When we started this series nearly two years ago, we started with the story of two friends, Jack and Tollers, walking through the woods and deciding together that if they wanted books they would enjoy—speculative fiction, essentially, but with a worldview more in line with their own—they would have to write those books themselves. They flipped a coin to see who would write about space travel, and who would write about time travel, and it was Jack who got “space.”
That’s the origin story of what would become C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy and also a little clue as to why the main character, Dr. Elwin Ransom—a professor and philologist with a fondness for long walks—resembles J.R.R. Tolkien so much.
The first book in the trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, has enormous similarities with a book that Lewis and Tolkien were discussing on their walk together: H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon. In Wells’ novel, like Lewis’, there is a scientist and a businessman who team up to build a spaceship in the English countryside, jaunt off into space, and find themselves in conversation with the alien leader of a planet (or satellite) where they have landed that is rich in gold, and in which they reveal the warlike nature of their people.
There are plenty of differences, too, but the one I find most hilarious is this: Wells’ work often has strong anti-religious elements to it. Lewis’ Space Trilogy has some strong anti-Wellsian elements.
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When Out of the Silent Planet hit bookshelves there was some argument amongst reviewers on how even to categorize this book. Critics disagreed for decades. Some said it was straight satire aimed at Wells. Some claimed it was poetry disguised in novel form. Is it a book about Christianity, or are the religious bits implicit? Or maybe it’s about Lewis’ Neo-Platonism. Maybe it’s straight science fiction or more of a religious fantasy or possibly an adventure “romance” and isn’t intended to be taken as much more than that (Lewis’ letters would argue otherwise on that one, though), or maybe the story is all window dressing to the philosophical underpinnings. My preferred reading—and not an uncommon one—is that it’s meant as a sort of persuasive fiction. It’s storytelling designed to alter our beliefs, to open our minds to a certain way of thinking.
Things to be looking for as you read the book:
- It’s pretty fun to read this book—published in the late 1930s—and look at the conception of what space flight might be like. It’s a little weird looking back now that we know how certain things work, and then see what Lewis got right and what he got wrong in his own portrayal of humans in spaceflight.
- Note the philosophy of language as something that shapes minds and makes certain cultural beliefs or insights possible or impossible.
- While Lewis believed in evolution as a scientific theory explaining life’s origins, he was not a fan at all of evolution as a social philosophy (i.e. “evolutionism”). You’ll note some straightforward critiques, especially of the Wellsian presentation of evolutionism. We’ll likely explore some of this in a longer article about Lewis and the singularity (spoiler, he’s not a fan).
- Likewise, keep an eye out for the not-at-all-disguised critiques of consumer-oriented capitalism.
- Critiques and responses to science fiction (especially Wells and Burroughs, as well as—though not “science fiction”—Kipling) as it relates to a primarily colonialist science fiction vision (i.e. “Earthmen come to this planet and make it ours”).
- Watch closely how the three “races” of Malacandra interact with one another, and how Lewis embraces, critiques, and refutes the idea of “primitive natives” on this planet.
- References to and critiques of modern (in Lewis’ time) race theory, especially as it relates to colonialism (i.e. “White man’s burden” which he mentions explicitly).
- Before we get too wrapped up in racialized readings of the three races of Malacandra, be sure to read up on Plato’s philosophy of the tri-part soul!
- Allusions to Wells, Kipling, the Bible, Alexander Pope, G.B. Shaw, William Morris, Aristotle, Plato, Chaucer, and probably more that I missed.
- There are a number of references in the worldbuilding to two philosophical and religious constructs Lewis is very fond of: Christianity and Neo-Platonism (particularly ideas related to pre-Christian utopian thought).
- Note also the discussions of what it means to be a person/sentient/hnau.
- Related: the idea of being “bent” is a core one when talking about human beings or Thulcandra (Earth). Be paying attention to how other hnau feel and think about this. Why are humans so scared? Why must Thulcandra be cut off from the rest of the solar system? How does it change our conception of life and death?
- It’s no mistake that Lewis spends such a long time trying to translate Weston’s speech from English into the Malacandran language. Be sure to read that section closely.
We’re well into the back half of the Great C.S. Lewis Reread now, and I’m looking forward to discussing each book of the Space Trilogy. Perelandra—the second book in the series—was one of my favorite Lewis books when I first read it years ago, and That Hideous Strength—the third—my least favorite. I’m curious to see if that changes at all now that I’m older. And don’t worry! I know there are strong opinions in our Tor.com community about all three of these books, and that there are people who would rank them in the opposite order of mine. As always, the conversations in the comments of these articles are at least half the fun, and I always learn something from your insights questions, and disagreements.
See you here in two weeks for our first exploration of Out of The Silent Planet! Be sure to take notes if there are specific things you want to make sure we discuss before we move on to Perelandra!
Matt Mikalatos is the author of the YA fantasy The Crescent Stone. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
I love the first two, and always found the third challenging. So I look forward to you taking That Hideous Strength on, Matt!
If you were to split That Hideous Strength into half right about the point that character shows up, then the first half is my least favorite book in the space trilogy, and the back half is my favorite.
This is one of my favorite Science Fiction series, love its criticism of colonialism, of racism, capitalism, and so many other isms. Find the rethink of Christianity in the series to be interesting but fundamentally bankrupt partially due to sexism. That Hideous Strength is my favorite of the three, as it shows very accurately the inner journey of Mark’s transformation with sensitivity and brutal honesty. The bit with Merlin is fun.
I would guess that these 3 books are the most frequently re-read of any of my SciFi books, with Perlandra probably slightly more often than the other two. I may not do another reread, but I’ll definitely be following along on these discussions!
When I first read this, the idea that a scientist could build a rocket ship in his backyard seemed ridiculous. Even so, pre-1960’s science fiction movies did a lot of this, probably because it was cheap to shoot. From 1960 on, rocketry and space travel was the work of governments, and in science fiction, even world governments. Now in the 2020’s we have men like Musk building rockets in their backyards again.
Out of the Silent Planet has always been my favorite of the three, and That Hideous Strength my least favorite–but That Hideous Strength also has one of my favorite passages in all literature (when the planets come to Earth), so I can forgive it a lot for that bit alone.
I still remember my first time reading this book, my first indication that Lewis had written anything but the Narnia series, and feeling wrapped up in the utter stillness and alienness of it. I’m not sure any other sci-fi has made me feel the difference between humanity and aliens in the same way since. Such a rich book!
I’ve always loved the part where Ransom is translating for Weston. Both the way in which he exposes colonialism by his stark rephrasing, and they way in which he is unable to translate one part of the speech because it means nothing at all.
@7: That’s my favorite part, too (and the part where Weston decides that one poor drowsy Martian is the “chief priest”)
Having once loved the Lewis trilogy, let me say that I cannot read it any more. There is enough irony in Out of The Silent Planet to keep it from being a train wreck. But the overt nod to Welles is disingenuous. Lewis is responding to Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus but won’t acknowledge the fact. Perelandra is dismissable as a Christian ideologue’s wet dream. Only the final volume has any literary value any more, and not much at that. That Hideous Strength is the strongest of the three, though behind Out of The Silent in terms of the strength of the writing, and still to some extent holds its own as the modern fairy tale Lewis claims it to be. In the end they are, as a group, just not worth even the minimal effort to trudge through them.
Liked Out of The Silent Planet, but That Hideous Strength the best. Didn’t like Perelandra not because the theology but just don’t like purple prose that much.
I’ll be interested in the language thing because my understanding of current linguistics is that one’s language does not determine what kind of thoughts one can have. This is based mostly on my readings of John McWhorter’s work for a lay audience, so people who know more might have more to say on that.
@11: I won’t argue that you should like the trilogy more than you seem to, but I’m curious — is your assertion that OotSP is really a response to Voyage to Arcturus the *reason* you dislike that novel? You don’t mention other reasons, and I don’t follow why this would turn you against an old favorite.
Sigh. In my comment @12, I meant to reference Sam in @9, not @11.
I should perhaps give Out of the Silent Planet a re-read. I remember finding it pleasant, and being aware of some religious stuff going on and a sort of critique of human rapacity, but I wasn’t aware of most of the stuff the article talks about. I might find it a bit more meaningful now that I’m older.
Couldn’t basically stand the second one. It was a much more simple, direct and obvious Christian allegory and made no bones about it, which didn’t really grab me from the get-go. Maybe it’s because I’m an atheist. Beyond that, I found it pretty dashed sexist, and looking at it in hindsight I find it much more sexist than really occurred to me at the time. And finally, there was the core plot point where, finding that he’s on the losing end of an extended argument with the Devil’s representative, the main character has the epiphany that of course the solution is to show he’s the good guy by beating the other guy to death. It all seems to make wonderful sense at the time, but only because Lewis himself is a significantly better persuader than his main character.
Plato’s philosophy of the tri-part soul – I completely missed that!
That Hideous Strength is by far my favorite of the three, though it got a bit silly near the end; with Out of the Silent Planet my second favorite (aside from the last chapter, which I ignore whenever I read it, much as I ignore the last, originally missing, chapter of A Clockwork Orange when they tack it on). Perelandra had too much description for me, and I thought the switch between persuasion and physical combat wasn’t as well explained as someone like Lewis ought to have been able to do.
I loved these three books. I was unaware of the last two books for a few years after reading OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET. I always held that Lewis was criticizing the Catholic church, good and bad, in this astounding trilogy.
GREAT COMMENTS!
My first couple times through the series Perelandra was my favorite of the three (and one of my favorites in any series), but recently I re-read THS and really enjoyed it. I don’t agree with the comments of sexism in the series. I think Lewis does a remarkable job of describing both the way things are and the way they ought to be in terms of human nature.
@17 I won’t say the series is sexist. I have never gotten up the momentum to read “That Hideous Strength”, and “Out of the Silent Planet” has an almost entirely nonhuman cast, many of them without obvious gender.
But “Perelandra” is about two men competing to mould the moral compass of a woman, who obviously cannot be left to think about it for herself. They are in a position, or faced with the need, to do this because she is emotionally and spiritually adrift without her own man present, and when at the end of the book he returns, she is instantly cleansed and regains her proper spiritual orientation . . . which is to say, partakes once more of his spiritual orientation. How much more bloody sexist can you get?!
I think That Hideous Strength should be read after reading his essay The Abolition of Man. The former presents many of the ideas in the later in story form.
OOTSP is a huge mediaevalist’s joke.
Lewis takes the universe of late mediaeval cosmology, adjusts it for not having actual crystal spheres, and drops modern humans into it; even Ransom doesn’t recognize what he’s walked into. (A hint is given late on in the epilogue; it points to the munging Lewis did of the two critical terms: Oyarsa from ousiarches and eldila from eidola.) Only in That Hideous Strength is the equation of the older understanding with what Ransom has experienced made explicit, and that partly because it involves conversation with someone who naturally thinks that way (all right, in a late classical precursor of that way, still fairly close to the high mediaeval).
Onto that he layers a philologist’s joke: his “hnau” has pretty well exactly the same meaning as *mann had in early Germanic and probably in the mn- roots in Indo-European, which set’s up Weston’s “No care for hnau. Care for man.”
In terms of how it would have been read: it was published very early on, before the radio talks, before any of the apologetics, basically before everything else but Pilgrim’s Regress (which had not been widely read) and The Allegory of Love. Nobody, or almost nobody, would have had associations of Lewis with apologetics, and he actually goes out of his way to draw a curtain over Ransom’s discussion with the Oyarsa of Malacandra which would presumably have explicitly referenced the Incarnation.
FIrst read Perelandra was also my favorite–the debate about accepting the good thing that comes and not seeking out only the preferred thing (lots about waves, the two fruits–the ones with the hearts that are even better) is one of those bits of philosophy that sticks with you. And the casual cruelty of the possessed Weston ripping up the jewel frogs casually has always been a horror.
No question there’s a lot of Christian allegory–that’s what Lewis does–but it’s not Catholic so much–more Church of England-tradition.
Yes–they are sexist–clearest in That Hideous Strength where we get the hint that because of birth control, an important child wasn’t born and the battle to save earth will be harder–but the novel is also strongly anti-vivisectionist (against science that relied on cutting up live non-human animals). I do love the deep canals of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, and the changes in perspective about what counts as beautiful or ugly as you get to know the various hnau in other worlds.
I too found that my favorite of the trilogy was Perelandra and least favorite was That Hideous Strength. Out of the Silent Planet was somewhere inbetween. To me why Thulcandra is the Silent Planet made perfect sense in light of the Biblical story of the fall of Lucifer from Heaven. It has been a while since I read the trilogy but it was one that was reread almost as often as the Narnia books by me.
I listened to the Space Trilogy twice (first time on actual books on tape!). Like you, Perelandra was my favorite and That Hideous Strength my least favorite. When Weston is torturing Ransom on Venus by repeating “Ransom. Ransom…”, I think it hits different hearing it over reading it.
It’s been so long since I’ve “read” the books, that it’s hard to make further comments. I never picked up on the Neo-platonism, and might have to give them a read again.
@17 Maybe part of the way I read them as sexist because I don’t think there is any “way things ought to be” in terms of gender.
That Hideous Strength was Lewis trying to write a Charles Williams novel.
My on-line book club is in the throes of finishing the series, at Ch 11 in THS. We have found, as a group, that our reception and perception of the series has changed radically since first read. The intention of this re-read was to compare Lewis’ portion of the original bargain (‘space’ vs ‘time’) with what was eventually released as Tolkien’s work in ‘The Lost Road,’ but our cumulative reception has been anything but warm.
I, for one, am thoroughly looking forward to finishing this fictional series, with all its proselytising and aggressive sexism, and return to Lewis as an Apologist. At least there I expect the Message.
BTW – My favourite Lewis works are ‘The Screwtape Letters,’ and ‘Till We Have Faces,’ so I’m not a neophyte.
@15
Wandering off topic, but my understanding is that the last chapter of A Clockwork Orange was missed out in error in the first US editions, not at the author’s behest, so including it is not tacking it on but staying true to the author’s intention.
@18 not to mention that while Mrs Venus has been hanging out on her island vegetating and being tempted by a demon in the form of a physicist Mr Venus has been off on his own being inspired by God to invent architecture and geometry and all that Intellectual Man Stuff. I don’t know how anyone can argue it’s not sexist.
Also I’ve never wanted to stamp on anyone’s foot more than I want to stamp on Ransom’s in THS.
Good list of liberal/progressive elements in OOTSP, but there could be a list of conservative elements as well– for example, the hrossa have sex only for reproduction, and after that, memory is the appropriate completion.
From memory, there’s the bit about intelligent species not being able to rule themselves, no more than a man can pick himself up by his hair or a woman can beget young on herself.
Suggestions for other conservative elements?
And yes, there was plenty that was good in the book.
I Don’t know if it is sexist. Being a male who has never felt empowered by being male, I guess I simply don’t think that way, most of the time. It was very long ago that I read these books. I remember Perelandra the best, therefore I should say it is my favorite. Not to start an argument, but I disagree with whomever said “two men… the woman can’t make up her own mind” or words to that effect. (My apologies for the bad quote). There was one man, and a demon who happened to have a male human body. The book, to me at least, made it plain that the rightful owner of that corpus had let himself be utterly consumed by said demon. Mr. Lewis was attempting to show a battle between good and the seeds of evil, heavily modeled on the Biblical Fall of Man. Had both ‘tagonists been fully human, I would agree completely, or at least admit a very valid point. The part I remember best, however, is where Ransom finds it justified, even righteous, to hate the possesion-destroyed Weston. The analogy of a boy rejoicing that he had found a paper where he could, where he should use the chalks he has, stuck with me. The idea that at times even hatred (of a thing) is not only warranted but righteous, necessary, and even blessed was a very powerful insight, and truly resonated, and was one of the boldest choices I have ever seen an author make. Now if people only hated things.
I have always found his post- Narnia difficult to read. He uses a complex vocabulary at the edge of readability. I confess that makes me not want to reread his works. I read the third book, but that difficulty means I remember almost nothing about it.
I first read the trilogy as a youngster; at that age I was looking for space adventure. I thought OOTSP was okay, Perelandra boring, and I could barely get through THS. Several years later, when I’d gotten interested in the ideas that the stories address, I reread the series. Amusingly, my reaction had exactly reversed: OOTSP wasn’t bad, Perelandra was fascinating, and I could hardly put down THS. :)
“Being a male who has never felt empowered by being male”
Privilege often feels natural.
I adore the Space Trilogy and especially loved That Hideous Strength, as the sendup of University politics amused me. Out of the Silent Planet inspired me to take long, bracing walks as a young man and that reunion of the green man and woman on Perelandra is cemented in my psyche. The last half of THS is some of my favorite prose anywhere.
I read this back in college because I was interested in how Lewis would approach science fiction (especially given the backstory) and…to be honest I don’t remember it making a huge impression on me. I remember thinking the concept of the fallen planet was interesting and recognizing some of the themes, but not a lot sticks out to me. It just felt a bit dated to me and not as compelling as some of the other sci fi/fantasy I was reading at the time.
I don’t really remember feeling like any part jumped out as being offensive or sexist, but especially as back then I was a fresh revert I might have been more inclined to agree with whatever general theme he was going for. But I also tended to kind of be…naive about such things, I guess? I didn’t always connect what was going on in one story into some larger theme about how all women should be, if that makse sense. I think now I notice more patterns.
You got me itching to reread the trilogy. It has been many years, though I remember each book pretty vividly.
@@@@@ 25: “That Hideous Strength was Lewis trying to write a Charles Williams novel.”
THIS
Perhaps it does feel natural, Msb, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t feel empowered, or down-trodden. The only advice I received about dating and just plain interacting with women was “always be a gentleman.”
As for the stories, the complex vocabulary C S Lewis used meant I was striving to comprehend them whilst fighting the temptation to put them down for the same reason. I had little motive to analyze them in depth, therefore. I was also much younger when I read them, a third of my present age, and much more likely to accept what I read at face value (though I think I am still somewhat susceptible to this). An entire generation has passed (or arrived) since I read them.
Since I found them difficult, I don’t know if I will muster the desire to read them again. If I did, only Heaven knows what I would think.
I just finished listening to Out of the Silent Planet after seeing the title in your editorial on Tor.com. I did not read your essay until after I completed the book. I took your suggestion and read up on Plato’s concept of the tri-part soul. I immediately saw the significance in not only the fact that Mr.Lewis wrote a trilogy but that there are three main characters. In general, Ransom could represent reason, Weston spirit and Devine appetite. In specific, one can also detect all three attributes in each of these characters.
Three distinct species exist on Malandra and each could be categorized into the tri-part soul making a whole.
Looking forward to your next essay.