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Here is Lewis using both fable and allegory to write about heaven and hell. He is at pains both in the beginning and the end of the book to inform us that this is ‘a dream.’ He is not claiming that it is vision or an exact theological statement of his subject matter as such; it is his imagination and reason moving along a certain line and seeking to express truth of great soberness and joy. The writer boards a bus in his dream and takes a journey through heaven and hell meeting, as he does so, many wraith like persons who have taken the route to hell and bright, indescribable beings that are dwellers in heaven. There is nothing of the fanciful and lurid descriptions that tend to characterize the spate of books more recently published by people who claim to have been transported to heaven or hell. Instead the fundamental subject matter forges the link between our present day behavior and the eternal states into which we will eventually come. There is nothing about salvation through our Lord Jesus in the book; the emphasis is upon the different heart states in which people lived as they spent their time upon earth and their bearing upon their future place in eternity. At the beginning of the book there is a brief section about good and evil and here is a quote from it, “ 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.” This book was written and first published in the mid nine forties, a time when war had devastated vast areas of Europe and other parts of the globe. I wonder if this fact influences Lewis as conducts us through his ‘dream.’ It is a book that needs to be read several times in order to gain its substance, on a first reading many of its insights will pass us by. He challenges us and makes us think deeply and stirs our imaginations so that we are made to consider the fundamental issues of life and that which comes hereafter.
