Admittedly, this post is a few weeks old because I've been really busy--however, I couldn't pass this up, because this book is the final book in CS Lewis's Space Trilogy. The first is Out of the Silent Planet, and it is followed by Perelandra. This book is very, very different from the first two, and quite often I would pause while reading it and think about how amazing and strange the first two books were (especially the first!) and how... kind of boring this one is. A lot of the beginning of the books are politics between organizations, and I mostly skimmed that, so that probably ruined my interpretations of a lot of events later in the book, too. Also it takes place is 1940's England and not 1940's space. And it starts off way differently, and Merlin is involved, and... honestly, if I had picked up this book first and read the blurb on the back without having read the first two, I would have never read this.
I've also seen this on a few "top 10 dystopic future books" lists, or lists of that flavour. Um... But... Everyone is stopped. And it's boring. Even if you didn't read the first two books about how awesome space is--it's b-b-b-boring. I mean, I got this copy for free, but man, I don't want to own it. I wish I had a copy of the second book instead, even if I had to pay for it, and even if it was really predictable and a little cliche.
Also, the New Yorker calls this book an elaborate satire--uh... Some parts are satiric, but this book definitely isn't a satire. (The New Yorker is also kind of lame, so...)
So this book starts off looking over the shoulders of the newly married Studdocks, Mark and Jane. For a very long time in the book I wasn't sure if Jane was a very to-the-point, accurate, and great picture of a realistic woman, or a picture of what CS Lewis would say was a wayward or not so great woman--turns out the second is true, but damn, if he didn't make that intention clear, I'd be damn impressed with the portrayal of Jane, because she is easy to empathize with and otherwise not an insulting picture of a woman. Oops.
Anyways, Mark really wants to get in with some new organization who are trying to clean the world by killing all livings things so everything will be antiseptic and perfect (that's revealed much later, Mark thinks they're just some university elites for a long time)... They're led by one of the guys from the first book (Devine? The one that didn't get possessed), and are clearly the forces of evil. They're going to achieve all of their stuff with a reanimated head and a reanimated Merlin? I... Okay, I don't really know. I have no goddamn clue, really. But they're the bad guys. Evil Maledils? I remember the terms but not what they refer to. Well... The forces of evil.
Meanwhile, his wife starts having dream-visions, and is eventually caught and protected by the good guys. She leads them right to the real Merlin.
Confused? Sorry, I... I really can't help you. This time it isn't my fault... This book is just...
In the introduction, CS Lewis compares this final book in the trilogy to his nonfiction work The Abolition of Man. I actually bought it a week or two before this book, so maybe when I read that I'll be able to figure out the point of this book (oops).
In the introduction, CS Lewis also says that if one is curious about what happens next, they'll have to wait for JRR Tolkien's book--the book he promised CS Lewis he'd write that he never actually wrote.
So. Many of my first notes regard Jane and her reaction to suddenly being married, the fear of becoming domestic, or somehow losing a part of her in this union, which I would say are, if not legitimate fears, undoubtedly very normal. Of course, I've already explained how any positive point I could have made about that has already been proven moot, so let's just move on, shall we?
Also pretty early on they start discussing mythology and legends (Merlin and such), which is pretty boring--you wouldn't think so, but it is. Also it seems kind of erroneous. Jane's maternal friend, Mrs Dimble, starts talking about how, when King Arthur "invaded" (Lewis 29), there undoubtedly would have been a large sect of British people still wearing togas and speaking Latin and such. Now, to be honest, I don't know a lot about the King Arthur legends, or when they're supposed to be set (I read Beowulf first, so how could you expect me to even care?)--but that just doesn't seem right. The Latin carrying on and becoming changed seems plausible. But the togas? Purely Roman? I can imagine their affects still being there and on the people, but... I kind of picture King Arthur as being a year 1000 kind of thing--which may be wrong in itself. But this doesn't seem to bode for me. (Especially when they mention the high Druid population on the other side of the coin--Romans took particular pleasure in killing Druids and torturing them, and I feel like even Christian Romans would put them to death. So the two societies living simultaneously doesn't seem plausible in the slightest.)
On page 39, Feverstone--Devine (oh, I just got it, like "Divine", but he turns out to be a false prophet)--mentions Weston's murder to Mark to try to explain how evil NICE's (the evil organization is in fact named NICE) enemies are. Again, Weston was possessed by the evil entity and had to be killed, but Mark buys it hook, line, and sinker, and of course Devine wouldn't see their business as evil.
Oh--and Mark says that anything that will preserve the human race is for him. If you'll recall, this blind goal is what made Devine and Weston's twisted nature so clear in the first book: "'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'" (Out of the Silent Planet 137). As long as mankind can live on, maybe become better, but as long as sex still works, that's what counts. (Oyarsa says that, in case if you were wondering).
Also, Devine calls from the liquidation/sterilization of "unfit races" (Lewis 49)--one, buying into eugenics, and two, emulating Hitler in a book set during the very last year of WWII--which Mark doesn't seem to pick up on at all. He describes a very Aldous Huxley-like view of the future, with pre-natal education, and one which completely shapes the victim and eats at free will... Mark calls it stupendous instead of being horrified.
Oh, and killing every living thing on earth doesn't bother him either.
Anyways. The two are kind of disconnected. The major satirical element of this book which overall is not a satire is Captain Hardcastle--well, that's not her title, but if you grew up reading Roald Dahl, it's all but instinct to include Captain with Hardcastle. Anyways, she's supposed to be, as I see it, the opposite of Jane, or the worst case scenario of Jane, or something. She's a masculine woman, disgustingly so--she won't wear a corset, she chews tobacco, drinks hard alcohol (whiskey), and smokes huge cigars, talks like a man... Her nickname is "Fairy"--I'm not up on on forties slang, but today I'm sure you know, that's slang for a gay man. And, uh, smoking cigars? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but there is no way in hell CS Lewis wasn't trying to illustrate some kind of penis envy along with making Hardcastle gross and manly in the worst ways. Mark is also very grossed out by her and at one point the idea of having sex with her comes up and he starts feeling nauseous. The Fairy asks if maybe Jane is angry with her husband, or perhaps a little jealous because he spends so much time at NICE, with her, and Mark suffers "uncontrollable disgust" (Lewis 184). Oh! And she leads her own police squad made up of girls--very stereotypical teenage girls, might I add. My opinion? Feminism is great, equality is awesome, but unsexing yourself and becoming so intensely manly is not becoming in the slightest.
Okay. Well, again, Jane is supposed to be pictured as a kind of wayward and headstrong girl and maybe not a good Christian woman or whatever, but then I'm one too, because I empathize with her a lot. While Mark is meeting the Fairy, Jane is having her dreams analyzed by the forces of good--something Jane, given her nature, doesn't completely believe. "She was not indeed sure that it was nonsense; but she had already resolved to treat it as if it were. She would not get 'mixed up in it', would not get drawn in. One had to live one's own life. To avoid entanglements and interferences had long been one of her first principles. Even when she discovered that she was going to marry Mark if he asked her, she though, 'But I must still keep up my own life', had arisen at once and had never for more than a few minutes at a stretch been absent from her mind. Some resentment against love itself, and therefore against Mark, for thus invading her life, remained" (Lewis 70-71). It's a little improper, but again, I think it's easy to see where she's coming from. (And if not, at least consider what year this book is set in.)
Captain Hardcastle/the Fairy makes a point about how it's much easier to fool an educated man with opinions in the paper, whereas a working class man will just assume it's all lies. This I can see, though again, it doesn't have 100% accuracy--yeah, you're going to agree with an opinion you read, and you can be tricked into it and influenced very easily. (It happens to EVERYONE!) I wouldn't say the split between classes makes you more or less susceptible, but England has traditionally had a clearer divide in terms of classes, so maybe that fed some of what CS Lewis had to say about that... Maybe...
Skip to page 145, which is when I realized that CS Lewis wasn't making a stronger female character. She has met the "Director", that is, the leader of the good guys--his name is different, but it's just good old Ransom. His name was changed for legal reasons that are clumsily explained (so he could claim some inheritance? Changing the names was a term of it?), and that's clearly CS Lewis trying to not be obvious about who it is and leave you guessing, but honestly, I realized who it was immediately. He appears much more youthful in this book; in the other books I kind of imagined him as stodgier and older, for whatever reason.
One of the side effects of his journey is that animals recognize his touch of the divine and naturally come to him. I mention this mostly because he has a pet black bear named Mr Bultitude, which is disgustingly adorable. I also mention that many of the times you see him, he is accompanied by a few jackdaws. What's a jackdaw, you may ask? Well, in The Magician's Nephew, a Jackdaw makes (or is) the first joke (in Narnia). I've come to the conclusion that Jackdaws must represent something important to CS Lewis to have been specifically mentioned, and not once but twice. (Let's not forget that Ransom is a Christ figure himself, after "death", and obviously Aslan is Aslan.) Hope? Humour? Whatever it is, they must have meant something special to him.
Oh! And yeah, he tells Jane that she'd be happier in her marriage if she were just a little more obedient. Probably true, but it still makes him sound like something of a jerk--"'[You] have lost love because you never attempted obedience'" (Lewis 145). We can agree that that makes him sound like a jerk, right? Also he says equality is not the "deepest thing" (Lewis 145)... Keep in mind, though, CS Lewis wasn't married until very late in his life, and probably was never really involved romantically with anyone (other than JRR Tolkien, of course)--CS Lewis even (kind of) makes amends for himself a few pages later--Mrs Dimble, I believe, says something along the lines of take what he says with a grain of salt, he's never been married and is kind of old-fashioned. So at least CS Lewis kind of admits that he's not entirely sure of what he's talking about, or only sure of it in a theoretical sense. Also... This is a side note, but he calls humility an erotic necessity... I... Not sure where he's going with that one.
After Ransom explains this all to her, he calls some mice of his in to eat up the crumbs they have dropped from their teatime snack. He does this to demonstrate how very different creatures can in fact live in harmony--but I believe it could also be a reference to a section in The Book of Common Prayer--"We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen" (Source). This prayer exists in Anglican/Protestant religion, so CS Lewis was definitely aware of it.
Hmm... Plot, plot... At around this point, Jane is captured by Captain Hardcastle, but saved by the good guys. She will not see her husband (and vice versa) for the rest of the book. Their camps have been permanently separated now.
The next page I marked is just Jane getting used to life in her new home. The men do all the work one day, the women the next, and so on. It makes an interesting point about how men are specific--say, the sugar goes in the green bowl that is on top of x cupboard, and a women will say put that in the the thing. I only mark it because that may seem like another silly mistake by CS Lewis, but nope, my mom does this all the time, and yeah, I do too.
Mark, meanwhile, is taken to see the Head of NICE--literally a reanimated head. I just thought that was kind of silly (and really gross).
"If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them" (Lewis 203).
There's a cook named MacPhee with the good guys. He is a tough guy, willing to do whatever Ransom needs, but Ransom says it's useless--because he doesn't believe in the cause. He adds that he is "'...perfectly ready... in and for this emergency, to allow the existence of these eldils of yours and of a being called Maledil whom they regard as their king'" (Lewis 222). Obviously he can say he'll believe, and maybe if the times are desperate enough he will believe (put me in any horror movie and I'll get religious real quick too)--but he won't truly have faith. And the Blair Witch will kill him. Maybe he shouldn't have mocked those cairns, but nooo, had to go ahead and move them...
Ah! So, Mark isn't a bad guy. NICE frames him for murder and threatens to have him arrested when he tries to leave them and find Jane. He is often deluded by visions of grandeur, but it's not bad, he's just... Well, very pliable. But he decides immortality is silly. He obsesses over death, rather than paying attention to the fact that he'd have an afterlife. He's more worried about his body not being in working order, and he doesn't care about his soul. THIS IS A BAD SIGN IN A CS LEWIS BOOK! He is clearly being marked as an immoral, or at least painfully foolish person.
Yeah, next mark is that he believes he is right--fighting for and with Jane from behind enemy lines, a martyr... Mark is being marked, haha. He also decides to do the right thing--or what he believes is the right thing--but then becomes depressed when he realizes how hard it will be and takes a nap instead. CS Lewis is planting red flags and also throwing rocks at us all at once.
Next note: the good guys get Merlin, the bad guys awaken some guy who isn't Merlin but a fake. Who is he? What happens to him at the end of the book? Uh.... I guess he dies? I don't know who he is though. I for real have no clue. From Wikipedia, I think that Merlin trades clothes with a tramp and NICE sees the clothes and assumes it's Merlin... But could a tramp really fool them that well? I mean, late in the book he appears to hypnotize Mark, or maybe Mark is just exhausted...? Oh well. Anyways, sometimes they refer to Merlin as Merlin, and sometimes Merlinus. Why?
Oh also Ransom is a Pendragon!!! Clumsy plot devices for everyone!!!
Oh and they namedrop Middle Earth. I know it's an archaic term for Earth (being in between heaven and hell, see?), but I also know that JRR Tolkien was CS Lewis's boyfriend, soooo...
Jane complains about more marital problems, how men never listen to everything women have to say, whatever. Maggs, another woman, quotes Mrs Dimble: "'"Did it ever come into your mind to ask whether anyone could listen to all we say?"'" (Lewis 300). BAM. This is fair, I think. It made me laugh, at least. Also, Kurt Vonnegut: "Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything" (A Man Without a Country 47).
The book kind of continues in theological debates and NICE politics for a long time. I'm sure important things happen between pages 70-300, but... Well, he spends too much time on the uninteresting stuff. Theological debates are interesting, especially when CS Lewis makes them, but these are so superfluous. I don't think I'd like the book even without them (the cool thing about the first two Spacer Trilogy books was that they were in space!), but at least it would be more to the point. Anyways, in the other two, religious debate is pretty seamlessly in there--okay, yes, the second book became a little cliched and obvious, but I don't recall it ever being so painfully boring and dragged out. Why mention this now? On page 303, the book suddenly becomes interesting, when the book inexplicably starts being told from the view of Mr Bultitude, Ransom's pet bear. I'm sure he's supposed to represent a good soul or a perfect soul in its animalistic simplicity, but whatever, Mr Bultitude is adorable and I cannot handle it.
Okay. I don't have any notes at all until the end of the book. The climactic scene takes place in a dining hall. NICE, thinking they have Merlin, hold a big celebration in congratulations for... getting him...? Well, the real Merlin is there too. He summons animals to attack and kill the leading members of NICE, and a lot of the guests... Listen, I'm not saying that it was really the Animorphs, but they were attacked by a tiger, an elephant, a bear, a gorilla, a wolf, and a snake (Ax has a snake morph!). So. Just saying.
And then Merlin puts the same curse as God put on the tower of Babel on the enemies who were left--that is, that they all would speak different languages so they couldn't understand each other (though in this book they appear to actually be speaking just gibberish).
Oh, and on page 370, "poor" is spelled "pore". Gross.
Anyways, the falling action gets weird, as this quickly becomes the only CS Lewis to feature bears having sex, and elephants having sex. In celebration of the bad guys being wiped out (remember, they wanted to wipe all life from the earth and make it completely sterile), all the animals in the area suddenly get really... excited. Mr Bultitude gets laid, the jackdaw flies out the window to pursue a mate... Ransom actually tells Mr Bultitude to "'Take her, Bultitude. But not in the house'" (Lewis 375). They open the window and find the elephant from before, now making a lady elephant his lady, and when one man goes to close the curtains so no-one has to see elephants doing the nasty, one of the women says: "'No... There will be nothing unfit for anyone to see. Draw them wider'" (Lewis 377). What the hell, CS Lewis. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't view it as indecent, but no-one wants to see that! The lady goes on to say that they are dancing--yeah, the horizontal monster mash. WHY ARE THESE THINGS HAPPENING?? Why, CS Lewis, whyyyy?
Anyways, Mark survives. The book ends with both Jane and Mark thinking about how they will react to one another and what their lives will be like--Mark realizes that he does truly love Jane, the end of the book gives a feeling that Jane loves him (or at least is very affectionate towards him) and it ends before they meet. The ending actually isn't that bad. I mean, the actual end as in the last few sentences, not all the animal sex parts. That's still weird. But the last few sentences wrap up the book (at least Mark and Jane's drama) nicely.
.........So. I guess I've made my opinion on the book pretty clear many times throughout this. It's only a step above A Horse and His Boy, in terms of CS Lewis books--that is, it's nearly my least favourite. (Then again, I read A Horse and His Boy at least once, too.) It's just not great, it's bumbling, it's full of awkward attempts to save its own skin on the part of the author (hey, did you know that Ransom is a Pendragon?)... It's boring and confusing, which is a deadly combination. There's a reason why people really don't know this particular book series--it ends pretty badly and okay, yeah, it's not Chronicles of Narnia. I have a copy of Abolition of Man somewhere, and I know I should probably read it next so everything will be fresh, but I've already read two other books to write about, that are much better (well, one is anyways). So... Yeah, I guess that's it. OH! And when writing for a character in a different language, find someone who actually speaks the language to help you. There's one Italian character in this book who speaks in broken English and he always says "ecco" instead of "here"--ecco means something like, "Here it is", like if you were trying to find your hat, your friend would say "Ecco!" if he got to it first. It doesn't mean here like "I am here". I don't know why it annoyed me so much, I have no right to be annoyed by it (straight Cs/Ds for three years in high school Italian, awww yeah!), but it's really the only thing I remember from Italian class, so goddammit CS Lewis, get your act together.
(Also can we note that at the bottom of my Perelandra post, I say "I really hope I find the third book soon. Although this series isn't stellar, it's pretty good." Dammit, CS Lewis.)
MLA Citation information: Lewis, CS. Out of the Silent Planet. Scribner: New York, 2003.
Lewis, CS. That Hideous Strength. Scribner: New York, 2003.
Showing posts with label Out of the Silent Planet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Out of the Silent Planet. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2012
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Perelandra by CS Lewis
This book is the second in the space trilogy series, the sequel to Out of the Silent Planet. Perelandra is the name of Venus. In this book, Ransom goes again to space, though this time he goes there. On Venus there is a new garden of Eden forming, complete with the first man and woman, though they have been separated at the time that Ransom lands. The book is, to some extent, a remake of the attempt told in Genesis: though Ransom has been summoned to Venus in order to thwart the devil/his subject, who is using Weston's body as a host. So, Ransom is a Christ-like figure. He's sacrificing himself to defeat evil, but he's stopping it before it starts so he only gets injured and doesn't have to die. This book is also told after the fact, as was the last one. Let's go.
First of all, I think that I figured out what the Oyarsa are. If you'll recall, I had some trouble getting the eldil and Oyarsa and all together. The Oyarsa is the name of the 'patron saint' (if you will) of each planet--so the planet Mars's patron saint would be the Greco-Roman god Mars/Ares, but a pure version, having almost nothing to do with what humans made up for them. From here, they act as archangels, I would imagine.
I got straight-up excited when Ransom refers to the partial-narrator who is recording this story for us as 'Lewis'. Hmm, wonder who that could be? And I wonder who Ransom is supposed to be? CS Lewis does make a point of reminding the audience that Ransom is a philologist. (Even though he denied that Ransom what supposed to be a caricature of Tolkien, I'm one hundred percent certain that that's who he's supposed to be. You "borrowed characteristics"? Yeah, all of them. Ooh, buuuuurn.)
Oh, and apparently a common figure of speech was being 'knocked up' in the thirties-forties-sometime before today. I've deduced that it meant looking haggard or something like that, but it's still kind of funny when someone exclaims it. No, Tolkien, I don't think Clive is... knocked up. ("You slut! How long has this been going on!?") In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that he lacks the necessary parts for that.
WhenTolkien Ransom first sees the 'Eve' of Venus, she is nude and green. In fact, she remains nude and green for the whole novel, except for a brief scene, where 'Weston' tricks her into wearing a robe. Anyways, he panics--after he meets her he says he is too in awe to feel sexual desire, and never actually does. (Later, when he sees her in the robe he comes to the conclusion that clothes are what created desire and perversion, because they hide something, and like children, a person tends to desire what they cannot reach, and thus... I cannot remember if I marked that page or not. But again, he didn't actually feel sexual desire for her at that time, he was horrified, because if you'll recall, that's the first thing Adam and Eve did after they ate the apple--make clothes because they realized they were naked and felt ashamed.) Anyyyyywaaaays... When he first sees her he gets scared, and wonders if she is not a "Circe or Alcina" (54). Circe transformed men into creatures (most notably Odysseus's crew after they gorged themselves on the feast she set up for them) and enjoyed sleeping with men and then stealing their "manhood". Alcina is the one I didn't know--she is apparently a sorceress from an opera by Handel (named Alcina). Alcina seduces men and has sex with them for a while, but then gets bored and will turn them into animals or rocks.
Now, naivety is often considered cute or pure. And although it can be beneficial, it often does more harm than good--unknowing and naive (a fool, to say harshly), the green lady would never think of wearing clothes or admiring her own reflection or murder or gluttony on her own. When 'Weston' appears and starts entreating her to disobey orders set by God/Venus, she at first objects, but 'Weston' is a smooth talker, and she doesn't know any better. In a few ways her naivety does protect, because she doesn't really get the point of clothing and what mirrors are, but other times it is grating.
One thing that does bother me is when 'Weston' introduces the green lady to stories and poems--descriptions of things that aren't real, but could be, or would be nice. The lady has never heard of such a thing. CS Lewis's point is probably that life in her Eden is so great she doesn't need any stories or diversions like that--but that paints a rather frightening picture of heaven, for me at least. Very Brave New World-ish, if you ask me (though I'm sure Lewis didn't intend it that way at all, and probably would be disgusted if he heard that take on things... And now I'm wondering what CS Lewis's thoughts on Aldous Huxley were. Also, I'm starting to really like the name Aldous.)
Of course, 'Weston' and Ransom interact. In attempting to discredit 'Weston', Ransom looks rather bad himself, and more often than not, do more harm than good. They are rather like two siblings who are constantly trying to get the other in trouble. This goes on until an explosive final chase and wrestle (and because this is a trilogy, I think you can figure out for yourself who wins the final fight)... But! Eventually Ransom comes upon 'Weston' strangling a bird so that he may pluck its feathers. ('Weston' is never seen eating, and it would be more evil just to kill for the sake of killing--plus earlier in the book 'Weston' would just rip frogs apart for the heck of it.) 'Weston' attempts to shake Ransom's faith by telling him that God will not aid Weston, and lists all the others who waited too long for God to help them and ended up dying because of it--victims of the Holocaust, madmen, Jesus--"'Could He help Himself?'" (153). This is obviously a reference to the crucifixion, though it is twisted--it was necessary for Jesus to sacrifice himself so everyone else would be saved. God could have helped himself/his son/however that works, but in doing so he would have abandoned his people. He goes on to quote Jesus's wailing at the cross (in Aramic): "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As you can see from what I've just said (and if you actually read the book, Ransom tells you) that he's used something for his own means, twisting it perfectly. What is chilling about is that Ransom has the idea that when 'Weston' is quoting the words perfectly--he's not just quoting because he saw them written by some scribe. He is remembering.
Also, back to "'Could He help Himself?'" (153). In the Stephen King book Desperation, a monster-demon named Tak attempts to mock David, an eleven-year-old boy whose overwhelming and practically unbelievable faith in God is the only thing that can save him and the people he's with. Tak tries to make David lose his faith by saying, "'Your God isn't here, any more than he was with Jesus when Jesus hung dying on the cross with flies in his eyes'" (pages aren't listed in this online edition, but the full text appears to be online here, so I guess they aren't really needed. I urge you to read it. It is actually a very good book). It's a tad grislier than Lewis's statement, but essentially the same.
Ransom and 'Weston', like I said, eventually do have a standoff, deep inside the caves of the 'fixed land' (every other piece of land is basically a literal seafoam island)... Ransom and the fake Weston beat the hell out of each other, and eventually they both collapse from exhaustion. This makes me the maddest--not because they beat each other, although that was very unexpected and disturbing from CS Lewis, it was necessary--but because what had possessed Weston let him go so it wouldn't have to suffer. All of a sudden Weston is in the middle of nowhere, memories from any time after Mars nonexistent, beaten to a pulp, with a broken leg. He's crying, whimpering--he begs Ransom not to leave him, and finally explains why he is the way he is: as a child, he saw his large, strong grandmother dead and it frightened him, and he became obsessed with living, for as long as possible, no matter the cost. During this, his speech gets twisted, and one is able to follow the same pattern that led Weston to be so open for possession. The thing in Weston slowly returns again and attempts to drown Weston but fails and instead drowns himself.
What Ransom realizes is that fear and evil make you completely one with the devil/evil--he can work through you as if he is you and there is little to no difference, because it came on so gradually and naturally. "What Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle held over the gas ring. The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance. In the meantime, the great thing was not to be tricked again" (173). This would be a reference to the ultimate goal of Hinduism, where your goal would be to attain a complete oneness with the rest of the universe.
My last note is towards the end of the book--Ransom recovers in the caves, finds food and a way out... Finalizing Ransom's position as a Christ-like figure is what he sees when he finally gets out of the cave and starts walking around: "There was something white near the water's edge. An altar? A patch of white lilies among the red? A tomb? But whose tomb? No, it was not a tomb but a coffin, open and empty, and its lid lying beside it" (193). What this actually is is the ship he is to return home in--it alternately represents the opened tomb left when Christ was resurrected (because Ransom was basically raised from the dead) and the tomb open yet waiting, because Ransom has yet to go back to earth and be reborn, so to speak.
The book ends with everyone reunited (including the green lady's mate), the true Venus and Mars greet everyone, and Ransom is sent back home, and we're back to the beginning. I really hope I find the third book soon. Although this series isn't stellar, it's pretty good.
MLA Citation Information: Lewis, CS. Perelandra. Collier Books: New York, 1962.
First of all, I think that I figured out what the Oyarsa are. If you'll recall, I had some trouble getting the eldil and Oyarsa and all together. The Oyarsa is the name of the 'patron saint' (if you will) of each planet--so the planet Mars's patron saint would be the Greco-Roman god Mars/Ares, but a pure version, having almost nothing to do with what humans made up for them. From here, they act as archangels, I would imagine.
I got straight-up excited when Ransom refers to the partial-narrator who is recording this story for us as 'Lewis'. Hmm, wonder who that could be? And I wonder who Ransom is supposed to be? CS Lewis does make a point of reminding the audience that Ransom is a philologist. (Even though he denied that Ransom what supposed to be a caricature of Tolkien, I'm one hundred percent certain that that's who he's supposed to be. You "borrowed characteristics"? Yeah, all of them. Ooh, buuuuurn.)
Oh, and apparently a common figure of speech was being 'knocked up' in the thirties-forties-sometime before today. I've deduced that it meant looking haggard or something like that, but it's still kind of funny when someone exclaims it. No, Tolkien, I don't think Clive is... knocked up. ("You slut! How long has this been going on!?") In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that he lacks the necessary parts for that.
When
Now, naivety is often considered cute or pure. And although it can be beneficial, it often does more harm than good--unknowing and naive (a fool, to say harshly), the green lady would never think of wearing clothes or admiring her own reflection or murder or gluttony on her own. When 'Weston' appears and starts entreating her to disobey orders set by God/Venus, she at first objects, but 'Weston' is a smooth talker, and she doesn't know any better. In a few ways her naivety does protect, because she doesn't really get the point of clothing and what mirrors are, but other times it is grating.
One thing that does bother me is when 'Weston' introduces the green lady to stories and poems--descriptions of things that aren't real, but could be, or would be nice. The lady has never heard of such a thing. CS Lewis's point is probably that life in her Eden is so great she doesn't need any stories or diversions like that--but that paints a rather frightening picture of heaven, for me at least. Very Brave New World-ish, if you ask me (though I'm sure Lewis didn't intend it that way at all, and probably would be disgusted if he heard that take on things... And now I'm wondering what CS Lewis's thoughts on Aldous Huxley were. Also, I'm starting to really like the name Aldous.)
Of course, 'Weston' and Ransom interact. In attempting to discredit 'Weston', Ransom looks rather bad himself, and more often than not, do more harm than good. They are rather like two siblings who are constantly trying to get the other in trouble. This goes on until an explosive final chase and wrestle (and because this is a trilogy, I think you can figure out for yourself who wins the final fight)... But! Eventually Ransom comes upon 'Weston' strangling a bird so that he may pluck its feathers. ('Weston' is never seen eating, and it would be more evil just to kill for the sake of killing--plus earlier in the book 'Weston' would just rip frogs apart for the heck of it.) 'Weston' attempts to shake Ransom's faith by telling him that God will not aid Weston, and lists all the others who waited too long for God to help them and ended up dying because of it--victims of the Holocaust, madmen, Jesus--"'Could He help Himself?'" (153). This is obviously a reference to the crucifixion, though it is twisted--it was necessary for Jesus to sacrifice himself so everyone else would be saved. God could have helped himself/his son/however that works, but in doing so he would have abandoned his people. He goes on to quote Jesus's wailing at the cross (in Aramic): "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As you can see from what I've just said (and if you actually read the book, Ransom tells you) that he's used something for his own means, twisting it perfectly. What is chilling about is that Ransom has the idea that when 'Weston' is quoting the words perfectly--he's not just quoting because he saw them written by some scribe. He is remembering.
Also, back to "'Could He help Himself?'" (153). In the Stephen King book Desperation, a monster-demon named Tak attempts to mock David, an eleven-year-old boy whose overwhelming and practically unbelievable faith in God is the only thing that can save him and the people he's with. Tak tries to make David lose his faith by saying, "'Your God isn't here, any more than he was with Jesus when Jesus hung dying on the cross with flies in his eyes'" (pages aren't listed in this online edition, but the full text appears to be online here, so I guess they aren't really needed. I urge you to read it. It is actually a very good book). It's a tad grislier than Lewis's statement, but essentially the same.
Ransom and 'Weston', like I said, eventually do have a standoff, deep inside the caves of the 'fixed land' (every other piece of land is basically a literal seafoam island)... Ransom and the fake Weston beat the hell out of each other, and eventually they both collapse from exhaustion. This makes me the maddest--not because they beat each other, although that was very unexpected and disturbing from CS Lewis, it was necessary--but because what had possessed Weston let him go so it wouldn't have to suffer. All of a sudden Weston is in the middle of nowhere, memories from any time after Mars nonexistent, beaten to a pulp, with a broken leg. He's crying, whimpering--he begs Ransom not to leave him, and finally explains why he is the way he is: as a child, he saw his large, strong grandmother dead and it frightened him, and he became obsessed with living, for as long as possible, no matter the cost. During this, his speech gets twisted, and one is able to follow the same pattern that led Weston to be so open for possession. The thing in Weston slowly returns again and attempts to drown Weston but fails and instead drowns himself.
What Ransom realizes is that fear and evil make you completely one with the devil/evil--he can work through you as if he is you and there is little to no difference, because it came on so gradually and naturally. "What Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle held over the gas ring. The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance. In the meantime, the great thing was not to be tricked again" (173). This would be a reference to the ultimate goal of Hinduism, where your goal would be to attain a complete oneness with the rest of the universe.
My last note is towards the end of the book--Ransom recovers in the caves, finds food and a way out... Finalizing Ransom's position as a Christ-like figure is what he sees when he finally gets out of the cave and starts walking around: "There was something white near the water's edge. An altar? A patch of white lilies among the red? A tomb? But whose tomb? No, it was not a tomb but a coffin, open and empty, and its lid lying beside it" (193). What this actually is is the ship he is to return home in--it alternately represents the opened tomb left when Christ was resurrected (because Ransom was basically raised from the dead) and the tomb open yet waiting, because Ransom has yet to go back to earth and be reborn, so to speak.
The book ends with everyone reunited (including the green lady's mate), the true Venus and Mars greet everyone, and Ransom is sent back home, and we're back to the beginning. I really hope I find the third book soon. Although this series isn't stellar, it's pretty good.
MLA Citation Information: Lewis, CS. Perelandra. Collier Books: New York, 1962.
Monday, June 13, 2011
The First Men in the Moon by HG Wells
Helloooo! This is going to be a really short post, I promise you that.
So, first of all, there's a little background on Wells by a fellow named Robert AW Lowndes. (Also, I'm going to mention that this is a really cool edition from the sixties. Actually, it was printed in sixty five--I find it funny, because of course you know what happened four years later... (And consider--a paltry sixty-eight years after the book was originally published!)
So yeah--a background on Wells. First of all, Wells was a son of the working class, and of course England was a very classed society in the eighteen-hundreds. It says that he struggled to escape those boundaries placed upon him, which of course he did, and even at the start of the book itself this is reflected. The main character, Bedford, was a banker--bankrupt at the start of the story. He sees that he will probably have to spend the rest of his life as a clerk (low-class work, of course--) unless if he doesn't think of something else. He decides to go to the country to write a play. At first when I read that, I was like, how stupid! But then I remembered that that's sort of close to when Oscar Wilde wrote his plays (like a decade off. Decade and a half at most), and since Wilde's plays were so awesome, it seemed like a perfectly acceptable idea. As in, "Oh, Wilde did it? Well then duh everyone would want to do it." So yeah...
Another interesting note in the introduction is that of course Jules Verne's works were widely read and very popular, they were only read as fantasies and romances. Apparently HG Wells made people see crazy scientific explorations and going ons as possible realities. It also goes on to say that while Verne would have liked the characters in his book, From the Earth to the Moon, to land on the moon, he made that impossible for himself. I don't know if HG Wells was aware of that and that's why he decided to go one step further, or if he just did for the hell of it, but I guess this is really the first book that dealt with aliens. Originally I was going to complain at how lame the aliens are, but... Ugh, fine. HG Wells, you did something novel, amazing and groundbreaking, and you improved on it later, too. But they're still sort of lame. (Listen, I read Animorphs, okay!? Compared to that, this is like... Well. The opposite of great.)
Not only that, this appears to be the book that CS Lewis refers to in the opening note of Out of the Silent Planet. He has a little note that says that he's aware of similarities between his and other works, and that some of his ideas are based on other works and so on. Of course, this means that almost all of my notes are based on differences between the two, though most of them are pretty superfluous and needn't actually really be discussed. (Things like the fact that the men with the ship in Lewis's first book knew what they were doing, had already completed the ship, whereas Bedford had to urge on Cavor and help him, Cavor still had to make the ship, similarities between the ships, and so on...) CS Lewis is very briefly discussed in the closing paragraph, and he is praised highly because he is pretty awesome, just saying: "It is interesting to compare the career of H. G. Wells and C. S. Lewis, a contemporary author on religious subjects, who examined and wrote about the same human problems as Wells, in his 'Perelandra' trilogy of science-fiction novels. Lewis lived to see far greater evils than Wells, who died in 1946; but Lewis knew there was no utopia, no simple solution to human ills, and showed far deeper understanding of the human condition. Wells died in despair; Lewis never despaired" (10). So I put this down mostly for that last sentence. The rest is all context. For whatever reason, that last sentence enthralls me.
Oh, I also want to mention that whenever Wells skews a scientific fact that we of today take for granted (remember, this was written in 1901--judging from the text, helium was only just recently discovered at the time of the original writing) I have a little moment of aw, Wells, you are just too cute. Even though he was undoubtedly nine thousand times smarter than me and more of a visionary than I'll ever be--I mean, his idea of a ship is amazing and all, but I can't wrap my head around it, either because I'm too dumb to understand it (very possible) or because I'm just automatically like funny story, Wells, that is not how we do it at all (possibly). Anyyyywayyyys. Yeah. His idea is a sphere powered by strips of cavorite which is an element like helium that can go against gravity. Or something like that... And I also want to mention that this is something else CS Lewis borrowed from HG Wells in Out of the Silent Planet. I don't remember if Lewis gets into all specifics, but their ship is a sphere with blinds, though I can't figure out how the control room fits into his ship. And the blinds in Lewis's book (I haven't read the other two in the series) seem to be more for aesthetic purposes than controlling the ship purposes.
HG Wells also decides it's no worse to go into space than to go on an arctic expedition. Again, Mr Wells, you are so adorable.
Also, that word/slang/whatever you'd call it tidbits--originally, the phrase was apparently tit-bits. (Insert everyone from the twenty-first century clawing their eyes out in disgust.) That was also apparently a very popular magazine at the time.
One thing that really makes me mad is the fact that Bedford pushes Cavor to make his machine and go to the moon (even though Cavor doesn't really see the point of it all, not really) and then when they've taken off he flips out and begs to be let off.
"It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream" (36).
So they land on the moon and explore the landscape. HG Wells has a ball making up the strange environment--it seems like a barren tundra, but then the snow melts and strange plants sprout and bloom at amazing speeds and so on--it's actually pretty enthralling. Anyways, they start searching for food and find some edible fungoid. The fungoid are actually intoxicants, and Bedford declares that the 'discovery' (the landing, that is) is second only to the potato. It's hilarious and it's definitely one of the best scenes from the book. (It's page sixty-five in this edition.)
"Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use" (104).
So the men part ways--the moon people take the two men into bondage, and they break free and kill a few moon people in the process. Cavor is eventually recaptured, but Bedford finds their sphere and takes flight. He then begins to bemoan his trip, and seems to view himself as an objective outsider--he "looks down" upon himself. "I saw Bedford in many relations--as an ass or as a poor beast where I hitherto been inclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited and rather forcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many generations of asses" (117). Hehehehe.
He goes on to say how after his little existential crisis, he set himself to "puzzle out the conditions under which I must fall to earth" (118). Just move along...
On earth he decides he must make a new identity for himself to escape his failings and so he'd never be obliged to explain the occurrences on the moon and Cavor's disappearance and all. He signs his name as Wells. He says the name seemed to be "thoroughly respectable" (126). I see what you did there.
The book sort of ends after that. I say it sort of ends because Bedford/Well's bit pretty much ends. He mentions that he received a few transmissions from Cavor, who came into contact with theMooninites. The book then switches to the transmissions, sort of as an after note--not dissimilar to the after note in Out of the Silent Planet. The only thing I have marked is the very last page of it--the people of the moon are apparently completely peaceful (might I mention that, when not working, everyone indulges in what is essentially opium?)--Cavor must explain war to them. They don't get it, of course it is seen as beastly, and Cavor says rather hopelessly that it can thin the population (the 'Grand Lunar' can't understand its existence, because there is no benefit to be measured from it). This is unsurprisingly kind of a buzzkill for the moon people. They demand to know how Cavor got there, and I'm not sure whether he explains to the Grand Lunar how to make cavorite (his last message very nearly ends with the fragment "'I was mad to let the Grand Lunar to know--'" [159]) or if they just decide to kill him because he would bring war and pain and death and all to the moon. I am completely convinced that he was killed either way, though.
MLA Citation Information: Wells, HG. The First Men in the Moon. Airmont Books: United States of America, 1965.
This was a pretty good book. Not phenomenal, but I don't have any regrets about reading it.
Also, for all you film buffs--that famous 1902 film where--well, where the men go to the moon... It's based on this book. It's called A Trip to the Moon--its famous image is the moon with a face and a rocket sticking out of one of its eyes. It's mentioned in 99% of all film books, so yeah... It's pretty interesting. I haven't actually watched it in a few years.
Answer to last post's cryptic lyrics: I'm Going Slightly Mad by Queen
This post's cryptic lyrics: Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!
So, first of all, there's a little background on Wells by a fellow named Robert AW Lowndes. (Also, I'm going to mention that this is a really cool edition from the sixties. Actually, it was printed in sixty five--I find it funny, because of course you know what happened four years later... (And consider--a paltry sixty-eight years after the book was originally published!)
So yeah--a background on Wells. First of all, Wells was a son of the working class, and of course England was a very classed society in the eighteen-hundreds. It says that he struggled to escape those boundaries placed upon him, which of course he did, and even at the start of the book itself this is reflected. The main character, Bedford, was a banker--bankrupt at the start of the story. He sees that he will probably have to spend the rest of his life as a clerk (low-class work, of course--) unless if he doesn't think of something else. He decides to go to the country to write a play. At first when I read that, I was like, how stupid! But then I remembered that that's sort of close to when Oscar Wilde wrote his plays (like a decade off. Decade and a half at most), and since Wilde's plays were so awesome, it seemed like a perfectly acceptable idea. As in, "Oh, Wilde did it? Well then duh everyone would want to do it." So yeah...
Another interesting note in the introduction is that of course Jules Verne's works were widely read and very popular, they were only read as fantasies and romances. Apparently HG Wells made people see crazy scientific explorations and going ons as possible realities. It also goes on to say that while Verne would have liked the characters in his book, From the Earth to the Moon, to land on the moon, he made that impossible for himself. I don't know if HG Wells was aware of that and that's why he decided to go one step further, or if he just did for the hell of it, but I guess this is really the first book that dealt with aliens. Originally I was going to complain at how lame the aliens are, but... Ugh, fine. HG Wells, you did something novel, amazing and groundbreaking, and you improved on it later, too. But they're still sort of lame. (Listen, I read Animorphs, okay!? Compared to that, this is like... Well. The opposite of great.)
Not only that, this appears to be the book that CS Lewis refers to in the opening note of Out of the Silent Planet. He has a little note that says that he's aware of similarities between his and other works, and that some of his ideas are based on other works and so on. Of course, this means that almost all of my notes are based on differences between the two, though most of them are pretty superfluous and needn't actually really be discussed. (Things like the fact that the men with the ship in Lewis's first book knew what they were doing, had already completed the ship, whereas Bedford had to urge on Cavor and help him, Cavor still had to make the ship, similarities between the ships, and so on...) CS Lewis is very briefly discussed in the closing paragraph, and he is praised highly because he is pretty awesome, just saying: "It is interesting to compare the career of H. G. Wells and C. S. Lewis, a contemporary author on religious subjects, who examined and wrote about the same human problems as Wells, in his 'Perelandra' trilogy of science-fiction novels. Lewis lived to see far greater evils than Wells, who died in 1946; but Lewis knew there was no utopia, no simple solution to human ills, and showed far deeper understanding of the human condition. Wells died in despair; Lewis never despaired" (10). So I put this down mostly for that last sentence. The rest is all context. For whatever reason, that last sentence enthralls me.
Oh, I also want to mention that whenever Wells skews a scientific fact that we of today take for granted (remember, this was written in 1901--judging from the text, helium was only just recently discovered at the time of the original writing) I have a little moment of aw, Wells, you are just too cute. Even though he was undoubtedly nine thousand times smarter than me and more of a visionary than I'll ever be--I mean, his idea of a ship is amazing and all, but I can't wrap my head around it, either because I'm too dumb to understand it (very possible) or because I'm just automatically like funny story, Wells, that is not how we do it at all (possibly). Anyyyywayyyys. Yeah. His idea is a sphere powered by strips of cavorite which is an element like helium that can go against gravity. Or something like that... And I also want to mention that this is something else CS Lewis borrowed from HG Wells in Out of the Silent Planet. I don't remember if Lewis gets into all specifics, but their ship is a sphere with blinds, though I can't figure out how the control room fits into his ship. And the blinds in Lewis's book (I haven't read the other two in the series) seem to be more for aesthetic purposes than controlling the ship purposes.
HG Wells also decides it's no worse to go into space than to go on an arctic expedition. Again, Mr Wells, you are so adorable.
Also, that word/slang/whatever you'd call it tidbits--originally, the phrase was apparently tit-bits. (Insert everyone from the twenty-first century clawing their eyes out in disgust.) That was also apparently a very popular magazine at the time.
One thing that really makes me mad is the fact that Bedford pushes Cavor to make his machine and go to the moon (even though Cavor doesn't really see the point of it all, not really) and then when they've taken off he flips out and begs to be let off.
"It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream" (36).
So they land on the moon and explore the landscape. HG Wells has a ball making up the strange environment--it seems like a barren tundra, but then the snow melts and strange plants sprout and bloom at amazing speeds and so on--it's actually pretty enthralling. Anyways, they start searching for food and find some edible fungoid. The fungoid are actually intoxicants, and Bedford declares that the 'discovery' (the landing, that is) is second only to the potato. It's hilarious and it's definitely one of the best scenes from the book. (It's page sixty-five in this edition.)
"Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use" (104).
So the men part ways--the moon people take the two men into bondage, and they break free and kill a few moon people in the process. Cavor is eventually recaptured, but Bedford finds their sphere and takes flight. He then begins to bemoan his trip, and seems to view himself as an objective outsider--he "looks down" upon himself. "I saw Bedford in many relations--as an ass or as a poor beast where I hitherto been inclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited and rather forcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many generations of asses" (117). Hehehehe.
He goes on to say how after his little existential crisis, he set himself to "puzzle out the conditions under which I must fall to earth" (118). Just move along...
On earth he decides he must make a new identity for himself to escape his failings and so he'd never be obliged to explain the occurrences on the moon and Cavor's disappearance and all. He signs his name as Wells. He says the name seemed to be "thoroughly respectable" (126). I see what you did there.
The book sort of ends after that. I say it sort of ends because Bedford/Well's bit pretty much ends. He mentions that he received a few transmissions from Cavor, who came into contact with the
MLA Citation Information: Wells, HG. The First Men in the Moon. Airmont Books: United States of America, 1965.
This was a pretty good book. Not phenomenal, but I don't have any regrets about reading it.
Also, for all you film buffs--that famous 1902 film where--well, where the men go to the moon... It's based on this book. It's called A Trip to the Moon--its famous image is the moon with a face and a rocket sticking out of one of its eyes. It's mentioned in 99% of all film books, so yeah... It's pretty interesting. I haven't actually watched it in a few years.
Answer to last post's cryptic lyrics: I'm Going Slightly Mad by Queen
This post's cryptic lyrics: Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
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.
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