Out of the Silent Planet

 

I consider CS Lewis to be one of the most interesting thinkers of the 20th century. I've read an interesting biography of his, see: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/cs-lewis-a-life. As for his fiction, his Chronicles of Narnia series was a huge part of my life from childhood onwards. Therefore it has struck me as strange that I've never read Lewis' other famous fiction series, the Space trilogy, three science fiction novels he wrote before Narnia, between 1938 and 1945. I have now read the first of that trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet. It follows the unwilling adventures of a man called Elwin Ransom. He is kidnapped by two scientists and forced onto a spaceship to join them on a mission to Mars; an interesting beginning considering his name. When Lewis wrote this book, very little was known about our neighbouring planets. It was only when unmanned spacecraft started exploring Mars, most recently the Perseverance rover, that we found out what the planet was really like. Lewis imagines it as a lush living planet with a breathable atmosphere. It is covered in plant and animal life which he describes in great detail. There are three intelligent species on Mars which form a symbiosis. There are the Hrossa, who are semi-aquatic creatures resembling otters who use simple tools and live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle; yet they are very artistic and poetic. There are the Sorn who are tall land animals slightly humanoid who are great practical philosophers and scientists. Finally the frog-like Pfifltriggi which are strong, tenacious and reliable, they do most of the manual work like mining and stone sculpture. None of the three species alone, or even two of them, could maintain their civilization. They all understand that all three are necessary working together. They describe themselves collectively as Hnau. They call their home planet Malacandra and have languages which are described in some detail, not as much as those in the Tolkienverse, but still the reader learns a lexicon of several dozen words. Most interesting of all, there are beings called Eldila who are non-corporeal and invisible. They seem to be semi-supernatural and are akin to ghosts or angels. They communicate with the Hnau, and also humans, telepathically. There is a governing Eldil on Malacandra called Oyarsa whom the characters interact with on an island in the heart of a temple that is described as being like a European Neolithic monument; except the stones are covered in pictures carved by the Pfifltriggi. All three human characters are interrogated by Oyarsa in a dialogue that reminds me of the human characters' discussions with the lion Aslan in the Narnia series. The two other humans represent different attitudes. Dr Weston is a ruthless expansionist who wants humans to conquer the solar system and then the galaxy beyond, terraforming every planet and plundering its resources; and then simply moving on. Ransom's other companion, Dick Devine, is greedy and only interested in gold, like the American Conquistadors. By that time Ransom has spent many months living with the native species of the planet and has "gone native". He even finds the appearance of the other humans alien when they are reunited. He recommends that all humans be prevented from visiting Mars, even if it means killing him and his companions. Weston and Devine are permanently exiled from Malacandra and Ransom leaves with them voluntarily. This scene, and other themes of the story, reminds me of the film Avatar, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-of-them-are-on-our-side.html.
 
The journey back to earth is far more difficult than the journey there because by then the two planets are at their greatest distance in their mutual orbits. The spaceship has to pass close to the sun and almost overheats. They also nearly run out of food, water and oxygen. At one point they have to divert to avoid crashing into the moon. Weston and Devine's spacecraft is described as being spherical in shape, like that depicted in HG Wells' The First Men in the Moon, a story Ransom refers to regularly. It works by some kind of unusual solar radiation, but the propulsion system and power source are never explained in detail. It doesn't appear to use "Carvorite", the antigravity effect that drives Wells' lunar module. It does appear to have internal artificial gravity though, which shifts in aspect when it interferes with a planet's gravitational field, creating a lot of inconvenience for the crew. At the end, there is an epilogue in which the author inserts himself into the story in a form of docu-fiction. He reveals that he knows Ransom and that the two have written letters to each other. The Martian creatures call earth Thulcandra, meaning "silent planet", hence the novel's title. This is because the earth has apparently been taken over by a "bent" Oyarsa, an evil spirit. This might be analogous to Satan. I have no doubt, knowing Lewis, that this story has deeper and more subtle features that I did not spot from an initial reading; this was certainly the case with Narnia. A few years before he wrote this book, CS Lewis underwent a transformation of his life that today is often called a "spiritual awakening". He had been a lifelong atheist since his childhood in Northern Ireland and began by promoting atheism when he went up to Oxford. However, after a few years he began attending his college chapel. Being a prolific writer and essayist, his feelings of being "born again" have all been preserved and are considered some of the most important literature of its kind on the subject. No doubt this influenced him when he wrote Out of the Silent Planet in ways I have yet fully to comprehend. I look forward to reading its two sequels.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/07/everyone-knows-what-happened-on.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/06/did-christopher-hitchens-become.html.