I reread The Great Divorce recently for another project and I was struck again by the richness of true life beyond our own. As you know, Lewis makes Heaven’s eternal space clear and expansive as opposed to the chosen hells found through small openings underfoot. So, here’s a question –

In the first chapter of The Great Divorce the narrator, which we assume is Lewis, questions his surroundings and how people in the grey-colored town can be satisfied. A fellow bus rider says, “They’ve got cinemas and fish and chip shops and advertisements and all the sorts of things they want. The appalling lack of any intellectual life doesn’t worry them.”

We also learn of the lonely exile that residents create for themselves as they move from house to house without anything solid.

I wonder if there’s a prophetic relation to a life that is navigated by computers and devices that maintain solitude yet never quiet.

Do you think the grey town is a parallel to our modern 2014 world? What do you think Lewis is saying about the “lack of intellectual life” and does that change faith and our pursuit of a truly happy life?