The Pilgrim's Regress
C.S. Lewis, read by Roger Whitfield, Blackstone Audiobooks (unabridged), five cassettes, $39.95

What is the purpose of desire? C.S. Lewis's allegory of conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress, answers this question through the journey of a boy named John. In Robert Whitfield's masterful reading of this classic work, both the smooth, rhythmic cadence of his narrative voice and a broad range of convincing dramatic voices immerse us quickly and memorably in the land of Puritania.

After wandering away from his home, John sees a vision of a beautiful island. Right away, he wants nothing other than to go there. He visits the site of the vision often, but one day it does not appear. Instead, a girl arrives and tells John that she is what he truly desires. He goes with her into the woods, forgetting about the island. After some time, he leaves her and seeks out the island anew.

Just as sins of the flesh tempt him away from his true desire, the sins of the intellect work on John as well. Mr. Enlightenment (Rationalism), Media Halfways (Escapism), and Sigismund (Psychologism) all tell John in various ways that his island does not exist. Only after encounters with Reason, Mr. Wisdom, and Mother Kirk (Christianity) is John able to escape doubt and despair. Eventually he finds his island.

At the heart of Lewis's book is an apology for Christian anthropology. In one section, Mr. Wisdom tells John about the difference between his soul and his body. The important point to grasp, says Mr. Wisdom, is that what the soul wants, the body can never possess if full-at least in this life. However, John should not give up and choose base pleasures just because they are more easily obtained than the deeper pleasure of contemplating God. When his body leads his soul, John is nothing but disappointed. But when his soul leads his body-that's the point where life becomes a true adventure: "Out of the soul's bliss overflows the pleasures of the body."

In a world that has lost its sense of God largely because it has lost its capacity for awe and wonder, this audiobook is a gem. John's island (Heaven) is a vision for all of us to rediscover, because in the end, God desires us to desire Him.

If you are interested in similar stories, read John Bunyan' s Pilgrim's Progress (on which Lewis's story is loosely based), "The Celestial Rail-Road" by Nathanial Hawthorne, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Tale for Children" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Peter Kreeft's Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing