My book club read The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, and discussed today. All agreed: a ham-fisted, boring allegory for thinking about the meaning of life and how to be a person who will be closer to God. God turns out to be a distant mountain range, a never-ending exploration of love for the wholeness of All Creation blah blah. I can be generous about it: Lewis was trying to work through ideas in WWII when presumably intelligent people were having a hard time seeing God In All Things. He perhaps sincerely thought he could write a short allegory that would give people hope, and deepen their faith. It did not speak to me or most others in the book club. Does not stand the test of time. Camus was writing The Stranger around the same time, and I think it is definitely better as a novel, and engages more honestly with the fundamental question of meaninglessness, in the context of the times.