The Great Divorce

WARNING: IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK, DON'T READ MY REVIEW!!


With my background, you'd think I'd have a greater appreciation for the man most modern Christians consider the greatest Christian thinker of the last century. Nope. Meh. I appreciate the progressive nature he displayed in his discussion of Heaven and Hell, even though it was just a dream. A Clinger's snowglobe, as one of my friends calls it. People in Hell choose to be there; if they choose to leave, it becomes merely Purgatory for them. Nice.

That said, I found every character to be unbearable. The people of Hell were all very one-dimensional, and I realize that is necessary for the message of the book. But it grates on one. They have no personalities left whatsoever, and so they are all disagreeable, petty, nasty little creatures. And it's annoying and awkward. It reminds me of the way many people I know when I was a Conservative Christian thought of the secular world. We viewed it as shallow and meaningless, since it didn't have God. That point of view trivializes any other view but its own, and that's most irksome, to say the least. I felt like this trivialization was all over the place in this book. Any good thing a person does or feels is meaningless or even tainted without God.

And let us not even begin to discuss the sexism. Oh, wait. LET US. Every single woman in this book, what few there were, could only be defined by her relationship to other people. They were wives, mothers, caregivers. The men were artists and intellectuals and made of sterner stuff. The most awful women were possessive and bitter shrews. The ideal woman was a wonderful, loving wife and caregiver to all around her. I am NOT saying that's bad. But even the awesome woman is defined by her relationships. She has no substance in and of herself. I realize that's typical of the time period, but it's tiresome.

And the HEAVENLY people. So, going to Heaven means you've apparently lost all brain function (unless your George MacDonald), because all across the board, they failed in their mission to convert the Hell People. They just could NOT figure out how to communicate properly. At all. They laughed awkwardly and failed to elucidate ANYthing relevant to getting to Heaven. Everything they said was vague and unhelpful. So in Heaven, you're a happy idiot; and in Hell, you're a petty shite. That's a great view of human nature. I felt like this was a bit too misanthropic to be of any pertinence in saving souls.

And it was just bloody tedious. It's so short, but it took forever to finish, because I kept getting bored. Or I would space out during discussions of mumbo-jumbo, especially at the very end.

There were two moments of enjoyment in this book: The last page, which was dark and referenced the war. And somewhere, MacDonald says something about human nature that I can't remember anymore because the rest of the book drilled it out of my head.

And the hymn to Sarah Smith was one of the most appalling excuses for a psalm I've ever read.

Sorry, Jack. Stick to talking lions and fauns.