barry "Eve of Destruction" McGuire? That song seems to kinda fit with Lewis's point about people being unwilling to face up to the things that are so wrong in their lives. I bet McGuire would be an interesting speaker.
ReplyDeleteBeth, I love the notion of this blog as a cyber-Bird and Baby! I too really enjoyed his preface. I thought it was a helpful guide for how to read the book, and his personality really came through in it.
And I thought his acknowledgment of that writer was quite nice too (and I got a chuckle out of his use of the word "scientifiction"). It reminded me of Paul Stookey writing to song "El Salvador" after reading a newspaper article about the violence happening there, and as I recall he tracked the newspaper reporter down afterwards and gave him a share of the song's royalties. Must've been a nice surprise for him!
Yes, *that* Barry McGuire... though I knew him as a Christian singer from the early Jesus People days before I ever heard his biggest hit (though I'd always had a Christmas album featuring him as one of the New Christy Minstrels (which pre-dated his solo career, which pre-dated his conversion). If you can ever track down "To the Bride"--a live album he did with the 2nd Chapter of Acts in the early '70s--you can hear a delightful story he tells about dolphins as a sample of his story-telling style.
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