The Abolition of Man & The Great Divorce

By: C. S. Lewis

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Here are two classics of moral philosophy from one of the most revered Christian voices of our time.

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis reflects on society and nature and the challenges of how best to educate our children. He describes what public education should be and how far from this standard modern education has fallen. Lewis eloquently argues that, as a society, we need to underpin reading and writing lessons with moral education.

In The Great Divorce, Lewis presents his vision of the afterworld. A fictional narrator boards a bus on a drizzly English afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell, where he meets a host of supernatural beings and comes to some significant realizations about the nature of good and evil.

©1945 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"These two short works by Lewis are a fine introduction to his eloquent writing, as well as his thought....Robert Whitfield's disciplined and well-modulated voice has an appealingly confident quality." (AudioFile)

Incredible Reader for a Great Book

I read "The Great Divorce" many years ago. I just finished listening to this recording of it, and I can't imagine how anyone could do a better job of reading it. My being a Lewis fan makes me critical of those who try to interpret him; this reading is incredible.

For all times

If you are a fan of C.S. Lewis, these two short works are a great reiteration of his beliefs regarding traditional morality, the afterlife, and the basis of ethics. The Great Divorce is in the style of an extended analogy and is actually littlw harder to follow than the more straightforward Abolition of Man. If you are at all concerned about the moral relativism that has creeped into the thought of both the academy and the common man in the West in the last two generations, then the Abolion of Man is a must listen for debunking that ideology. Brilliant as always and very well read, these two short masterpieces are the essence of Lewis.

high level thinking

I love what this book says about the human condition. why we need a God outside of the self. How Nature defeats us as we think we rule over it how limited and yet proud we are.

Review of “The Great Divorce”

I really enjoyed “The Great Divorce” and the fictitious ideas of paradise and purgatory. I found the essays in “The abolition of man” very hard to listen to and follow.

A little above my intellect and reasoning.

This was definitely not the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Maybe I will understand more in another listen. In that listen, I will probably utilize Audible's slightly slower setting.

Stretching

Any additional comments?

C.S. Lewis is so good for my distracted mind. He explores ideas deeply and I need that in my world. I will listen to it again in the future and get even more out of it. This was my second time.

Awkward combination

Combining the Great Divorce and the Abolition of Man came across fairly awkward different types of work. That was hard to say anything from CS Lewis would be bad, I felt that the evolution of man was a little boring to me, though some very important and great points involved.

That said, the Great Divorce was a great book and the reading by Vance was outstanding. I believe Mr. Lewis would have approved.

Fantastic

Lewis at his best. I really enjoyed both of these works and you probably will too.

A Peak of Christian Intellectualism

The Great Divorce is Lewis’ more layman-friendly text, an allegory that meditates upon the idea that Hell is not necessarily a place of “fire and brimstone”, but rather persons living out their pride and self-absorption, without eventual recognition (and submission) to the authority and blessing of timeless moral truths. In other words, God saying to sinners “okay then, THY will be done.”

Abolition of Man is less the Narnia side of Lewis, and more the Oxford lecturer. In it, he discusses the necessity of timeless truths (the “Tao”, to use the Asian term) as the basis for all scientific and moral reasoning — without it, no ethical duty can be imposed and no leader can be honestly held to account. A healthy man man honestly considers adopting a vegetarian diet, but an arrogant man snobbishly refuses to accept the biological necessity of ingesting H2O.

So much worthy of our thought

Both books take us on a journey. One in our imagination the other in our intellect and soul (and sometimes it hurts to try to stay with him!). Lewis is our guide and leads us not forward to humanity’s “progress” but back to right thinking and right spirituality about real things we have long forgotten as a culture. A much lesser benefit than this is the ways he stretches and enlarges one’s mind and imagination both hardly stretched at all in secular education. I commend his thoughts for your consideration.