Name: The Great Divorce
ISBN: 9780060652951

The Great Divorce

What if anyone in Hell could take a bus trip to Heaven and stay there forever if they wanted to? In The Great Divorce C. S. Louis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven. The amazing opportunity is that anyone who wants to stay in Heaven, can. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment. Lewis's revolutionary idea is the discovery that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In Lewis's own words, "If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell." -- Jacket flap. C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce is a classic Christian allegorical tale about a bus ride from hell to heaven. An extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment, Lewis’s revolutionary idea in the The Great Divorce is that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, Lewis’ The Great Divorce will change the way we think about good and evil.

What Hacker News says

svieiraJan 2026

If you haven't read C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce you may like it.

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graemepSep 2025

Which CS Lewis fiction have you read? Till We Have Faces is the best IMO and few people seem to read it. I also like Out of The Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, although not the middle book of that trilogy, Perelandra. The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce are pretty good too.

I am not sure Tolkien's books are accurately described as children's books. The Hobbit perhaps, but not the Lord of The Rings IMO.

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graemepAug 2025

Most Christians? I very much doubt it.

It is NOT the teaching of the Catholic church for a start:

https://uscatholic.org/articles/202212/what-does-the-church-...

https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_coun...

Nor do they believe hell to be a place of torture, but a state of separation from God. Read CS Lewis's Great Divorce if you are interested in a better metaphor than flames and torture.

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armitronOct 2022

Besides Dostoevsky, there is abundant wisdom and deep truths to be found in the classics of Christianity. The apologetics of C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters, The Problem with Pain, The Great Divorce), Augustine's Confessions and City of God, Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man.

These are seldom read (or known) by young people today and I see that as a tragedy. Western spirituality was demolished and nothing substantial has emerged to fill the void left, besides a coterie of self-help charlatans and intellectual tricksters, with the predictable results that we see all around us today.

This is also something that Nassim Taleb (a voracious reader and lifelong student of the Western classics but also an Orthodox Christian) frequently outlines.

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cynicalkaneNov 2018

C. S. Lewis writes along similar lines in The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters, two very different books, but both of which of I'd credit as changing my life. The common theme in both is that to be damned is not to sin greatly, but to become comfortable with the abandonment of good.

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kilo_manJul 2014

Just listing books that have had a big impact on me:

* The Now Habit - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585425524

* Getting Things Done - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0142000280

* Simply Christian - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061920622

* Surprised by Hope - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061551821

* The Great Divorce - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060652950

* Mere Christianity - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060652926

* The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - http://www.amazon.com/dp/048629823X

* Tao Te Ching - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060812451

Books from the Bible that I like: