I am often asked which of C. S. Lewisâ??s books is my favorite. My answer is always the same: The Great Divorce. In this most imaginative of books, Lewis works out a grand supposal: what if the sinners in hell were allowed to take a bus ride to heaven? And what if, when they arrived, they were met by a blessed saint (or Spirit) who offered them the chance, even now, to forsake their sin and pride and embrace the mercy of Christ? What would they do? As it turns out, all but one of the damned souls freely choose to return to hell.
After a few chapters that describe hell and the conversations on the bus ride, The Great Divorce devolves into a series of dialogues (I like to think of them as case studies) between a damned soul and the Spirit sent to help him. As such, the book, though endlessly fascinating, is, like Danteâ??s Divine Comedy, necessarily episodic: which is to say, it does not provide good raw material for a film or stage play. The kind of narrative thrust and cohesion that one needs for a successful screenplay or script would seem to be lacking in The Great Divorce. At least until now.
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