The irony that a story like this would be told in such a tight novella format is not lost on me, and it’s one of the many features that made me chuckle uncomfortably throughout.
A Short Stay in Hell follows Soren, a recently deceased man who discovers, to his great misfortune, that he picked the wrong religion. He’s been a devout Mormon all his life (like the author himself), but it turns out the correct faith was actually Zoroastrianism. Tough luck, Soren.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Zoroastrian Hell isn’t eternal damnation. It’s more of a waiting room on the journey to Heaven. Knowing that Soren loves books, the demon responsible for assigning his punishment decides a vast Babylonian library would suit him perfectly.
His task is deceptively simple: find the single book that tells the complete story of his own life.
The catch is that this is the Library of Babel, a place containing every book ever written, every book that could have been written, every typo, every permutation of letters, numbers and symbols. The shelves stretch on, seemingly forever. Somewhere in that infinite sea is Soren’s book. The task is not impossible, but it is so staggeringly improbable that the distinction becomes almost meaningless.
For many people, visions of Hell involve fire, brimstone and red-hot pokers. This novella proposes something far more pedestrian, and in many ways far more terrifying. What could be worse than eons of sameness? Endless shelves of gibberish. A purpose that is technically achievable yet functionally unattainable. Soren’s physical needs are met with ease, but his greater purpose remains forever just beyond his grasp.
I’ve seen wildly different interpretations of this story. For some, it’s the purest form of existential horror. For me, though, the emotional core lies elsewhere. It is the human connections Soren forms that give his purgatorial existence meaning. The novella quietly argues that while Hell can indeed be other people, so too can Heaven.
It’s a remarkable little book, deceptively simple, darkly funny and philosophically unsettling, that lingers long after its final page. My only complaint – again, ironically – is I wish it was longer!
4 almost-endless plunges into the abyss out of 5.
