Scan barcode
A review by the_lkx
Hell is the Absence of God by James Trimarco, Ted Chiang
5.0
Wow!
This book is on another level.
For context: this story takes place in a world, when God, angels, Heaven and Hell all exist and its abundantly obvious to everyone that these things are real.
So, the religious discussion is no longer about belief or disbelief, but rather ture love and devotion to God. Because, in this story, that is the deciding factor in whether a person gose to heaven or not.
This book tackles a lot of really big questions in a short amount of pages, and it dose so brilliantly. I'm not sure what the author's religious beliefs are, but that uncertainty adds so much to the story. Never, while reading this, did I feel like I was be preached to, nor did I feel like someone was trying to convince me of their opinion. But, I feel like this work asks and explores a lot of different questions, but ultimately it's up to the readers to supply the answers.
It explores common questions like, If God is real why is there so much, pain and injustice? ect.
But it also gets into a lot deeper questions like, what dose it mean to love God?
There was one sentence towards the end of this story that totally ruined me, in the best possible way.
The only criticism I think of is a narrative one. The story depicts hell as a kind of empty space where the damned just walk around aimlessly. And the story states multiple times that it's really not that bad of a place (still Heaven is obviously the more desirable of the two). And I just fell like, the stakes of the story would have been a lot higher if hell was actually a scary place. However, I understand why the author chose not to do that. The focus of this story isn't really on the afterlife, but rather on the here and now, how we respond to the events that unfold before us.
This book is on another level.
For context: this story takes place in a world, when God, angels, Heaven and Hell all exist and its abundantly obvious to everyone that these things are real.
So, the religious discussion is no longer about belief or disbelief, but rather ture love and devotion to God. Because, in this story, that is the deciding factor in whether a person gose to heaven or not.
This book tackles a lot of really big questions in a short amount of pages, and it dose so brilliantly. I'm not sure what the author's religious beliefs are, but that uncertainty adds so much to the story. Never, while reading this, did I feel like I was be preached to, nor did I feel like someone was trying to convince me of their opinion. But, I feel like this work asks and explores a lot of different questions, but ultimately it's up to the readers to supply the answers.
It explores common questions like, If God is real why is there so much, pain and injustice? ect.
But it also gets into a lot deeper questions like, what dose it mean to love God?
There was one sentence towards the end of this story that totally ruined me, in the best possible way.
The only criticism I think of is a narrative one. The story depicts hell as a kind of empty space where the damned just walk around aimlessly. And the story states multiple times that it's really not that bad of a place (still Heaven is obviously the more desirable of the two). And I just fell like, the stakes of the story would have been a lot higher if hell was actually a scary place. However, I understand why the author chose not to do that. The focus of this story isn't really on the afterlife, but rather on the here and now, how we respond to the events that unfold before us.