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82nd out of 172 books
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64 voters
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Descent Into Hell
The key to Williams' mystically oriented theological thought, "Descent into Hell" (arguably Williams' greatest novel) is a multidimensional story about human beings who shut themselves up in their own narcissistic projections, so that they are no longer able to love, to 'co-inhere.' The result is a veritable hell.
Paperback, 222 pages
Published
December 1st 1997
by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
(first published 1937)
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booklady
rated it
Recommends it for:
all believers
Shelves:
2008,
fantasy,
classic,
worth-reading-over-and-over,
theology,
religion,
mystery,
literature
One part horror, one part salvation and the rest the possibility for either, Descent Into Hell isn't all as ominous as the title sounds. Yes, there is at least one character who allows delusion to sweep away reason and reality. The reader watches in fearful fascination as the deadly descent begins and progresses.
This was my first ever book by Charles Williams, a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and a member of the famous Inklings, the literary pub group they belonged to. Ho...more
This was my first ever book by Charles Williams, a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and a member of the famous Inklings, the literary pub group they belonged to. Ho...more
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Here be some trippy penteChristal shite. Threnodic theatre, scaffold ghosts dazed and confused, a funhouse of sin where the mirrors reveal the distortions to body, mind and soul by a self-centeredness and worldly rapture threatening to metastasize, and the most baroque ego-suppurating beat-down since the mascaraed spiritual insolvency of the volcanic vultures from Riders in the Chariot. Williams' style squeezes the air from your lungs, making the process of penetrating the mysteries of his tale ...more
A scintillant and surreal narrative that can, at a moment's notice, explodes outward into metaphysical mysticism. It is not unusual for half of the characters in a Williams' novel to be ghosts, doppelgangers, and golems, despite their being set in 1940's England. Despite this book being about the gradual damnation of a human soul - who consistently chooses himself over greater reality - its cosmological vision is deeply redemptive. Williams is one of those rare authors who is able to be true to ...more
Wow. Every five years I stumble across a book of this caliber, and I now understand why this novel is considered to be Williams' best. From beginning to end, Williams crafts a story that reads more like a theological drama which, though obscure, is deeply personal and engaged with humanity's need for communion with God and one another. Williams believed that the source of sin and alienation from God and one another is our failure to live according to "co-inherence." There are passa...more
Charles Williams is probably my favorite author, bar none, but I will never feel comfortable giving any of his books a five star rating. This sounds unfair, and in truth it really is unfair, but it's also an important acknowledgement of an intrinsic quality to Williams' work: his books can be difficult to read.
This is not to say he writes poorly. He is, in my opinion, an exceptional writer, but his preferred style was considered antiquated even in his day. There are times when you'll...more
This is not to say he writes poorly. He is, in my opinion, an exceptional writer, but his preferred style was considered antiquated even in his day. There are times when you'll...more
Tim Pendry
rated it
This is not an easy book. In fact, it is a very difficult book on two grounds - the style and the content. But it is a minor masterpiece that deserves much wider readership.
The style owes something to its period. The emotionally cold world of 1930s Britain. It is cerebral. The artistry - like the play at the centre of the first half - is classical and functional. Conversations can seem rhetorical and clipped. The approach to the supernatural is 'Roman' rather than romantic.
...more
The style owes something to its period. The emotionally cold world of 1930s Britain. It is cerebral. The artistry - like the play at the centre of the first half - is classical and functional. Conversations can seem rhetorical and clipped. The approach to the supernatural is 'Roman' rather than romantic.
...more
Another through inter-library loan, so it will move to the top of the reading list to.
This one was (I found) a little harder to stay with. Williams has a wonderful mind but hie books can be somewhat esoteric. I believe the first one I read was The Place Of The Lion and it was a wake up.
I found staying with the play and the imagery of the play, the "spiritual selves" etc. a little hard to stay with.
The attempt here is to show a contrast between a will...more
This one was (I found) a little harder to stay with. Williams has a wonderful mind but hie books can be somewhat esoteric. I believe the first one I read was The Place Of The Lion and it was a wake up.
I found staying with the play and the imagery of the play, the "spiritual selves" etc. a little hard to stay with.
The attempt here is to show a contrast between a will...more
I may never have read this on my own, but I am so glad that it was a part of my assigned college reading.
It reads best when one is familiar with Dante, but I think a general knowledge would suffice. Charles Williams anchors this book in a concept called "co-inherence" -- that what happens to one, affects all. All individuals are part of an interconnected whole, and exist in relationship to each other. Williams balances (or tries to) this rather Eastern concept in a deep ...more
It reads best when one is familiar with Dante, but I think a general knowledge would suffice. Charles Williams anchors this book in a concept called "co-inherence" -- that what happens to one, affects all. All individuals are part of an interconnected whole, and exist in relationship to each other. Williams balances (or tries to) this rather Eastern concept in a deep ...more
This is very much a curate's egg of a book. It contains some very deep and powerful writing, as for example in the description of the gradual spiritual degradation and then destruction of the historian Mr Wentworth, or the vision of eternity of a dying woman, but the problem is that these stand apart in a morass of ideas and events that never seem to cohere.
The thing is that in Williams' better novels (e.g. 'The Greater Trumps', 'The Place of the Lion') there is a clear theme that eme...more
The thing is that in Williams' better novels (e.g. 'The Greater Trumps', 'The Place of the Lion') there is a clear theme that eme...more
William's novels are unlike any other books that I have ever read. They have a strong mystical quality which causes the reader to rethink the world in which he lives.
The major theme of Desent into Hell is substitutionary love, i.e. bearing the burdens of others and allowing others to help you bear your own. Although only hinted at in the novel, substitutionary love is perfected in the death of Jesus Christ.
The novel tracks the lives of two main characters, Wentworth (a ...more
The major theme of Desent into Hell is substitutionary love, i.e. bearing the burdens of others and allowing others to help you bear your own. Although only hinted at in the novel, substitutionary love is perfected in the death of Jesus Christ.
The novel tracks the lives of two main characters, Wentworth (a ...more
I just finished rereading Charles Williams' *Descent Into Hell*. I enjoyed it very much, although I did notice this time, it's neither as thrilling nor as humorous as *War In Heaven* or *Many Dimensions*. It does remain a fascinating illustration of Williams' notion of "the doctrine of substituted love," and his idea of how people choose heaven or hell through seemingly insignificant everyday decisions. As my favorite Fuller professor says, Charles' Williams novels are not to everyone'...more
I just re-read this. (The first reading was probably about a decade ago.) It is an amazing novel, unlike anything I've ever read. For one, it is very difficult to follow. For another, the blend of (apparently) orthodox theology with horror is really quite strange. Finally, his insight into love, sex and the paths we can take to descend into Hell are all really rather startling, yet they have the feel of truth.
Do read this book, but expect to have to put in some effort. Hang in ...more
Do read this book, but expect to have to put in some effort. Hang in ...more
This is a really good book, I have been disappointed with the last few Charles Williams boos I have read, but this one is right in that area that made me a fan. This book is a suspense filled ride through the alternate dimension contained within all humanity. I enjoy the book immensely, but it does have it's problems. Our first character is not a part of the main story, he is tangential. He is important, but tangential. This can throw us off, especially when he brings him back, and we are trying...more
"Descent Into Hell" was written in 1937 by Charles Williams (September 20, 1886 – May 15, 1945). I thought it was very good. A bit strange and like nothing else I've ever read before, but good. I'm not a word person. That's not to say that words aren't important to me. But I don't think entirely in words. For someone like me, the picture that this book draws is more powerful than one that can be easily described in words. Of course, it was done with words. To me, that's one of the most...more
This is the most well known work by Charles Williams, a lesser known member of the Oxford literary group called "the inklings," whose more famous members included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Williams' style is much more difficult than either Lewis or Tolkien; this perhaps somewhat explains his smaller readership.
The book itself tells the simple story of a small town play production. This setting, however, is really merely a backdrop for the central focus of the book, which is...more
The book itself tells the simple story of a small town play production. This setting, however, is really merely a backdrop for the central focus of the book, which is...more
William Blake once wrote: "For every thing that lives is Holy"; and yet, Christ made division between subjects of the kingdom vs. slaves to the darkness when He said: "He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left" (Matthew 25:33). In Descent into Hell</>, Charles Williams sees beyond that fundamental opposition, which is a byproduct of temporal reality, into the deeper truth where those contradictory ends of a rope join and are one.
As he usu...more
As he usu...more
Probably the greatest Christian novel ever. Williams transforms occult symbols into vehicles for Christian truth. His ability to see into spiritual reality is unparalleled. He is said to have been a man for whom the Nicene Creed was as real and operative as the law of gravity. People in this novel interact with the Triune God mostly without knowing it, deciding their eternal destiny based on their response. A welcome change from most modern novels where characters live in an empty, absurd univer...more
This is possibly my most favorite of Charles Williams' books. A town prepares to put on a play while a man goes slowly mad, driven there by someone he thinks is his long lost love. It is the story of someone who condemns themselve to hell, it is also the story of love and the things we fool ourselves into believeing are love. It is also about bearing one another's burden literally. As a christian, I am always deeply moved by Williams's books and can't recommend them enough.
Ok I am not going to pretend that I understod this whole book but then maybe that was the point.
The story starts with a playwright reading his newest work to an acting group before they begin production on it. So naturally the director keeps bugging him to not only make things very clear but to make very clear that her interpritation is the right one. It strikes me as being very much like the book itself. It's open to interpritation but maybe there is more than one way of interpreting it. ...more
The story starts with a playwright reading his newest work to an acting group before they begin production on it. So naturally the director keeps bugging him to not only make things very clear but to make very clear that her interpritation is the right one. It strikes me as being very much like the book itself. It's open to interpritation but maybe there is more than one way of interpreting it. ...more
Like all of Charles Williams' other novels, Descent into Hell features ordinary people in English who come face-to-face with terrifying supernatural realities. This one features the Doctrine of Substituted Love--Williams' name for the idea that "bear one another's burdens" in Galatians 6:2 means to literally take on others' fears, doubts, etc., and so lighten the load on their souls.
cool book - after so many years one of my favourite parts of the book is where he explores one of the attributes of Christ through getting one of the characters to take on another's characters fear so that they wouldn't have to afraid.
Stylistically less accessible than "War in Heaven"; deeper and more chilling content. Williams had a point to make about the nature of love, and this book made it well and memorably, albeit arcanely.
Charles Williams is a great genius. The Doctrine of Substituted Love, alongside his notions of co-inherence, make him, in my view, one of the greatest realistic emotional visionaries of any time.
WARNING: If you feel like retaining any sanity, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!
Perhaps the best description of this book is that it's "terribly good." Not for the faint of heart.
Perhaps the best description of this book is that it's "terribly good." Not for the faint of heart.
Is this book as great as I believe it to be? Or is my fascination with authors taking their religious beliefs and turning them into novels unduly influencing me?
If someone asked what salvation, damnation, grace, and the gospel was all about, handing them this book wouldn't be a bad start.
Not entirely sure how much I liked this book, but it's good. Terribly thought-provoking.
One weird writer, but if you can handle him, he's well worth the effort.
Amazing book. Helped me learn how to stay alive and not become a Wentworth.
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