Junky by William S Burroughs

It's actually kind of funny that I should decide to reread this now, as my college is in the supposed heroin capital of the US. (It's also noted for the fact that it has the second highest amount of Victorian houses out of anywhere in the US.) Thus, as you can imagine, this book is about doing heroin, cocaine, and there's a little tiny bit of marijuana use as well... Other drugs too, but we'll get to that.

So, this is William S Burroughs's first book, so it's not all... crazy. It's actually pretty readable, and really interesting. It's pretty much an account of junk usage over here, there, and everywhere. In our Rebels class an excerpt was presented to contrast Kerouac's On the Road--where Jack set up an optimistic, energetic picture of the time, William S Burroughs was darker, dimmer, and paid more attention to the dirt.

Oh, and one more thing: the version I'm reading is the "50th Anniversary Definitive Edition", so I decided that this time around I'd read all the bonus materials (now that the fear induced by Naked Lunch is fading--heck, I might even reread The Yage Letters--well--no--) included. So if you're just reading along with me, hanging onto every miserable typed word, go out and get this version. I think it's really the only version that's available now, but even if it's not it's probably the cooler-looking edition.

The introduction in the beginning of the book is by Oliver Harris, it was written eight years ago. One of the most important things he says comes on the first page: "One thing you can say about any book by William S Burroughs, however, is that whenever you think you've got it pinned down, that's when it slips from your fingers" (IX). It's doubtful that truer words have ever been spoken. Though a better description of how one feels when reading Naked Lunch would probably be more like: It is forever slipping through your fingers and you will never grab it no matter how much you flail around--and it may just be better that way. But I'd say Harris is definitely correct in what he's said in regard to The Yage Letters. I haven't read Burroughs's other books, but this kind of makes me want to read Queer, so perhaps we'll see further...?

One thing Harris brings up that bothers me is his praising of Burroughs's writing--now, the praise doesn't bother me, don't get me wrong, but what he should praise bothers me. He quotes: "You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere" (X). The point, I saw immediately--it's ironic, because you need what doctors are supposed to have, but if you have it, doctors will trust you--and subsequently, give you what you need. I guess what put me off is that Harris dwells on it and gets so worked up about dissecting something that seems pretty obvious--well, I don't know. It just bothered me. Maybe I'm just like the casual observer as compared to the connoisseur: I know it tastes good, but I couldn't tell you why and thus I can't properly appreciate it. Or something like that.

"Junky did not follow that path of group myth-making, autobiographical fiction that characterized Beat Generation writing" (XV). I can only imagine because it lacks the optimism and vigor (and I mean this about the three of his books I've read in general) Kerouac exercised. When it is more upbeat than "I'm going to make you cry" Burroughs tends to be alone. Well... I guess that's true about Kerouac too, but... There's some subtle difference, though that may lie in my own biases. Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more inclined to read Kerouac than Burroughs, in any case.

Okay, here we go, the start of the actual, original text:

Burroughs starts by describing his early life: "I recall hearing a maid talk about opium and how smoking opium brings sweet dreams, and I said: 'I will smoke opium when I grow up'" (XXXVII). I only bring this up because 99% of the time, opium sleep is supposed to be deep and undisturbed by dreams. Unless if the maid meant that the feeling induced by opium brought sweet dreams after the other effects wore off--I don't know. Whatever, I'm just nit-picking again. He heard what he heard.

"I read more than was usual for an American boy of that time and place: Oscar Wilde, Anatole France, Baudelaire, even Gide" (XXXVIII). Might I point out that all of these authors were reputed to be gay (and some were a little more than reputed). Burroughs was gay, though he practices a very odd dissociation--I mean, you know he's gay, he says he is, he talks about sleeping with other men--but he always refers to other gay men as "the/queers" and speaks of them--almost like a field researcher doing a case study. So, even though you know he's gay, you doubt it, because he sees other gay men as almost not human or a different species. Just kind of odd, I guess.

"I have never regretted my experience with drugs. I think I am in better health now as a result of using junk at intervals than I would be if I had never been an addict. When you stop growing you start dying. An addict never stops growing. Most users periodically kick the habit, which involves shrinking of the organism and replacement of the junk-dependent cells. A user is in a continual state of shrinking and growing in his daily cycle of shot-need for shot completed. Most addicts look younger than they are. Scientists recently experimented with a worm that they were able to shrink by withholding food. By periodically shrinking the worm so that it was in continual growth, the worm's life was prolonged indefinitely. Perhaps if a junkie could keep himself in a constant state of kicking, he would live to a phenomenal age" (XL-XLI). It's not difficult to believe that the drugs would preserve you. Might I mention that Burroughs lived to be eighty-three and Herbert Huncke (a junky who goes by the name of Elmer Hassel in On the Road, and "Hunk" or "Huck" in Desolation Angels, and appears in here and also there in other Beat writings) lived to eighty-one. It's kind of curious, and certainly interesting. On a side note, something about this section reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk--specifically Invisible Monsters when Shannon's ex is describing how every life is just a channel on God's TV and if he changes the channel we die--so we must never, ever get boring.

"I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life" (XLI).

"The effect was uncanny. You would see him one time a fresh-faced kid. A week or so later he would turn up so thin, sallow, and old-looking, you would have to look twice to recognize him. His face was lined with suffering in which his eyes did not participate. It was a suffering of his cells alone" (3). I love the fourth sentence in this, but it needed some sort of context. Clearly this is discussing the affect of junk and the lack thereof on a fellow named Jack--not Kerouac, just a random fellow named Jack.

"In 1937, weed was placed under the Harrison Narcotics Act. Narcotics authorities claim it is a habit-forming drug, that its use is injurious to mind and body, and that it causes the people who use it to commit crimes. Here are the facts: Weed is positively not habit-forming. You can smoke weed for years and experience no discomfort if your supply is suddenly cut off. I have seen tea heads in jail and none of them showed withdrawal symptoms. I have smoked weed myself off and on for fifteen years, and never missed it when I ran out. There is less habit to weed than there is tobacco. Weed does not harm the general health... I once kicked a junk habit with weed... Weed does not inspire anyone to commit crimes. I have never seen anyone get nasty under the influence of weed. Tea heads are a sociable lot. Too sociable for my liking. I cannot understand why the people who claim weed causes crime do not follow through and demand the outlawing of alcohol. Every day, crimes are committed by drunks who would not have committed the crime sober" (15-16) et cetera. He goes on to explain other--perhaps you wouldn't call them positives, but at the very least un-negatives, about weed. His one negative fact about weed is that someone high on it is "completely unfit" (16) to drive. Just thought I'd insert them here.

"The American middle-class citizen is a composite of negatives. He is largely delineated by what he is not. Gains went further. He was not merely negative. He was positively invisible; a vague respectable presence. There is a certain kind of ghost that can only materialize with the aid of a sheet or other piece of cloth to give it outline. Gains was like that. He materialized in someone else's overcoat" (35).

"'Herman [Huncke] was a beautiful kid when he first came to New York. The trouble is, he lost his looks'" (35).

"Walking around the city, I spotted several junk neighborhoods... I don't spot junk neighborhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like a dowser's wand: 'Junk here!'" (58).

At one point Burroughs goes to a gay bar--yet another example of him clearly showing his homosexuality (he leaves the bar with a fellow he plans on sleeping with) but yet again strangely disassociating himself from the other gay men there. ...Can I make a poor joke and say that this habit of his is rather... queer? Oh, gosh, I am hilarious.

In this scene he describes himself as getting "lobotomized drunk" (60). There's also some more humor in this scene: "I should have been more alert, of course, but I never could mix vigilance and sex" (60).

"A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait" (72).

At one point Burroughs is in prison for his drugs. The copper refers to him as Mr Lee. When he originally published the book, he published under a pen name--well, a few pen names, depending on when it was being reissued... But my point is (to the best of my knowledge, unless if it was some old nickname for him or some such) that the name Lee--Bull Lee full, Old Bull Lee--comes from On the Road. Just thought it was interesting. Also, I almost wrote 'On the Roast'. ...

On criticizing a hospital's psychiatrist: "He was not effeminate. He simply had none of whatever it is that makes a man a man" (82).

"In Mexico your wishes have a dream power. When you want to see someone, he turns up" (95).

"The meaning of 'manana' is 'Wait until the signs are right'" (95)/ "For the next week that was all I heard, Manana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven" (On the Road by Jack Kerouac, page 195).

"Once a junkie, always a junkie. You can stop using junk, but you are never off after the first habit" (97).

Burroughs criticizes the "war on drugs" often as well (though I don't believe it was known as exactly that until later) as you've already seen. This image he tears apart isn't that prevalent anymore (I can't even think of the last time I even saw a drug-PSA commercial actually, so maybe it is and the fact that I've watched TV maybe twice in the last two months nullifies my statement), but if you've ever watched eighties drug PSA commercials, it seems that only kids do drugs, and also guys who can change into snakes. "Safe in Mexico, I watched the anti-junk campaign. I read about child addicts and senators demanding the death penalty for dope peddlers. It didn't sound right to me. Who wants kids for customers? They never have enough money and they always spill under questioning. Parents find out the kid is on junk and go to the law. I figured that either Stateside peddlers have gone simpleminded or the whole child-addict set-up is a propaganda routine to stir up anti-junk sentiment and pass some laws" (120). High five, William S Burroughs! Logos!

Page 121: the word haberdashery is used. And it continues to be pretty much the best word in the English language.

"When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junky quit junk of his own free will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before. Like a man who has been away a long time, you see things different when you return from junk" (127).

Burroughs concludes the original 'story' part of the text with the discussion of yage. He mentions that Russians are also experimenting with yage to see its effects on the personality and the work--namely to turn a person into an unquestioning and obedient worker. I feel the need to mention that Nazis attempted this sort of drug experimentation with cocaine mixed into--I believe--martinis to increase stamina and willingness to work. Oh Stumbleupon, where would I be without you?

Anyways, the 'story' part of the text concludes as such: "Kick is seeing things from a special angle. Kick is momentary freedom from the claims of aging, cautious, nagging, frightened flesh. Maybe I will find in yage what I was looking for in junk and weed and coke. Yage may be the final fix" (128). Oh hey, lead-in to The Yage Letters. (Though that book wouldn't be published for another ten years, but shush.) ...I honestly can't tell you if it was the final kick or not, because really all I remember is that he talked about an HG Wells story and included a drawing of his that was supposed to be the great being but looked suspiciously similar to female genitalia.

Burroughs includes a glossary at the end as well. "Beat" means to takes money from someone. Special significance then, in the proclamation that "We are the Beat generation"? Not sure.

"Hep or Hip... Someone who knows the score. Someone who understands 'jive talk.' Someone who is 'with it.' The expression is not subject to definition because, if you don't 'dig' what it means, no one can ever tell you" (130). What he means to say is, either you're on the bus or you're off the bus.

Oh, and the glossary reveals that muggles was slang for marijuana back in the day. This shines a whole new light on the Harry Potter series, I must say...

And then several indexes are included.

Appendix I is the ripped apart and reseeded twenty-eighth chapter of the original manuscript of this book. It mostly has to do with orgones (just google it, I don't even know how to simply explain them) and his orgone collection box (which I'm pretty sure is briefly mentioned in On the Road). It also talks more about the constant shrinkage and growth of cells as being that which keeps a man alive for longer--more quotes similar to the one regarding the worm way, way back in the beginning.

"Possibly all pleasure is basically relief from a condition of need, or tension" (137). (The popular version of this quote is "Perhaps all pleasure is only relief".)

"Perhaps the reason for the short life of the American business man is that he experiences no cycle of shrinking and growth. He does not exercise, he is never hungry. His life is a one-way process. When his organism reaches maturity it can only start dying" (137).

"Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life" (138).

Appendix II is one of many of the various introductions to the text. It's got ten facts that prove propaganda 'facts' wrong. "Addiction ruins the health and leads to early death. As I read in a magazine article, 'Morphine addicts have numbered days on earth.' Who hasn't?" (141). Very Vonnegut-ish in tone, if you ask me.

"I do not intend to correct popular misconceptions about junk by presenting the facts that are already known to anyone informed on the subject. I am using the known facts as a starting point in an attempt to reach facts that are not known" (143).

The other Appendixes are various introduction by various fellows. I like Allen Ginsberg, but he cannot do this sort of thing for beans. He's very eloquent--but he cannot stay collected for a solid piece of writing. Case in point, the contents of one of his parenthesis: "a point I argued with as much as I could in his Doubleday office, belt felt faint surrounded by so much Reality... mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors... my own paranoia or inexperience with the great Dumbness of Business Buildings of New York" (155). The ellipses were there to begin with, by the way. But it's kind of like "No, Ginsberg! Focus, FOCUS! Come baaaaack!" He's got a few examples of good focused phrasery, though:

"...Bill was too diffident to make such extravagant theater of self" (154).

"Certainly these books indicated we were in the middle of an identity crisis prefiguring nervous breakdown for the whole United States" (155).

Woah, whooo. We made it. I happen to be rather fond of this book, though it has put in me a fear of needles that I never had, even when I was a little kid. Descriptions of junkies shooting up and blood-filled needles.... Nope, no thanks. It's rather interesting, in any case. I'd suggest a read-through if the subject interests you. If not... Then don't. And don't worry, I'm not a drug addict. Yet. (Remember where my college is!)

Works cited/MLA stuff: Burroughs, William S. Junky. Penguin Books: New York, 2003.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma that isn't even really that necessary because she guessed it correctly: Life on Mars by David Bowie

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: They can't be satisfied, like junkies running dry

Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis

Hey guys. You remember last year when Emma went to college and only posted once in a blue moon and I was all "Pfft, Emma. WEAK" and she was all "Shut up Angela, college is busy." Well... She's right. It is pretty busy. In fact, I should be writing a response to a play right now but guess what? Not happening. Well, not now at least. Though actually my drama teacher loves me so perhaps I could get away with it... I didn't read a play and completely BSed a response and she based her whole lesson off of it. So she loves me now. And I also have further proof that a PhD in BSing is a viable option for me. I actually think I was awarded one when I was born, you know? I may not know what I'm talking about, but damn can I make it sound good. Now we pray she never, ever finds this blog. Ever. Anyway, other differences between college and high school: Guys are attracted to me? What? Like four guys like me. Weird. ...And, that's about it. Some similarities? The people in my English class undoubtedly hate me, as I'm just kicking ass here. Guys, it's what I do. (Puts on sunglasses.) Mmm-hmmm.

Anyway... like I said, Emma is right. There's not a lot of time to read and write about stuff. It took an obscene amount of time to finish this one book. Seriously, what? It's like one-hundred fifty-eight pages. Plus, CS Lewis wrote it, so you think I'd be all ZOMG MUST READ EVERY WORD OF IT THIS VERY SECOND. Speaking of, I misquoted CS Lewis on a quiz in drama and there's another reason my teacher loves me. High five?

Let's see, this book comes completely one hundred percent out of CS Lewis's and JRR Tolkien's bromance. According to Scheiber, this book came out of a deal between the two. JRR Tolkien was all, "You write a book about space travel and I'll write a book about time travel and it will be so RAD." Or vice versa. Whatever it may be, what came of that is The Space Trilogy (this is first in the trilogy) and Tolkien wrote The Silmarillion. (This anecdote isn't backed up by Wikipedia, but I actually trust Scheiber more than Wikipedia on this matter.) And it probably was rad. Well, maybe, I haven't read the other two bits of this trilogy and Fabrizzles doesn't seem particularly affectionate towards The Silmarillion, which isn't a good sign at all. But for Tolkien and CS Lewis it was probably really rad, they probably went on a date or something. Or, like, ninety.

So, right, the book itself. So there's this doctor, JRR Tolkien--er, Doctor Ransom, who is having a perfectly average walk in the country, enjoying his vacation and whatnot. The long and short of this is, he ends up at a house where a commotion is going on within. Ransom attempts to break it up and instead gets drugged and knocked out and he wakes up on a space ship. By the time he lands on the planet Malacandra, he discovers he's intended to be a human sacrifice for the residents of the planet. Not wanting to die, he escapes his captors and wanders about on the planet, which is pretty much most of the book.

"He walked fairly fast, and doggedly, without looking much about him, like a man trying to shorten the way with some interesting train of thought. He was tall, but a little round-shouldered, about thirty-five to forty years of age, and dressed with a particular kind of shabbiness which marks a member of the intelligentsia on holiday. He might easily be mistaken for a doctor or schoolmaster at first sight, though he had not the man-of-the-world air of the one or the indefinable breeziness of the other. In fact, he was a philologist, and fellow of a Cambridge college. His name was Ransom" (10). Are you so sure that it wasn't JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis? Because I'm pretty sure the fellow you just described is actually John Ronald Reagan Tolkien Black Child. Also, I have really bad insomnia which my roommate exacerbates and a few nights ago I was up for two hours writing and doodling in the dark. I managed to get a half hour of sleep before my alarm rang, but that's beside the point: in the morning, I found a scribble on those papers which reads as follows: "Q: What was JRR Tolkie[n]? A: A phiLOLogist!!!"

The men in the house who eventually abduct Ransom are Devine and Weston. The house's gates are locked--the reason why he wants to go in at all is because he met a woman who explained her son worked there, and she was worried that he wasn't home yet, and he promised he'd go and get the boy. So he's a little agitated that these gates are locked. He, not knowing the men inside yet, refers to the as-yet professor fellow as an eccentric, with the insult--"the sort of man who kept his gate locked in the country" (12). ...Well, I thought it was a funny insult...

Anyway, the boy and the men appear to be struggling. Knowing they've been caught in the act, they let the boy go free and talk it off. It becomes clear later that they intended to send the boy up... Well. Ransom, a little hesitantly, takes them up on the offer for refreshments and rest.

"'I'm on a walking-tour,' said Ransom... 'Can the attraction of it be explained to the uninitiate?' asked Devine... 'To begin with, I like the actual walking--' 'God! You must have enjoyed the army'... 'No, no. It's just the opposite of the army. The whole point about the army is that you are never alone for a moment and can never choose where you're going or even what part of the road you're walking on. On a walking-tour you are absolutely detached. you stop where you like and go on when you like. As long as it lasts you need consider and consult no one but yourself'... 'But can you even disappear like that? No wife, no young, no aged but honest parent or anything of that sort? ...Do you really mean to say that no one knows where you are or when you ought to get back, and no one can get a hold of you?'" (19). Ransom, you idiot. I know you know Devine from school but still, you shouldn't let people know thing like that, especially if you don't trust them. That's how people die in horror movies, Ransom!

Also, I was going to use this as more proof that CS Lewis can't spell his bromantic partner's name correctly, but apparently he was in the war too, so that's probably just him speaking straight-up through Ransom. Also, I really like the section before Devine gets all sinister on him.

Okay, so Devine obviously knocks Ransom out and when he awakens they're in space. Ransom is more than a little shocked at his situation and also that no-one has heard of the events because, come on, it's kind of hard to conceal a rocket ship. But Weston explains the momentous effects of his ship and what it means (which rather disgusts Ransom and the inhabitants of Malacandra, but we'll get there when we get there): "'As far as we know, we are are doing what has never been done in the history of man, perhaps never in the history of the universe. We have learned how to jump off the speck of matter on which our species began; infinity, and therefore perhaps eternity, is being put into the hands of the human race. You cannot be so small-minded as to think that the rights or the life of an individual or of a million individuals are of the slightest importance in comparison to this.' 'I happen to disagree,' said Ransom, 'And I always have disagreed, even about vivisection'" (29).

As Weston clearly has no qualms about leading Ransom to what he believes will be Ransom's demise, or the demise of even a million, it makes him sort of a strange hypocrite, as he clearly wants to give humankind "infinity" and "eternity". As Oyarsa (one of the inhabitants of Malacandra) will put it later on: "'You do not love any one of your race... You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are'" (137). He simply cares for mankind continuing to regenerate and the race to survive, but balls on the individual people. As long as man survives somehow, it is a success. Oyarsa's speech confuses me a little, but I'll touch back upon this later, okay? (Regardless of any confusion, knowing CS Lewis, it's clear from this if it wasn't before that Weston has been marked. This isn't the sort of thought-pattern he'd approve of.)

Oh, and I thought Ransom's rejoinder was a tad humorous, even if it was not entirely intended to be; I honestly cannot tell.

Ah, and this is just a side little note, which is mostly me nitpicking: in the ship, the men can't really talk often for fear they'll waste the air. CS Lewis... they're called plants. They make oxygen. Problem: solved.

"For the most part [Devine's] conversation ran on the things he would do when he got back to earth: ocean-going yachts, the most expensive women and a big place on the Riviera figured largely in his plans. 'I'm not running all these risks for fun'" (33). These two sentences are basically the equivalent of CS Lewis taking a bullhorn and shouting, "THIS IS A BAD MAN!" two feet away from you. CS Lewis doesn't approve of gettin' the bitches, or that other stuff. And Devine's completely serious comment just cements it.

"A nightmare, long engendered in the modern mind by the mythology that follows in the wake of science, was falling off of [Ransom]. He had read of 'Space': at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fantasy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it affected him till now--now that the very name 'Space' seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. he could not call it 'dead'; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come? He had thought it barren: he saw now that it was the womb of worlds, whose blazing and innumerable offspring looked down nightly even upon the earth with so many eyes--and here, with how many more! No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens--the heavens which declared the glory..." (34). CS Lewis and Carl Sagan just high-fived in the hereafter.

And, to further mark the two as bad people, Ransom overhears Weston telling Devine that he may keep some of the aliens (though it seems strange to refer to them as such) as pets, and sleep with them if he wants (and should interbreed with them in fact, if he's so willing to stay on the planet). Devine gets disgusted, but still, CS Lewis is spray painting on the wall outside of your room: "THESE MEN ARE LOATHSOME THEMSELVES!"

Ah, so eventually they do land, and Ransom escapes the two bent men. Eventually he runs into a Hross, a friendly creature that's like a big talking otter-stoat creature. Before it notices him, it talks to itself, and Ransom gets all excited because, surprise! Ransom is a phiLOLogist. Immediately, upon realizing the creature has its own strange tongue and is actually speaking, he becomes excited at the prospect of studying the language and perhaps even making a book of it.

"The love of knowledge is a kind of madness. In the fraction of a second which it took Ransom to decide that the creature was really talking, and while he still knew that he might be facing instant death, his imagination had leaped over every fear and hope and probability of his situation to follow the dazzling project of making a Malacandrian grammar. An Introduction to the Malacandrian language--The Lunar verb--A Concise Martian-English Dictionary... the titles flitted through his mind. And what might one discover from the speech of a non-human race? The very form of language itself, the principle behind all possible languages, might fall into his hands" (56). John, your BFFL is taking pot-shots at you!

Well, the alien proves to be much more 'human' than either of Ransom's companions. Even though they cannot communicate or anything, its first action is completely one of kindliness and brotherhood: it offers him some of his drink. Then it introduces itself, teaches Ransom some very basic words of its language, and feeds him.

"The huge, seal-like creature seated beside him became unbearably ominous. It seemed friendly; but it was very big, very black, and he knew nothing about it... Was it really as rational as it appeared? It was only many days later that Ransom discovered how to deal with these sudden losses of confidence. They arose when the rationality of the hross tempted you to think of it as a man. Then it became abominable--a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have--glossy coat, liquid eye, sweet breath and whitest teeth--and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view" (59).

So, the hrossa accept Ransom almost like that. Unsurprisingly, they have a theology which sounds oddly familiar. Maleldil is the being which made the world, but he lives with the Old One who is "'not the sort... that he has to live anywhere'" (69). They go into this later on, but the bare-bones explanation is of course that the Old One is God and Maleldil is... also... God. Just an able-to-be-comprehended by mortals version of God. Mayhap.

There are three classifications of sentient aliens on this planet, by the way. They're all equally amiable (though the sorns are fearful to look at, hence the men automatically fear them and why Devine and Weston assume they want human sacrifice when really they're offering for the men to meet their prime religious fellow-local deity sort of deal). The smallest and squattest are good builders and love digging for metals and then solder it to make things. The Hrossa are the best singers and writers; they especially love writing poetry. The sorns are described as the most intelligent by the Hrossa in that they're good astronomers and act almost as priests or translators for Oyarsa, and they record history--so they admit their intelligence even if the sorns care little for poetry, a fact that totally befuddles the hrossa. The hrossa also find it kind of surprising that the sorns cannot swim and cannot fish. Sounds like somebody was sharing ideas with another old Brit... (Well, they pretty much just hung out all the time and did just that, so it's no real surprise that that should be the case...

And this is just a comment on how the book is formatted: in cases where the plural is possessive (ex workers', doctors', etc) instead of just doing the one apostrophe, the editor put a set of quotation marks (so it would be doctors", workers", etc). It's no biggie, really, but it bothered the hell out of me.

The hrossa also practice pretty admirable customs, social commentary from CS Lewis. Which isn't a huge surprise because he wrote the book...? Well, in this case the idea that is being explained to him is that hrossa only mate once in their lives with one mate (hrossa, so far as I can figure, produce litters), which keeps from stressing available resources, unlike man. (A side-note, the hrossa also do not understand war or why it should ever happen. They also share freely and without any question.)

"'Is the begetting of young not a pleasure among the hrossa?' 'A very great one, Hman. This is what we call love.' 'If a thing is a pleasure, a hman wants it again. he might want the pleasure more often than the number of young that could be fed.' It took Hyoi a long time to get the point. 'You mean,' he said slowly, 'that he might do it not only in one or two years of his life but again?' 'Yes.' 'But why? Would he want his dinner all day or want to sleep after he had slept? I do not understand.' 'But a dinner comes every day. This love, you say, comes only once while the hross lives?' 'But it takes his whole life. When he is young he has to look for his mate; and then he has to court her; and then he begets young; then he rears them; then he remembers all this, and it boils inside him and makes it into poems and wisdom.' 'But the pleasure he must be content only to remember?'" (74). I'm just going to interject really quickly here. I find 'boils' to be a strange choice of words. I mean, it makes sense, but boil usually has negative connotations, like "he was boiling mad" or "his temper was at the boiling point", and so on.

Anyway, in response to Ransom's question, Hyoi (the hross) explains as follows: "'A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman, as if the pleasure as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing... What you call remembering is the last part of pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be as I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then--that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it'" (74).

Thus, Ransom (and other men) are focused on the physical, sexual pleasure of begetting. The hross see it all together as one big, great, pleasureful... thing. They're not focused on the sex, they're focused on the whole... The best word I can think of--the better word I can think of--would be joy. Also, Hyoi is talking about the corruption of memory, but corruption in a good, affectionate way. Kind of like how some people romanticize their childhood but it actually was really lame and actually kind of sucked. Of course, Hyoi (and most other people) don't have to worry about accidentally stumbling back into their past and getting the tar beaten out of them and realizing that their childhood sucked...

"'But a world is not meant to last for ever, much less a race; that is not Maledil's way'" (100). A Sorn tells Ransom this. Remember what Weston said...?

"[The sorns] were astonished at what [Ransom] had to tell them of human history--of war, slavery, and prostitution. 'It is because they have no Oyarsa'... 'It is because every one of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself'" (102).

"'Your thought must be at the mercy of your blood'" (102).

So eventually, Ransom is brought to Oyarsa, which... I guess you'd say he was an archangel?Might I add that he's not exactly ethereal as well. "'Have you servants out in the heavens?' 'Where else? There is nowhere else.' 'But you, Oyarsa, are here on Malacandra, as I am.' 'But Malacandra, like all worlds, float in heaven'" (119). Okay, I thought this was cool. I mean, you say heaven and immediately one thinks of religious connotations: it is above us, in the clouds, and for the most part it is believed God(s) live there. You say space though, and you think of the planets and stars and... you know. Space. I mean, sometimes the air above us is called the 'heavens', but normally those two ideas aren't really collapsed, even when you use that phrasing. But CS Lewis just successfully collapsed it without hardly breaking a sweat. And in that he's kind reminding us that heaven is all around us... but... in a scientific way... Well, it's a different if not new (new for me!) way of phrasing and thinking, and also yet another example of CS Lewis's rad-ness.

And Oyarsa isn't even a real name either--its more like a generic name. From what I understand, each Oyarsa 'creature' was given its own planet, or a group of them were or some such...? Well, these Oyarsas communicate between each other through the heavens, but Earth is silent and doesn't communicate, because Earth's Oyarsa was great and intelligent, but he became bent. He then wanted to travel to other worlds and ruin them (parallels with Weston and Devine, anyone?) but he was bound to Earth. I trust you can figure out who exactly our Oyarsa is. If you still need some hints: "'We think that Maledil would not give it up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One'" (120). I also find this curious because I'm pretty sure that CS Lewis implied that only our planet is fraught with misfortune and suffering.

"'Bent creatures are full of fears'" (121).

"But Weston did not know the Malacandrian word for laugh: indeed, it was not a word he understood very well in any language" (127).

Now, Weston is eventually taken away from Oyarsa's counsel. Oyarsa instructs that his head be soaked in water in an attempt to clear it or at least humble him. He's brought back of course, and the hross tell a story reminiscent of the incidents with Uncle Andrew in The Magician's Nephew. "'We dipped [Weston's] head in the cold water seven times, but the seventh time something fell off it... Then some said we had done your will with the seven dips, and others said not. In the end we dipped it seven times more. We hope that was right. The creature talked a lot between the dips, and most between the second and seven, but we could not understand it'" (131). Uncle Andrew faints in Narnia, and the animals attempt to revive him, though they're not sure what he is, having never seen a man before. They decide that he is a tree of some sort, so they bury him to his knees in mud and the elephants douse him in water. Eventually he begins to awaken and speak, and the animals attempt to be even more helpful by feeding him--throwing nuts and honey and more to him. Uncle Andrew views this all as an assault (as he refuses to accept what he sees and so he becomes unable to comprehend it) and so fumbles about and sobs for brandy. Because he becomes unable to understand the animals, they can't understand him--except for that one word, which they christen him with (because he "said it so often").

Okay, back to Oyarsa's statement on 137. He ends what I have already quoted (Ctrl+F that because I am lazy) with "'...What you really love is no completed creature but the very seed itself: for that is all that is left'" (137). So... with the "'begotten by your kind as they now are'" (137), would that be saying that what Weston really cares for is just sex itself? Which would be an exact parallel of the hross view of propagation, and most likely the other sentient beings of Malacandra--most likely, the views of inhabitants of any other planets as well. So... yeah. Lust. Seven deadly sins. Bam.

One thing that bothers me is how CS Lewis steps into this story. He does this a lot in The Chronicles of Narnia, saying things like "I won't go into details of this that or the other thing", "Surely you wouldn't want to hear about that" and so on. However, this book sounds more like--maybe not that he was writing it expressly for adults, but it gives the feeling of being more like one of his books intended for adults, like say The Screwtape Letters. I suppose the intelligent way of saying what I just said would be to say it seems more mature. But being that it feels that way, his interjections look silly and are also a little annoying. In one case it is completely unavoidable (Oyarsa has a private conversation with Ransom about the workings of the universe, and of course CS Lewis can't very well go on about that) but even so. I am going to complain like it's my job.

Although the book ends like a normal book would, CS Lewis throws in an epilogue and also a letter to CS Lewis from JRR--eh--Ransom. They were, according to that, acquaintances--of course, the word bromantics probably wasn't coined until recently, and BFFs probably wasn't either. Still, we all know that that's a huge downplay on what recent scholars have come to call "one of the most intense bromances of all time".*

Okay. So the book was pretty cool, and it's also pretty standalone which is also nice, because I've never seen the other books in this series in existence. It's not my favorite by CS Lewis, but considering what it's up against, is anyone really surprised? It's not really sci-fi; a hardcore sci-fi fan is going to be disappointed. But I feel like a Ray Bradbury fan would enjoy it, since he tends to have sci-fi elements, but they tend to focus on other things more. So... Yay Ray Bradbury? I also have two more comments. About each planet having its own archangel-esque being, apparently that was a popular Medieval idea. It's discussed a little--well, in a footnote--in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Also, I didn't realize the title of this book until just now (as in, what it refers to). I am fantastic.

MLA Citation information: Lewis, CS. Out of the Silent Planet. Scribner: New York, 2003.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Shores of California by The Dresden Dolls

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Take a look at that lawman beating up the wrong man, I wonder if he'll ever know he's in the best-selling show, is there life on Mars?

Also: Emma, I saw your post. I could lie and say I'd do the same, but let's face it. My twitter (unfortunately) gives people a pretty clear idea of my life without a blog post being necessary. What I mean to say is, I can sum my twitter up in this: British actors, LEGOs, bad puns/jokes, Quoting CS Lewis/song lyrics, Obscure jokes about obscure movies/books, jokes about books in general, dinosaurs, David Bowie, Doctor Who, and Kool-Aid. No further explanation is required other than please don't beat me up.

*D., Angela. Text Message to Emma M. Oscar/Wilde: Connecticut, 2010.