Back on the Bus

I first read The Great Divorce when I first read all of Lewis' fictional works, in my late teens and early twenties (which would have been the late 1970s and early 1980s). As with much of my reading at that time, I remember the idea of the book more than the actual book itself. Like most evangelical Christians of that time, I had a largely utilitarian approach to art and creative things in general; the form (and to some degree the artistry itself) was unimportant, so long as it made a point (and the point was some spiritual truth which the audience needed to know for the sake of their souls). At some point when I was even younger and less mature, I had read Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and had been appalled by its heresy and I saw this book of Lewis' as its refutation (though Lewis starts off his preface denying that very fact). My memory of the book was that its point was to prove that everyone who ends up in hell chooses to be there, and even if they were given the opportunity to go to heaven, they would choose not to stay. In re-reading the book now, I see that Lewis would say most would choose not to stay, but some actually do. And, frankly, I'm not sure what to make of that...

At any rate, the point of this post is that it is high time for me to re-read the book, to wrestle anew with the ideas expressed in it, and to freshly appraise it as a work of literature (something I was just beginning to understand at the time I first read it). In other words, it's time to get back on the bus.