This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas wrap up their discussion of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce with the final chapters 11-14. Before starting their talk about the book, Cindy shares about her upcoming Summer Discipleship Program, Morning Time for Moms. Angelina and Thomas also have some exciting summer courses coming up on Classical Greek Drama and Flannery O'Connor. Also, this Thursday, May 21, 2020, Thomas is giving a webinar on George Orwell.
Cindy and Angelina talk about the dangers of familial love becoming the end-all-be-all, as well as Lewis' exploration of Dante's idea of sin. They go in depth with this exploration of sin as a distortion of something that might naturally seem good and the way Lewis pairs people to demonstrate that in these chapters. Angelina talks about the medieval view of ordered man versus the disordered man and how that relates to the man with the horse. They wrap up with the importance of stories in depicting truth in a veiled way, instead of only theological argument and discourse, in helping us live out our faith in a properly ordered way.
Until next time, check out our Upcoming Events page to view our summer schedule and see what we will be reading together next!
Commonplace Quotes:
We chose from the library shelves any book of Tales for the Young, and took much pleasure in prophesying the events. We could rely on Providence to punish the naughty and bring to notice the heroism of the good, and generally grant an early death to both. Why was there a bull in a field? To gore the disobedient. Why did cholera break out? To kill the child who went down a forbidden street. The names told us much: Tom, Sam, or Jack were predestined to evil, while a Frank could do nothing but good. Henry was a bit uncertain: he might lead his little sister into that field with bravado, or he might attack the bull to save her life at the cost of his own. We had bettings of gooseberries on such points.
M. V. Hughes
Exaggeration is one of art's great devices.
J. B. Priestley
Hell is inaccurate.
Charles Williams There is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods
by Lord Byron
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Book List:
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A London Child of the Seventies by M. V. Hughes
Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc
An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley
The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Paradise Lost by John Milton
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis
The Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis
A Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
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Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also!
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