Book Review: Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

First published in 1937, written by one of C. S. Lewis’ fellow Inklings, this book is hard to get into, and hard to finish. It is so completely different from modern fiction that it likely would not be publishable today. The author elaborates in great detail on the thoughts and feelings of the half dozen or so characters. Each one interacts with other dimensions of existence, such as the dead, spirits of the underworld, and themselves in other circumstances. This is all overlaid on a straightforward story about the premiere of a new play in a small town in the suburbs of London.  

The heroine wrestles with fear of meeting her doppelgänger, which she has seen from a distance. There is substitutionary love, both theoretical and practiced. There is unrequited lust, and its fruit of self-pity. There are appearances by a nameless dead man who wanders through an empty afterlife looking for what he does not know, and Lilith (legendary Jewish first wife of Adam) masquerading as a widow. There is the death of a saintly grandmother. 

To illuminate interior development, the reader is given a sense of the characters’ confusion. The characters confront and confuse elements from the spiritual domain, from history, from their present acquaintances, and from their imagination, and have trouble keeping them straight. Their response to these elements is often cast in Biblical terms, but not always, and it is their response that results in character development. Through this process, we see some characters grow into godly saints, exhibiting virtue and divine character suited for heaven, which they practice while still on earth. Others become ever more self-centered, unable to distinguish reality from desire and ultimately descending into the nothingness that results from rejecting God and the world He created. This is the title theme. Every thought, word, and deed in this life moves us either towards heaven or hell. 

There are some aspects of this tale that are unbiblical, but most follow the general tenants of Scripture. The theme of substitutionary love follows the author’s understanding of how Christ’s atoning sacrifice is to be played out in everyday human life. The confusion of hell with Gomorrah is not necessarily Biblical, but seeing its destruction by fire as a metaphor is vivid. Interaction with the dead runs counter to Deuteronomy 18:11, but the nature of the interactions is consistent with the narrative of 1 Samuel 28. 

There is a short speech by the playwright, Peter Stanhope, near the end of chapter 9, that describes the nature of Gomorrah and its residents.  “They beget themselves on their adoration of themselves, and they live and feed and starve on themselves, and by themselves too… They won’t have the facts of creation.”  This description is then personified in the closing pages of the book, a vivid description of a man going through the process of losing all contact with the world. How he got there is the descent into hell.

What is sadly missing is a clear presentation of the Good News. Jesus does not appear in the lives of any of the characters as they struggle with spiritual realities and choices. The atonement is alluded to in the discussion of substituted love, but there is no clear presentation of the gospel. In a novel dealing with the ultimate outcome of human souls, it seems to me necessary to include the death of Christ on the cross to pay for our sins, and the offer of God of forgiveness and reconciliation being contingent only on our decision to believe in and receive that offer. Our ultimate destination depends on this!