Clive Lewis’s small work “Divorce” is devoted to religious topics and has nothing to do with the divorce process. The title itself reflects the contents of the collection of W. Blake “The Marriage of Hell and Paradise”. By his work, the writer tries to prove that such a union is impossible.
Who is Clive Lewis?
Clive Lewis, a scholar and theologian, was born in Ireland in 1898. The English writer is known for works on religious subjects and works in the genre of fantasy. The first published work of Lewis was the poetic collection "The Oppressed Spirit". In 1926 another collection of poems was published - "Dimer".
According to the writer, in 1931 he became a Christian. At the same time, his works of a Christian orientation come out: “Letters of Balamut”, “Miracle”, “Just Christianity”. During the war, Lewis worked in the broadcasting service on the BBC, was a member of the Inklings group, where the famous writers D. Tolkien, C. Williams, W. Coghill and others gathered.
The name of the writer was known from books of a religious orientation, but world fame came with the release in 1955 of the cycle "Chronicles of Narnia."
In the Christian world, interest in the writer's books has not faded since publication, but the general public drew attention to them after the release of the film "The Chronicles of Narnia" in 2000. And, judging by the readers' feedback, not only the writer's works of art are popular, but also religious ones: “Love”, “The Pain of Loss”, “Reflections on the Psalms”, “Until We Found Faces”. Including the "Divorce", which will dwell in more detail.
What's that book?
The hero of the story finds himself at a bus stop and realizes that the bus in which he got in does not go anywhere, but to Paradise. Events are developing rapidly, the reader will not have to be bored. The author reveals the feelings of each passenger arriving on this flight. “Anonymous Orthodox” - as the writer Bishop Callist called the writer and specified that Lewis is partially familiar with Orthodoxy, he visited the church several times and was unlikely to study the works of the Holy Fathers, but proved to be an “orthodox thinker”. Perhaps this explains its popularity in almost all Christian denominations, which is a rather rare occurrence.
The writer not only contrasts the title with his work to the poet Blake, who claimed that good and evil are one, but also with the content of the book “Divorce”. Lewis clearly shows that this is not so. The story begins with an unfriendly and gloomy picture: gray buildings, drizzling rain, dusk is falling on the city. The reader sees people who are overwhelmed with: anger, pride, vanity, indifference, irritability, inhospitable. In "Divorce" Lewis describes the sounds surrounding the characters - laughter, crying and screeching.
Do you need paradise?
When bus passengers arrive in paradise, they are not well, they are unhappy: the light is blinding, they are screaming that all this is an advertisement. It’s impossible to live like that. "You won’t bite apples, you won’t drink water, you won’t pass through the grass." They lived well and where they came from. As readers of Clive Lewis's book “Divorce” write in reviews, reading these lines, you understand that hell or paradise everyone chooses for himself. It would seem that people still need? They were given an excursion, allowed to touch eternal bliss - to see paradise with their own eyes, to compare that world and this. Though not for long, but they were given the highest happiness, which you can only dream of.
But neither the views nor the thoughts of these people linger on anything - they rush back, scurry, swear, wail. They managed to transfer their hell to paradise. The author is overwhelmed with anxious feelings, and the reader sees that hell is a rapture of passions. In a small work flies a gallery of faces and feelings. The heroes of Clive Lewis’s book “Divorce” communicate with the antipodes who are in paradise and try to reason with them, stop and prevent evil. But the arrivals are proud, stubborn and do not want to change, do not want to admit their mistakes.
What do you choose?
Lewis book is built in the form of dialogues. Each of the characters illustrates mortal sin. The reader sees a woman madly in love with her son - an apostate, a thief, a theologian. It would seem, why is he scary? What is his sin? He is a theologian without God, carried away by reasoning about the afterlife, he forgot about God. This difficult journey reveals the soul of every hero of Clive Lewis’s book “Divorce”.
The author shows that this hellish state is not easy to overcome - the union of good and evil is impossible. If a person chooses paradise, there will not be a drop of hell in him, if he chooses hell, then the path to paradise is closed. Paradise does not reign on earth, but in the soul of man, in the heart, and in order to find it, one must make efforts to abandon hell. Courage is not enough for everyone.
Clive Lewis in “Divorce” provides a surprisingly accurate comparison. He represents sin in the form of a lizard, pressing on the human chest. Everyone is trying to prove to him that you just need to throw the lizard off his chest, but the person is afraid. So it is in life. Sometimes a person lacks the determination to abandon bad habits. In the book, an angel comes to the aid of the hero and turns the disgusting creature into a beautiful one.
What is God's mercy?
The author says that sin can be transformed by the opposite - beneficence. Lewis surprisingly accurately portrays that in hell, people are also not devoid of the love of God. And it is she who bothers and torments sinners: those tormented in hell are struck by the scourge of love. They realize that they have sinned against His love, this sorrow burns the heart, incinerates. Before eternal peace and bliss, it was necessary to take only one step - to accept this love. But they could not.
Lewis in his work reveals that God loves everyone equally - both the righteous and the sinners. For some alone, His love is bliss; for others, unbearable torment. Everyone chooses - heaven or hell. Sometimes a person wonders if God is Love, how can he send his children to eternal suffering? The author in this parable answers this question: it is not God who wants them to suffer, man himself cannot accept His mercy.
Reader Reviews
In “Divorce,” Clive Lewis hits the mark. The author did not set out to tell how it really will be in “that life”. But he masterfully makes the reader think about many things - about heaven and hell, about the meaning of life, about prayer without God, which can lead to indifference or immense love. Lewis surprisingly accurately showed that hell is in the soul. It doesn’t matter if he believes in the afterlife or not, but in the book each reader will find his own portrait. The book is incomparable! To the depths of the soul a piercing narrative. Easy syllable, vivid, juicy descriptions, dialogs and content, concealing a deep meaning.