Book Review: Beyond the Shadowlands by Wayne Martindale

Pages: 237
Pub­lisher: Zon­der­van
Year: 2009
Author: Wayne Martindale

I’ve always been a fan of C.S. Lewis’ writ­ing, but I’ve never read any­thing about Lewis’ views until now. Admit­tedly, I was at some what of a dis­ad­van­tage with this book, as three of the most quoted books, Lewis’ Space Tril­ogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Pere­landa, That Hideous Strength), are ones that I haven’t read (though I do plan on chang­ing that in the near future). I should quickly add, how­ever, that even in not being famil­iar with these books, I did not find myself lost — Wayne Mar­tin­dale does a won­der­ful job explain­ing the intri­ca­cies of Lewis’ views. Thus we come to Martindale’s book, Beyond the Shad­ow­lands: C.S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell.

Wayne Mar­tin­dale is a pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at Wheaton Col­lege, and you might also rec­og­nize him as being co-editor on the book The Quotable Lewis. What Mar­tin­dale has assem­bled here is, as the name sug­gests, Lewis’ views — as revealed through his fic­tional writ­ings — on Heaven and Hell. Some works are quoted more exten­sively than oth­ers, most notice­ably The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia, The Space Tril­ogy, The Great Divorce and The Screw­tape Let­ters, while oth­ers are men­tioned briefly, such as The Four Loves, The Abo­li­tion of Man and Mere Chris­tian­ity. (My point, so I’m not mis­un­der­stood, is that Mar­tin­dale pulls from a vari­ety of Lewis’ writ­ings.) You might have guessed what I’m about to say next: this is a book pri­mar­ily for those who are inter­ested in and famil­iar with Lewis and his writ­ing. If you haven’t read Lewis, it is rec­om­mended you engage some of the writ­ings listed above.

The book itself is split into three sec­tions: one on heaven, one on hell, and one on pur­ga­tory (also included is an epi­logue on “Who Goes to Heaven”), with the for­mer two sec­tions being com­prised of two parts each. The first part of either sec­tion deals with “demythol­o­giz­ing” heaven or hell; that is, pre­sent­ing Lewis’ answers to pop­u­lar myths and objec­tions which have gained pop­u­lar­ity and dis­tort our per­cep­tions of eter­nity. Some of the myths and objec­tions that are dealt with is the idea that heaven is bor­ing, whereas hell is inter­est­ing; the puz­zle­ment over there not being sex in heaven, and that hell is just a state of mind, etc. The sec­ond part of either sec­tion deals with cor­rect­ing our per­cep­tion of heaven and hell, as based in the writ­ings of Lewis. Mar­tin­dale does a won­der­ful job delin­eat­ing and explain­ing Lewis’ views, and I have only good things to say.

All in all, Beyond the Shad­ow­lands is well laid out, the writ­ing is easy to fol­low and Lewis’ views are explained well.

Many thanks to the peo­ple at Cross­way Pub­lish­ers for pro­vid­ing a copy of this book for review pur­poses.¹

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Between Heaven and Hell by Peter Kreeft
2. Book Review: Between Allah and Jesus by Peter Kreeft
3. Book Review: The Essen­tial Edwards Collection
4. Book Review: Socrates Meets Jesus by Peter Kreeft
5. Book Review: The Mak­ing of an Athe­ist by James Spiegel