Tag: featured

Summary

The Tousle-Headed Poet explains that his parents never appreciated him. The schools he attended, the education system in general and capitalism all failed to recognize his genius. During the War, he was a conscientious objector and moved to America. After money troubles and poor treatment by a girl, he jumped under a train. He is convinced that, while all the others would return, he would stay at their destination and finally receive the recognition he deserved.

A fight breaks out in the bus. Nobody is hurt, but when it is over, our protagonist finds himself at a different seat with a new companion, an Intelligent Man with a large nose and bowler hat. His new companion explains to him why the town seems so empty, that everyone there is so quarrelsome that they keep moving further and further away from each other.

Some residents of the town are identified: Tamberlaine, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Henry the Fifth and Nepoleon. Some had gone to visit Napoleon, a journey which took fifteen thousand years. They found a huge house in the middle of nowhere with Napoleon “Walking up and down-up and down… never stopping for a moment…muttering to himself all the time. ‘It was Soult’s fault. It was Ney’s fault. It was Josephine’s fault…’”

At this point, the Intelligent Man shares his plan. He says “there’s no proper economic basis for any community life. If they needed real shops, chaps would have to stay near where the real shops were… It’s scarcity that enables a society to exist”. His solution is to “come back with some real commodities” which he could sell, forcing people to live nearby. This would also provide  “safety in numbers”, particularly when the dusk eventually turns to night… The Big Man and the others tell the Intelligent Man to shut up, under threat of violence.

A nearby passenger, “A fat clean-shaven man”, tells Lewis that “there is not a shred of evidence that this twilight is ever going to turn into a night. There has been a revolution of opinion on that in educated circles”, arguing instead that it is a precursor to the dawn. He rejects the Intelligent Man’s “earth-bound” desire for “real commodities”.

The greyness outside begins to subside and the bus is fulfilled with light. Our protagonist goes to open the window, but it is forcefully shut by the Intelligent Man. The Big Man encourages him to hit Lewis. The cruel light reveals the “distorted and faded” faces. Then Lewis then sees his own reflection in a mirror…

Questions

Q1. What is the sin of the tousle-haired poet? What is he expecting to find in Heaven?

Q2. According to the Intelligent Ghost, why does The Grey Town seem so empty?

Q3. What solution does the Intelligent Ghost present?

Q4. What spiritual lesson can you draw from the way houses are constructed in The Grey Town and their poor function?

Q5. How would you describe the outlook of the “fat clean-shaven man”?

Q6. What does the light reveal?

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Summary

Two lions arrive, “playing some solemn romp”. Feeling nervous, Jack leaves. By the river, he finds one of the Bright People, a man named Dick, talking to the Episcopal Ghost Lewis had met earlier.

Dick and the Episcopal Ghost were friends on earth. The ghost reminisces about the conversations they used to have. He comments that his friend “became rather narrow-minded towards the end”, believing in a literal Heaven and Hell, but he assumes that he’s now “broadened out again”. In response to this, Dick asks the ghost if he knows where he thinks he’s been living. The ghost is scandalized when Dick refers to the Grey Town as “Hell” (but if he chooses to never go back, he may call it “Purgatory”). The Episcopal Ghost asks why he was sent to the Town and is told that it was because he was an apostate.

The ghost indignantly asks “Do you really think people are penalised for their honest opinions? Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that those opinions were mistaken.” He declares that “They were not only honest [opinions] but heroic. I asserted them fearlessly. When the doctrine of the Resurrection ceased to commend itself to the critical faculties which God had given me, I openly rejected it. I preached my famous sermon. I defied the whole chapter. I took every risk.” Dick points out that nothing was risked and the inevitable happened: “popularity, sales for your books, invitations, and finally a bishopric”.

Len explains their “opinions were not honestly come by”. They adopted a certain current of ideas because they “seemed modern and successful”. He asks his ghostly friend “When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact occur? When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?” He says that they were “playing with loaded dice… errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.”

The Bright One tells him “You have seen Hell: you are in sight of Heaven. Will you, even now, repent and believe?” The ghost affirms that he already believes, saying his “religion is a very real and a very precious thing”.

Dick invites him to the mountains, but the ghost says he will only do so with some assurances: “a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness-and scope for the talents that God has given me – and an atmosphere of free inquiry”. Dick promises him no such thing, “No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.”

The ghost protests that “there is something stifling about the idea of finality… what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?” The Spirit responds “There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them… Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.” Regarding this statement as obscene, the ghost responds saying “that question-and-answer conception of thought only applies to matters of fact. Religious and speculative questions are surely on a different level.”

Dick asks the ghost if he even believes that God exists, to which the ghost asks “What does Existence mean?”

Dick then asks if he still even desires happiness, but while the ghost is dispensing his own wisdom on the subject, he suddenly remembers that he’s later presenting a paper at the Grey Town’s Theological Society, asking what Jesus’ opinions would have been if he hadn’t been tragically killed at such a young age. It is at this point the Spirit leaves him and the ghost returns to the bus humming a hymn to himself.

Lewis tries walking on the river’s hard water and falls flat on his face due to the water’s motion.

Questions

Q1. What do you think is the significance of the lions?

Q2. What do we learn about the background of the ghost and the spirit in this chapter?

Q3. Why is the ghost’s criticism of the spirit’s “narrow” opinions ironic?

Q4. What is the ghost’s sin?

Q5. How do the ghost and the spirit each regard the ghost’s beliefs?

Q6. What are the ghost’s demands for Heaven?

Q7. What would you regard as the ghost’s essential resistance to the spirit and to Heaven?

Q8. Why do you think the chapter ends in the way it does?

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