I think this is where I first learned the word "queue" (which has greatly helped my Scrabble game over the years!). The Narrator in Lewis' Great Divorce sees a line and gets in it, as there doesn't seem to be anything better to do in gray town where he finds himself. Lewis intends for us to realize much later that this gray town is hell and the bus the line is waiting for offers a visit to heaven, but nervous publishers always give that away on the cover or inside flap, doubting that the title or even Lewis' name will sell the book if people don't know "what it's ABOUT;" it is doubtful anyone ever reads the story without having this sort of "spoiler" from the beginning.
If I did first learn the word "queue" from this book, it means I read it before the many other British novels I have read since, and before I'd seen much British TV or film. Consequently, the various characters and accents I now recognize were totally new to me, and I missed a good deal of the subtle humor and social criticism Lewis offers here. But I think I must have picked up the fact that hell was depicted, here at the beginning, as waiting in line. And though the line is moving, it is due to the fact that various people in it get disgusted with the line--or more often with each other--and leave.
It also means that when I first read this book, it was near to the time I first read Jean Paul Sartre's play No Exit, which gives us the line "Hell is other people." Though there is far more that Lewis and Sartre would disagree on, to some extent they seem to agree on this. Though Sartre's hell is a closed room and Lewis' hell is an ever-expanding suburb, one of the things that makes hell hell is the company, and neither would agree with the flippant statement often made, "Sure I want to go to hell; that's where all my friends are!" One's friends, if not unbearable in this life, certainly will be once they've become hellions!
Hmmm...I can't remember where I first learned the word queue. I use it a lot though!
ReplyDeleteLewis certainly emphasizes painful relationships within this book. The parts of relationships/friendships that were ingrown or unhealthy here on earth look far worse in the light (or dark!) of hell!
And you're right, there is wonderfully subtle humor in his depictions of certain character types. We're tempted to say "I know these people" except we keep waiting for the bits that make us realize we've seen these people (and their faults) in ourselves.
I think most of us can resonate with the humor inherent in saying hell is waiting in a long line full of obnoxious and grumbling people. (Add some cold rain and a broken roller coaster and the picture gets even worse!)
Interesting point about spoilers. That so often happens, that something in a book or movie that should have been a shock is revealed in previews or on dust jackets. My copy begins with "It is not generally known that from Hell you can take a day excursion by bus to the bright borders of Heaven." Kinda doesn't leave much to the imagination!
ReplyDeleteI think my first experience with the word "queue" may have been that old "Bus Stop" song about the guy who falls in love with the girl who always waits for the bus with him. There's a line about how odd it is to think of "this great romance beginning in a queue." He certainly had a better waiting-in-line experience than most of the people here!
Funnily enough, I have been in a line waiting for a roller coaster in the pouring down rain. The coaster wasn't broken, but they'd stopped it running because of the weather. We wound up waiting a couple hours.
It took me a bit to realize that everybody who left the line did so for quarrelsome reasons. I think I got the biggest chuckle, though, out of the guy who sits down next to him and starts on his diatribe and then tries to hand him a manuscript to read. I wonder if that was something that happened to Lewis a fair bit? My guess would be it probably did; certainly people loved to write to him...
I also thought it was interesting how reviled the driver was just for his grand, light-infused appearance. A hint of what's to come, I guess; most people on the bus do not react very well to the landscape or inhabitants of Heaven.
I think, from comments made much later by the MacDonald character (regarding the only one who can make himself small enough to enter hell), the bus driver must be Jesus. Surprising how little is made of him, if that is the case, but it would be natural that the inhabitants of hell would revile him.
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