5 - Out of the Silent Planet (C.S. Lewis)

***Transmission Received***

WELCOME TO THE SPACE ARCHIVE

This episode is looking at the first installment of Clive Staples(!) Lewis' sort-of-science-fiction-sort-of-fantasy-mostly-medievalist-allegory Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet.

This is a new one for us, because we're going to do the whole series!

Featuring penis mountains, do vacuums exist???, and one very stressed Hnakrapunt!

**

Nicky goes on a digression about vacuums in early modern theology. If you're interested in learning more, she gets it from Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer's Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life.

Follow us on Instagram @spacearchivepodcast

Music by SCIVIAS

Transcript

unknown 0:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

So we didn't do our normal cold open there because Nikki didn't manage to like sneak the start of the recording in. So we should introduce ourselves, just in case you're a new listener. I'm Emma.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I'm Nikki.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

And today we're going to be talking about Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah, so in fact, this is this kind of a special episode because it's the first time we've done this, but we're going to do all the books in this triplet of books, trio, trilogy.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Trilogy. Trilogy is the word of the book. What's the word you're looking for there? Triplet of books. Yes, that popular literary form, the triplet. So yes, this will be the first of three episodes. So Out of the Silent Planet today. Next time it will be Voyage to Venus. Otherwise known as Carolandra. Yes. And then after that it will be that Hideous.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Did he write them before Narnia?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, yeah. So Out of the Silent Planet was written in 1938. I think Narnia is the 1950s. It was quite significantly before Narnia.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

So these were like non-wardrobe-based adventure novels. They're also sci-fi.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

They are, yes, which uh Narnia is not.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Um so they've except from maybe like the magician's nephew.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

That's not sci-fi.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

That's got that's got a planet with like a dying sun and an ancient civilization that blooms up.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And it also has a magician and like a witch and a flying horse. Maybe it's like science fantasy. I I think it's fantasy. I think these novels, um, Out of the Side Silent Planet, I think these might count as science fantasy, actually.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

What makes them fantasy?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Um I wouldn't say that Lewis goes into any details of how the technology works.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Um and actually a lot of it just like wouldn't work. I I think he skates over those things.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I don't know if it's science fantasy. I think what it is, is it's scientific romance. Is that which is the oldie timey coined? No, but it's the oldie timey word for science fiction. So like HG Wells was initially or science fantasy as that. Yeah, well, I don't know if it's science fantasy and that it doesn't necessarily have the trappings of like the fantasy genre.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Well, I mean, I think we'll get to this actually when we talk about Voyage to Venus, because I feel like that one is science fantasy. This one, okay, maybe it's science fiction, but but we'll save that discussion for episode two.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I mean, I mean, I guess I guess the thing that makes it ambiguous is that um because this is written by C.S. Lewis, there's also a whole lot of allegory in it. In fact, it's not even allegory, it's coin kind of like a science fictionalization of Christian mythology, which makes it a really interesting and rich book.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yes, and there's also a lot in there about medieval cosmology.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

There is indeed.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Um, and penises.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

But we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Shall we start by a reading of the blurb and a description of the cover?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah, go on.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Okay, so I'll read the blurb. You can describe the cover because the cover is actually incomprehensible. So uh so the blurb is the first novel in his classic trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, is at once a brilliantly imagined portrait of life on another world and a mirror to the inhumanities and discords of life in our modern world. Lewis shows man with a capital M, um, arrogant and yet fearful, standing in the presence of the godlike creatures who populate the universe, judged and found wanting. It is the story of two men who sought to plunder a planet and a third man offered as a hostage to the unknown. Um, and actually, my favourite thing about this blurb is the reviews that we have. So from L. P. Hartley, who is quite a famous author, who wrote The Go Between, which I studied for A-level English.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

And we're speaking of famous authors, actually, maybe we should uh quick bit of housekeeping from our previous episode. Where um Okay. Okay, so I uh I think I think we should mention this really briefly here because it's coming up. Okay. So on Lady Lord, Lady Lord is reviewed by a an author who um collaborated with Sasha Miller on some other books. And sorry, I'm looking away from the thing now, so it'll be terrible recording quality.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

I have no idea where you're going with this. Uh, where is Lady Lord? It's over there. Hang on a second. I don't know what Nikki's talking about. Um you'll have to come back to the microphone quick.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yes, yes, yes. Um crap. On Sasha Miller's website, you know, we said that she collaborates with uh another writer um whose name I can't remember now. But um, I'm doing a really bad job at this, but it's only because it's because I literally just remembered it. We should just we might edit this out. No, no, we can do this. This is bad. Okay, so we say that she collaborates with another author, and we say that other author's a man, because they have like a typical man's name, but it turns out it's a woman who published under a man's name, but then crucially changed her name to the man's name. So sorry to that person who's also we call this some guy, um, is actually a really major fantasy author, and um, we're idiots.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yes, that is true. Sorry. We probably should have started with that correction um rather than just a random insert there. But anyway, um, no, thinking about Out of the Silent Planet. Um, so it has a review on the back from LP Hartley, who is quite a famous author. Um, and this review is completely unenthusiastic. It just says original, interesting, well written. Um well written is unambiguously good. Well, um, I think LP Hartley maybe like didn't read the book. But the other review uh I really enjoyed. It's by a man called Sir Hugh Woolpole.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Um is a great like 1940s name.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

And it reads a very good book.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Oh, well, so Woolpole recommended.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

So Sir Hugh approved. Um okay, Nikki, describe this cover.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Okay, so this is I don't know what the original cover on this book was. I would like this cover, actually. I'd I'd have art of this, but I think you wouldn't. It's horrible. Yeah, so um it is difficult to describe though, isn't it? So like imagine a sad blonde man with a beard, relatively thick beard and moustache, dressed in a shirt, and he's standing a white shirt, visible chest hair. Or shading. It's unbelievable. This is done in a very kind of stylized way. Um sort of almost evocative of like Art Niveau. Um, but yeah, so there's this guy, and he's standing amidst a load of foliage with like broad, sort of palm-like leaves almost, and it's all in like sepia sort of tones, so like dark desaturated reds and yellowy greens, and there's some like orbs in the plants that are also desaturated colours. And then behind him is a almost luminously coloured sort of turquoise orb with some windows in it, and then behind him is windows. I've seen that windows, and then well, the the the um the book would lead us to believe they're windows because I think there's a picture of a specific object in the book. But then behind it, all there's like a background of quite abstract, um, sort of yellowy lines going up variegated lions. Yeah, I think it's meant to be resident of trees because there are forests on this planet. And yes, he is on a planet, and that planet is not Earth. Um, he came out of Earth, the silent planet, and has in fact gone to a different planet. He didn't come out of Earth. Mars. He came from Earth. Well, it's a riff on it's a riff on the riff on the title.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

It's a riff on the title.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

And then the object behind him is the spaceship, I think, in which he came in, which it was spherical and third windows.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, I think that is meant to be the spaceship. So the plot of this book, um, I think let's talk about the opening in more detail in a second, because it's utterly bizarre.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

But the plot by aliens written by aliens.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, but the plot of this book is that this man, Ransom, is essentially kidnapped, uh, for reasons we'll go into by two other men named Weston and Divine. Um he went to school with Divine. Weston is just a random. Um, he's kidnapped by them, uh, kind of drugged, and when he wakes up, he's in a spaceship, and that spaceship is going to Mars, except he doesn't know it's Mars. He they tell him it's a place called Malachandra, and then he finds out later that that is Mars. And when he's on Mars, he becomes separated from them. So he initially thinks that they're taking him to Mars to be like a human sacrifice to the aliens because Western and Divine are very scared of the aliens on Mars.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

And he thinks that they're trying to like maybe also like colonize Mars, which they are and have made some sort of deal with the natives or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah. Um, and Ransom eventually manages to free himself from Western and Divine, and he goes off by himself and he meets the three species who inhabit Mars who are called, I can't pronounce this, the Hanao, the Saun, and the Fifeltrigy.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

No, so the Hanao is the it's the Malochandrian word for um intelligent being.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

But that's what the species is called.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

No, they're not called henal. Hanao is just a word for intelligent being, it's like a category word. The the sawn are one species, the fiffeltrigi are another one. They feature very briefly. But there's that other one which is like giant otters.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Oh, the herotha.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

The horatha, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Um so he meets each of these three species. He learns to speak their language. Um, so he's able to communicate much better with them than ransom and divine. And um not ransom. Um, sorry, Western and Divine. Um, and then at the end, Ransom kind of broke as a an agreement um between the humans and the Malochandrians, whereby the humans are allowed to return to Earth in their spaceship.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

So there's a number of things to talk about in this novel, but maybe we should start with the opening because it's insane.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

And I say that summary also misses out a lot of like the major themes, which the plot has kind of strung along.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

It does, because I thought then we could discuss.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Oh, yeah, foreshadowing and reveals, release and all these good narrative things. Great. You two would have written a very good book. Yes, yes, a very good book. In the words of the uh of the great Walpole. So Hugh. Um making fun of him, he's gonna turn out to be another really important person that we shouldn't think.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I actually think he is quite a famous author, but I I don't know what he's written. Some guy, thirky.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Some guy, thank you. Um we do actually do background research on these books, but we just always forget to research the people.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah, but should we describe the opening because it's wild?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, so literally, like it was written by someone. I I say I say so. I would say that actually these books are not necessarily that well written because they rely on a great deal of contrivances in order to work. Also, I just got a WhatsApp message which vibrated, so I'm just going to put my little phone on flight mode and take off all of the uh things because we're still recording on our phone because um, or on my phone rather. Um Emma's very reluctant to spend money on the rest of the recording equipment that we need to do this properly. So sorry everyone, but we also have very few listeners. I mean, there's certainly no relationship between those two things, but it means that there are very few people we can piss off.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

I've had a lot of expenses recently.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Um Yeah, we just went to Rome.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

We just went to Rome. We just got the dishwasher fixed.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Although actually that was free because it wasn't actually broken because we're fucking idiots.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

It turned out like the fuse had blown and the guy didn't actually charge us because I think he felt sorry for us.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

We are helpless babies who are only good at reading books.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

We've been washing up by hand for like six months. Anyway, uh, hashtag dyspraxia. Um, anyway, yes, the opening. So this book opens, um, and basically Ransom is going on a jolly walking holiday, which is described in great detail for a number of pages. And Ransom is a philologist. She is a philologist.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Based on Tolkien, in fact.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yes. Um, which is pretty cool. I hope that Tolkien had more interesting walking holidays. Well, I mean, this did turn into interesting holiday.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I mean, I've been on walking holidays before and they weren't as interesting as this one.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

But it starts off really, really, really boring. Um, because he goes into a village and there's no room at the inn, so then he has to walk on to the next village, but he's very tired because he's already been walking a very long way. And then he happens upon a house, and in the house is a woman who is characterized as stupid and poor. Um, I think she's the only woman in the book.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

No, no, no, she's not. So as C.S. Lewis great author has both types of women, also has the unsympathetic uh independent woman business owner who turns them away from the bed and oh yes, Peter Rudy met that woman, yeah. So he's met the two types of women, like uh independent bitch and uh stupid poor mother. Yes, he's more sympathetic towards the stupid poor mother, but not not really. I mean, okay, in the sense that the character is like sympathetic towards her to begin with, but like well, eventually even. But the first thing he thinks is a load of really horrible things about how she's like simple and poor. And then it's like later on when she explains her predic his predicament to him, he's like, and then I realize that maybe I should help her.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, this is not a feminist book. And for context, I really love Narnia. I don't think they're necessarily feminist either, but I I really do love Narnia, so I don't want to diss C. S. Lewis, but this opening is weird and it's not feminist. Um, but anyway, after he after he talks to the stupid poor woman, um, she tells him that her son, who I think is also a little bit cognitively um if he has learning difficulties. Her son works at like the big house down the road and he hasn't come home and it's very late, and the woman says she's worried about him. So Ransom goes to the big house down the road and he's partly motivated by helping the woman, and he's also partly motivated by the thought that the big house down the road might give him some kind of accommodation for the night because it's a classist book, and Ransom thinks that these people are going to be of his social class, and they'll take him in. He is right, he's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Take him in.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

But hilariously, he gets to the big house down the road and it's very locked. So instead of just sort of, you know, making another plan, he breaks in, um, which I suppose is is kind of altruistic in a way because he's trying to help the woman's son, but he does just break in. It's not quite like that.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

So, like the gate is locked, so he crawls under a hedge, as you do. Of course. Um, and then he hears the sounds of scuffling going on behind the house, and he goes behind the house and he finds these two men attempting to wrestle this hapless um servant with loan difficulties into what appears to be a shed.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yes, and he does rescue the servants. So the two men initially attack him, and then one of them, Divine, realizes that uh they went to school together, at which point he stops attacking Ransom and offers him accommodation.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

I think Ransom interrupts them and then they get a bit aggressive, and then and then yeah, and recognize him, and they tell him that this servant is having a fit and they need to lock him in the outhouse for his own protection or some some ridiculous inhumane shit like that. And ransom's just like, that sounds reasonable, and then the guy's like, hello, oh you ransom, and ransom's like, I know you're from school, and I fucking hated you, but I'm gonna go along with this to be nice. And then they invite Ransom into the house and they um placate the servant who they were previously assaulting by saying, You can sit out in the corridor and we'll give you some wine.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And the servant is very happy with this because um And at no point do they think maybe we should like call this person's mother um or take him home or do anything else to help him.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Nor does that ransom really seem to like dwell on the fact that he walked into these two random people whom he hates, assaulting another person in a really suspicious way that they just immediately give up on after they meet him.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, he doesn't reflect on that at all. He's just like, great, accommodation.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

So he goes into the goes into their house, has a snack, has a chat, then passes out because everything is drugged.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And then when he wakes up, he's on a spaceship and he just kind of accepts that really without questioning it at all. I think he has a moment of going, oh, this is a bit weird, and then he's like, Oh, I'm in space.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Well, he doesn't realise he's in space to begin with. What he actually does is he wakes up in this strangely shaped room, naked, and then and then some other naked man just like walks into the room with him. The one of the people who drugged him. And his first response is, Why am I naked in this strange room with this man? But not in the way that you'd expect.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

No, no, it's just a very academic question for him. And then as soon as he realizes they're in space, he he thinks that being naked makes total sense because it's really hot. Yeah. Um, but they also are wearing these like belts to hang their tools off of. So they're just naked, but they have belts on. It's very weird.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

So this is like a repairing theme, actually, in in this book, where like I'm honestly unsure how naked they actually are. I know this is entirely peripheral to the story. No, but I mean it really keeps your attention. But like it could it could just be underwear.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

It could be, but I don't think it is. I think they are naked, but wearing belts.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

It's like that guy just wanders in. If his like if his dick is literally out, that would definitely like cross the moon. Yeah, exactly. But like, why because also it's unnecessary, right? Like, I don't think you'd be any less cool if you wore underpants than if you're completely naked. Like getting absolutely stark naked is a choice.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

No, but that leads me on to one of the themes of the book, uh, which is that they go to Mars, which in C.S. Lewis' world is like man planet. So everything, and I mean everything on this planet is penis-shaped. So it feels likely that they are naked.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah, so then in the universal explanation for this, Mars has very low gravity, so everything goes very tall.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yes, for sure. But like everything is penis-shaped, even the mountains. The mountains are described as being like tall and thin, and they have these spindly trees. All of the creatures are tall and thin. The the waves in the water are tall and thin. It's it's really striking.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

There's all there's also like another element to this as well, though, right? In that like one of the things that Lewis does, which I think is really interesting, is that he has this idea of like spiritual geography. So, like, one of the themes that emerges in the book is that like Mars has a different relationship to God, a better relationship to God, in fact. Yeah, for sure. And um, so there's maybe something like edenic about the idea of transitioning out of Earth naked and then comes to this new planet without any clothes on. Yeah, thing that gets picked up much more in the next book in the series, but we're not on that one yet.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

But I think that's definitely how I rationalise the fact that they are naked. I think that was a really deliberate choice on Lewis's part to have that kind of then be like reborn when they go to Mars.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah, so in fact, why don't we why don't we talk about this idea of like spiritual geography and those sorts of like spatial transitions before we get to Mars? Because there's like a really significant kind of bit of scene setting where he goes into space, um, where he explicitly contrasts it with in fact, this book in many ways is like the anti-science fiction book, in that like Ransom himself talks about how loads of prominent science fiction books portray aliens as monstrous, space as this cruel, hard vacuum, um, and Lewis constitutes this as like a particular kind of like naturalistic, materialistic worldview, in which like moral values are just the creation of the human mind or the human will. And once you get into space, when that's all taken away, you're confronted with the literal vacuum of everything human, and everything becomes impossibly hostile. Whereas um in this it's actually very different.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah, and I think that was sort of why I was characterizing it as science fantasy, because I think it is very consciously anti-science fiction. I don't I don't want to say that Lewis was anti-science. I don't think he was, but I think he did write, as I'm sure you know, Nikki, um, the discarded image, which is we'll come on to the idea of medieval cosmology, I think, after we've talked about the theology side of things. But the premise of the discarded image is the idea that even things that have been disproved, so like medieval theories about the universe, which we know aren't true, have an intrinsic value because they're beautiful, they're meaningful, and they're something that we should take very seriously. And I don't think Lewis was ever someone who kind of denied science. I don't think he would have been like a moon landing denier, not that that had happened at this point. Um, but I think he definitely saw a place in the world for ways of understanding the universe that were not scientific. Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

So there's something, there's something actually, I think, actually, I think it's more subtle even than that, right? I think what Lewis is interested in is the way that scientific concepts themselves have a kind of theological value that gets forgotten or ignored. And that's the point in this in his discussions of medieval cosmology and the discarded image, right? Yeah. In that he talks about how, well, in the medieval world, people saw creation as signifying or like conveying meaning. So you could look at the world around you and you could learn about God because things would be like analogy for deeper spiritual truths.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Um, so the idea behind the discarded image, as we'll talk about a bit later, is that like medieval cosmology read the universe in this way, and when we moved away from that cosmological model, we lost some of the meaning, which kind of also was seen as being communicated by it. But another kind of thing where he has a more subtle perspective on science is in his discussion of a vacuum. So we're about to get quite into the weeds here, but um, this is literally my thing. Well, this is not literally my thing, but I am a theologian, so um, but in the early modern period, there's some really interesting theological debates about the possibility of a vacuum. Okay. So in the early modern period, it was really hard to make a vacuum. Um, there were machines that could kind of approximate it. It was always, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

That's very impressive.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Yeah, well, it's just it's just a glass bell with a seal and a pump.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Well, I guess that is a vacuum, but I suppose I I think of that as something that happened. Anyway, that's right, right.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

No, but I'm just you're hitting on an important point, right? It was always ambiguous whether you could actually create a true vacuum because people couldn't create a machine that was good enough at creating a perfect vacuum to like truly prove the existence of a vacuum.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

And the question of whether a vacuum could become possible was actually a really theologically laden one. Um, there's a really famous debate between Thomas Hobbes, who is a really famous political philosopher, um, famous for his Leviathan, which you might have heard of, and um someone else who might have been like Boyle or something. Um, I can't remember. This is me not having done this research like a while back. But um basically uh Hobbes argued that a true vacuum was impossible, whereas Boyle argued that it was possible. And the reason for this was partly political, because um it was thought that a true vacuum would be stripping away everything material and yet leaving something, right? Because like you don't get a black hole when you get a vacuum. There's nothing there, but there's something there. And this was posited as being the spirit, right? You strip away everything material, you're left with some common substance. That substance must be spirit. Um, and this meant that um the idea of a vacuum was then embedded in wider debates about the place of religion in society, um, the place of religious truth, the place of religious authorities. There were also questions about um how people would um construct knowledge. So um Boyle or whoever Hobbes and Turtle Kita was about had this idea of like an experimental method where um truth could be ascertained through um what he called facts, which are things that have been like observed by shared people in a particular kind of social context, um, which would be embedded within like a context of ecclesial authority, whereas Hobbes was more about like trying to get at some kind of fundamental truth divorced from this social and ecclesial framework. Um, and Hobbes wanted a more atheistic model of government, basically. He was like a key enlightenment thinker. So he was skeptical of the idea of a vacuum because if no vacuums are possible, then as he thought, all there is is the material, and therefore um we can understand the world just through the interplay of material forces, and we don't need all this kind of religious stuff. And when Lewis goes, or when Ransom goes into space, um, what he encounters is a vacuum, but it's a vacuum that's filled with cosmic rays that are a source of light and nourishment. Um, so it's um you have this idea then of like a vacuum, but it's a vacuum that's encountered as something that's kind of spiritual. We also later find out that the vacuum itself is actually inhabited by sort of divine creatures who are pretty clearly meant to be a form of angels. Um so once again you have this idea of like space as the vacuum, but the vacuum is something spiritual rather than just the stripping away of everything good, everything human, everything like moral, which um you find in more kind of naturalistic kinds of science of science fiction. So, anyway, like the point is that not this um Lewis is anti-science or trying to recover something other than science, but it's kind of like a re-un a reinterpretation of these scientific concepts in order to kind of inscribe a kind of spiritual interpretation within them. So it's like almost like reclaiming science for religion, which is reflected then in like the wider fact that he's doing this science fiction as religious allegory in the first place. It's a science fiction-y view of the world, but one that has this an inseparable like religious component.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think it is about kind of reclaiming science for religion, as you said. I also found it really interesting, I guess, when you think about the occupations of the characters in the book. So you've got Ransom, who's this I can't say it, philologist. Philologist. Philologist.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Philolala.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah, that one. Um and Lewis is really clear that he like he's someone we should respect as kind of an intellectual and an academic. Um, and then you've got Weston, who I think is like a he's a scientist. I'm not sure exactly what discipline, but he's a scientist. And then you've got Divine, who's this businessman.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Yeah, I think Weston's meant Weston's like a physicist, right? Yeah, he's a physicist. But he's like a physicist in the mould of like atheistic, naturalistic science. He sees this science as like a project of humanity coming to dominate nature and exert its technological power and control everything, become almost like God in itself through its technological power.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, and I think it's really interesting how Western and Divine is the scientist and the businessman um completely misunderstand Malochandra. They can't communicate with the beings who live there, and I think that's um shown really starkly at the end of the book, where you have Western kind of making a speech to the beings, and then Ransom has to translate because Ransom, as this academic who I guess is from an older school of thought, is able to come into Mars to Malacandra and to actually understand all the layers of meaning within the planet and to communicate with its inhabitants and to speak to its kind of divine beings in a way that the scientist and the businessman can't because their minds are closed.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah, so again, it's this thing about like reclaiming the possibility of modern knowledge, but like for religion. And and it's interesting that um you pick up on the fact that you know he's a representative of an older form of scholarship. Like this comes across really strongly in the third book, uh, which I'm currently reading at the moment, but um, where it really like brings home that contrast between newfangled modern modern intellectual world and like the old-fashioned university world represented by people like Ransom. There's also like sorry.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

I think that reminds me, I really do love the Narnia books, so I have a very in-depth knowledge of them. But at the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I think this is a real thing for Lewis, this idea of kind of new fangled knowledge. Um, because at the beginning talked about the beginning of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Um, for anyone who hasn't read it, the setup is that you've got the two Pevency children, Edmund and Lucy, who have starred in previous Narnia books, they go to stay with their cousin Eustace, and Eustace is described as odious, I think, on the first. Is this their name Scrub or something? Eustace Scrub. Which is such a rolled down name. It's great, isn't it? Um, but Eustace Clarence Scrub is odious in Lewis's words, because his parents are, I think they're vegetarians, they believe in like education for women. So they send him to a co-educational school. They don't believe in corporal punishment.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Again, this comes back in um what do you call it, that hideous strength. It's like C.S. Lewis is a pot apologia for like corporal punishment. Imprisoning people and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Um but yeah, I I guess like out of the silent planet just reminded me of that with its um contrast between like old knowledge, which is good, and then new knowledge, which is probably wrong because it hasn't been around for for very long at all.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah, I think there's also like there's a couple of additional angles to it. Like, first, this conflict is the theological one, right? Well, of course, because like and a big theme throughout these books is the the new knowledge being like this attempt for humanity to like master creation and set itself up as a god.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah, and I guess in the voyage of the Dawn Treader, you kind of see that again because Eustace initially um does not believe in Aslan, who is obviously the representation of God, um, and can't understand how Aslan can be the supreme being because his mind is closed, um, and he has to go through a very stark transformation for his mind to open.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

He's literally purged of his sin through corporal punishment as Aslan like flays the skin from his body. Yeah, he has turned into a dragon, it's not quite as gruesome as like a lion flaying a small child. And that's it's more like he's revealing revealing the human within the dragon, but nevertheless, it's kind of horrible. But it's it's just interesting to see those similar themes, I think, going throughout Lewis's writing. Abiding concern. But the the other aspect of this is that um there's an element of like comedy. Like he definitely thinks again is like new knowledge, new ways of thinking is like inherently ridiculous. Yeah, you see this again, like Eustace Clarence Scrubs, like parents, like oh, they're vegetarians on a bunch of loons. Um, but but here um you see this again when um Daven and who's a business person who wants to like master the cosmos for business reasons, and uh shit, what's the name of the scientist guy?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Ransom uh Weston. And Weston Ransom and Weston sound really similar. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Weston wants to um dominate the cosmos for some abstract ideal of humanity, um, and specifically like a particular vision of like colonial humanity. And at the end, he he basically confronts all the aliens, and ransom is there um interpreting it, and he gives this long spiel. He thinks he's about to be executed by the aliens, and he gives this long spiel, it was like a manifesto for his beliefs. And um Ransom, first of all, struggles to interpret it to aliens who do not have the same kind of fallen notions of their own power and um ambition, but then also like he attempts to do ridiculous things like trade them beads, which is that famous like colonial scene with like supposedly Native Americans having stuff like beads, and he also attempts to like threaten them with a gun. Um, and he basically does all of this like colonial stuff, and then the aliens just laugh at him because he's come across as ridiculous, and then I think they conclude at one point that he's um he's really damaged, and he's also kind of like a child who doesn't understand anything at all. So you have this like complete um ridiculous inversion of this man who tries to be all-knowing and powerful, um, reduced to this like comic figure in this like ironic inversion of everything.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah, and I actually something I really like about this book and something which feels maybe quite ahead of its time actually, is the idea that humanity has kind of gone wrong somewhere, that we I don't think isn't the whole idea behind this book that um Christianity has told us that humanity went wrong.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

No, no, no. Like I don't know if it's a new idea in 2,000 years of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Um, obviously, yes, there's the Christian angle, but I think if you remove that idea of Christianity, I think what Lewis is saying, which is kind of ahead of its time, is that capitalism doesn't work. Um, is that we have, I guess, damaged Earth, um, and we've silenced our planet. Um, and we've done that by kind of mistreating it and not having respect for nature for kind of I suppose you could read it in quite um an eco way. Um and then they they go to Mars, and obviously you find on Mars this society where they live in perfect harmony with the environment around them, and because of that, their planet is not silenced, they're able to take their place in this kind of cosmic dance which is happening, which Earth has been excluded from because humanity has kind of destroyed Earth. Obviously, Lewis looks at that through a Christian framework, and he says, well, the way of restoring Earth to kind of the cosmic order is by following Christianity. Um, but I think you can read it and you can choose to, I guess, not look at it through a Christian framework, and you can choose to instead look at it through the framework of shouldn't we all respect nature a little bit more?

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, so I mean I think I think the earth is silent because it's under a blockade, right? Because our angels are our society's gone, yeah. Yeah, we were corrupted, and the angel which governs our planet, um well we've corrupted ourselves. No, I I think the idea is we're corrupted by the angel who's our planet, that who's Satan. And he's also corrupted the moon, you find out in a later book. Um and so there's like a blockade around our planet. Um, so the Well, yeah, but that's what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Like we've corrupted ourselves because we've kind of let this bad angel in.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

And then that blockade around the planet is sort of symbolic of the planet no longer being able to speak with its voice.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yeah, exactly. And when he crosses like the um when he crosses like the orbit of the moon, that's like the edge of the evil angel's um uh influence, and he suddenly feels like his spirit light and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Yeah. Well I th I think I don't I don't think he's necessarily I think the ecological aspect is also actually very much a particular kind of Christianity that comes through the book.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

So like one of one of the um is but all I'm saying is that I think if you weren't a Christian and you were reading this book, that's something that would really resonate for you. And it doesn't have to be seen through a Christian framework, even though that's what Lewis clearly intends. I mean, can I you sounded very sarcastic then?

SPEAKER_02 38:02

No, no, no. I mean, can I can I try and make the case that that's inextricable from like Lewis's Christianity? If you want to. Okay, we're speaking out of a really particular like political context. Yeah. So so like um around during like the birth of secular politics, there was this narrative which came up particularly around Catholicism, which I think was Lewis's was also kind of taken on um by um uh non-Catholics as well. Um thinking particularly of like the late 1800s, is the idea that um the kinds of ways of knowing the world and the sort of visions of human technological power which belong to the natural sciences were translated into wider questions of or the wider spheres of like politics and cosmology and the religious and stuff like that. And there's the sense that what's happened there then is that you have human power and agency um pitted against the natural order, the created natural order. Um, and in more modern kind of Christian writing, so um this in in a I only really know this in the Catholic context because this is the stuff that I actually research, but like you have like Romano Gardini in like the 1960s, um, as like a really famous Catholic proponent of this, but then like John Paul II in the 1980s and 90s, um, take on this specific kind of like ecological um framing of this issue. And I kind of think you can read Lewis as speaking kind of directly out of the same sort of political milieu. Um, there's worries about like the secularisation of the world and the secularization of the political, and seeing this as, like you said, like a genuinely ecological problem because it's all about people moving out of their place within the kind of natural cosmic order.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think you can read it without that Christian framework as well, and he still makes a good point.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Um, and obviously he was writing it through that Christian lens, but as a reader, I don't think you need to have the Christian lens to understand what he's saying.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Yeah, I mean, I think if you do do that though, you have to ignore a load of other stuff. Like a big part of this natural order that he imagines is sorry, we opened the door because it's really hot in here and there's a lot of traffic going on in the background.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

There's like a heat wave going on at the moment. I don't I don't it's it's really late at all. It's like 10 pm, but I think it's still about 33 degrees or something. It's horrible.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

And cars just absolutely flora in the road outside our flat.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

So yeah, so if you can hear it.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

You might have had that, or you might not have. Um shit, what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah, like he sees like natural hierarchies as part of this like ecological vision as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

He does, and that's where I agree with him less.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Yeah, so like and and part of this is humans are unable, or like intelligent beings are unable, most intelligent beings are unable to govern themselves, and so you must look to angels to be governed, who then look to God to be governed. And um, I think there's also some stuff, particularly in the next book, about like gender relations in this as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Well, that's definitely not in this book because there aren't any women in it.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yes, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

So we'll get to that in the next book.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

But but but but but like the point is when he's thinking of ecology, he's also he's also thinking of a very specific kind of social ecology.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, like yeah, of course. Um but I think the book does make a compelling sort of anti-colonialist argument as well, because I guess you've got Western and Divine coming in who want to do colonialism on Mars, they want to subjugate Mars, they want to rule over Mars, they want Mars to be their domain. And actually that doesn't work out, and I think Lewis is sort of making the point that that shouldn't work out because Mars is not theirs. Um, so it's interesting from that angle, I think, as well. But he is reinforcing the idea that there is a kind of natural order of things. But I suppose the counter-argument to that is human beings are kind of analogous to these angels. So it's that idea in Christianity of um stewardship that human beings are meant to look after the creatures of the earth.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Um yeah, and definitely one of the things, one of his arguments against this um sort of like liberal scientific kind of approach is that it neglects our responsibilities to creation. Like one of the things is oh my god, that made me jump so much. Some people walk past the door.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Oh my god, they probably think we're really weird as well because they definitely overheard this conversation. Actually terrified. And they were they were teenagers, they were cool people, they were really weird.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

I think they're the teenagers who steal bikes and leave cans of Dr. Pepper in the should be, my goodness. So a while back we had a bunch we had a bunch of thefts from the sheds outside our flat and from our bike shed. And um our flat kind of WhatsApp group in the way of local WhatsApp groups became obsessed with this break-in. Uh, this also coincided with some graffiti. Yes. Um, and uh I would say that people perhaps got a little carried away um to the point of low-level paranoia, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Um, and what one of the things that came up, which was generally really funny, is that um someone who broke into the bike room thing left a can of Dr. Peffa there, and um someone was immediately like, it must be those teenagers. Only teenagers drink Dr. Peffa.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

The other thing that I quite enjoyed about this whole thing, I mean, obviously I felt very sorry for the people who had things stolen, but the the bike thieves attempted to steal Nikki's bike, but Nicki Oh my god. Nikki's bike is like a wreck. Um they gave up, they just left it. Abandoned it because it was too bad.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

They just abandoned it because it wasn't worth dealing.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Nikki was judged. Embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Teenage bike thieves.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Um, anyway, yeah, what were we talking about? Yeah, so like he thinks that part of the stewardship, like he's very, for example, again, like like you know, Catholics in the in the 1900s would have been against eugenics and things like that, which he sees as like part of this attempt to dominate nature instead of like looking after it, refining it, getting rid of the stuff that people don't like, including like humans. Um, and it's interesting then that he also like yeah, folds colonialism into this rather than seeing it because I guess for him, like the other, the aliens, are not fallen and not in need of salvation and redemption, which has normally like been the Christian rationale for colonialism. And it I think it's also potentially not coincidental then that one of these figures who attempts to colonize them is called Western. Yes, as in like Western society. I feel like Divine probably also has something in that, but I couldn't figure out.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

No, because that sounds like divine, which seems to be not the message that he's putting across with that character.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Could it be like divine as in like trying to see the future?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah, maybe it's divine as in reason rather than divine as in the world.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Yeah, I feel like divine the truth, or maybe something to do. I d I don't know, I feel like maybe I'm confusing it with like Delve, but maybe it has like some sort of I think maybe that's it. Is Divine the Businessman?

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

So I guess there's like a divining rod where people like seek out gold or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, it could be that. What do you think's behind ransom?

SPEAKER_02 45:32

That's explained in the next book.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Ah, we'll hold that thought. Um I guess the other thing to mention is uh the idea of cosmology. So I don't know if anyone has heard of uh the idea of Planet Narnia. Um so Planet Narnia was someone's PhD thesis, which uh came out, oh, it was quite a while ago actually, because I think I was possibly at university when it came out, so maybe like 2009-ish. Um, but it's the idea that each book in the Narnia series, so that there are seven chronicles of Narnia, each one represents one of the seven medieval planets.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Um can we just pause to imagine how sick that would be as a PhD student to discover this? Because it's so compelling, it's clearly correct, yeah. But it's also the sort of discovery that you just you don't make as a PhD student. Like PhDs are generally really modest in what they do, and then this person's like, fuck it, entirely new interpretive framework for these books, clearly correct, huge discovery, let's go for it.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah, it's like amazing. I mean, he got like a BBC documentary, his PhD thesis was published as a book, and I remember going a book that people read, people read because a lot of people's theses are published as books, but no one reads them. Well, I was in Oxford at the time, and I think he was there too. And I remember going into the bookshops in Oxford, it was just full of copies of like Planet Narnia that never happens to a PhD thesis. But anyway, I bought a copy and uh read it, and it's really um, really, really, really interesting. And I think that book also discusses the space trilogy in quite a lot of detail, and in particular the idea that Out of the Silent Planet very obviously represents Mars. Um, I mean they literally go to Mars. Um, but it's the idea of all of the various kinds of symbolism that's associated with Mars, which is to do with uh penises, uh, which we get in abundance.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Uh it's a very Mars, the male planet.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

The male planet.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

The planet from which men are from, or women are from Venus.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah, of course. Um, but there's also lots of stuff about Mars's kind of lesser aspects. So Mars is also the god of like plant life and vegetation. So we see a lot of discussions of flora and fauna. It's just a really interesting kind of book long allegory.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Yeah, there's also there's also other very relevant aspects of Mars though, like war.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

So everything on so the people the martial. Yeah, it's very martial. And Ransom discovers like this martial side of himself who like loves a challenge and bravery and the aliens that he stays with. He describes them as like going about their lives with a certain sort of like military campaign air. And they love they love danger and heroics.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

There's a couple of references to his own military service. Um, I think to all three of the the main kind of protagonists' military service as well. So, yeah, and it's a very kind of ordered stratified society, which I think is also to do with with Mars, the idea of order and rules. So you've got these three species groups who live on Mars, and they all have really clearly defined roles within the society.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Um one is like the artisans.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah, poets.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

And one's like the artisans and minors, and then one's like the intellectuals.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah. Um so it's yeah, very, very structured, ordered, logical, follows the rules, um, which is just really interesting. And the Narnia book that corresponds to it is Prince Caspian, which is the the Marshall book there. Um, it's actually really interesting to reread Prince Caspian, which I did in light of reading Out of the Silent Planet, because I guess I hadn't really done that since reading Planet Narnia, and it's so obvious. The master from Prince Caspian is so obvious. Honestly, that PhD student struck gold. But again, you've got another book where everything is very martial, it's all to do with the rules of warfare, everything is um to do with plant life, fewer phalluses, but lots of very prominent male characters.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

Most of the story is effectively two military allies marching to meet up with one another.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yeah, yeah, and it all follows this very clearly defined structure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Um another thing that comes across in this book with the kind of martial thing as well, is like you mentioned a bit about Ransom's military service, but there's almost like a kind of defense of violence in the book as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

So like he offers this picture of a certain capacity for violence to be honourable and um an occasion for certain kinds of greatness, um, which is cultivated in Ransom through his experiences of living in the society. The people he lives, the aliens that he lives with as well, have this like beloved enemy relationship with this wild beast that they go hunting.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

Oh, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Um I can't remember what's it's got a really good name.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

I can't remember what it's called either. But yeah, they they really sort of respect it, they value the challenge.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Because he kills one of these um these aliens with his alien hosts, and they are dubbed tenacropunt because they slew one.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Um and even the really insane opening actually has some kind of martial aspects because ransom's on a walking holiday, which I guess is like marching. There's a fight. There's a fight. Um so just really interesting actually how you can expand that allegory to fill a whole book. Um I thought that was very good.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

And I think I think it again it's part of this like reinscribing cosmology within this allegorical frame.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Yeah, and there are some other nods to kind of other elements of I guess medieval cosmology as well. So when Ransom is in space, he hears beautiful music. So you've got the idea of like the music from the spheres, you've got the idea that the planets themselves are very beautiful, and in that medieval image, planets were kind of made of crystal and kind of glistened in the sky. Yeah, and the only planets that are mentioned are the medieval planets. So the sun is mentioned. Obviously, Lewis doesn't say that the sun is a planet, but in the medieval period it was, and that's mentioned, the moon is mentioned, um Venus, Mercury, Venus, but I guess the planets that didn't feature in the medieval cosmology are not mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Yeah, because what is it? Is it the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter?

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah, Saturn.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Is Saturn in there?

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Saturn might not be in there, but I think Saturn was discovered later.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

I think Saturn was early modern.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

No, it's definitely Saturn because one of the Narnia books represents Saturn.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

So there's a painting on a wall.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

Oh, oh, it's awful. It's a horrible painting. It's not a horrible painting. It's it looks like a vagina with teeth. It's it's everyone who visits the house agrees with me. It's the ugliest painting I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

It's Tildegard of Bingens, picture of the cosmology, where it's shaped like an egg.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

You can find it on the cover of a book called Femina because it's a vagina.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

So people have pointed out this is somewhat ionic. Yeah. Somewhat very however it features various medieval planets. Does it? Yeah, so in the centre, you've got Earth, because um have you? Yeah, Earth Centre is this.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

This painting is awful. That doesn't look like a planet.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Oh my god, it's fucking insane for the biggest. I believe you, I believe you. Then you have um the moon, which orbits the Earth. And then you have Mercury and Venus.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

And then you have the Sun.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

I can see the Sun.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Yeah. And then um Mars. Oh yeah, Jupiter and Saturn, so Saturn is the one to do that. Um see, look, that was worth getting after all because it helped us on this.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

I literally, I'm looking at this painting right now and I do not see how there are planets in it. But Nikki has looked at it and named the planet, so it must contain them.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

But planets mostly look like stars because that's what they would have looked like from for a medieval person. And then they're also stars.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Well, yes, there's probably about 60 stars on that picture. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

I don't know if you've been out at night when you're in London, but there are quite a few stars out there. There are at least 60 stars. No, but what I mean. In fact, I would say there are over 60 stars in the night sky.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

No, what I mean is I can't tell which ones are stars and which ones are planets. The ones that are planets are the ones that are in that list. This discussion isn't interesting. Kind of where like we can't see the picture. Um anyway, back to Out of the Silent Planet. Um, I think that probably brings us to a close, unless there are other things that you wanted to say about Out of the Silent Planet.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

We never really explained the story, which would be helpful for understanding the experts. Can I quickly can I quickly run run through in a whole like the background, like the the core idea of the book? I mean that's revealed over the course of the story.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Well, I think we have explained it, but you can um if you like, but remember that other episode where you explained the story and you talked for about 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

Basically, what's revealed is that um God is real and has placed an angel in charge of each planet um who bears the title Oyasa. And um each planet's Oyasa bears uh properties or qualities associated with that planet in medieval cosmology. Actually, that's something that comes across in the second book, but we'll discover that. Um, and is there's like a divine hierarchy, and the Oyasa rules over all the Hanao or intelligent beings on the planet. But our Oyasa um fell, i.e., as Lucifer, and uh corrupted us and introduced sin into our world, and now there's a blockade of Earth, um, whereas all the other planets um but at some point like the great enemy tried to destroy all the civilizations on Mars, and then um God opened up the channels in Mars for them to live in. Um and you've changed, created the Mars as we know it today. Um, but their Oyasa and the Oyasa of the other planets all um they don't really have kind of spatial location and they're all kind of conversing with one another in this big kind of peaceable cosmology. And ransomware discovers all of this and armed with this new knowledge, then returns to Earth, which then sets up the next book.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

Very good, very succinct.

SPEAKER_02 56:21

Yeah, I've I've been practicing.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Um, so what would you rate this out of 10 and why?

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Oh god, I actually really like this, but then I think we've discovered that I really love like weird old books that don't like conform to anything that yeah, would get them published today. This is not a book that would be published today. No, I say I say the beginning is really bad. Like the obvious C.S. Lewis is a keen observer of the human condition in the abstract, I'd say, but not like in moments of action.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

And like the beginning is both really contrived and relies on a bunch of people acting in like the weirdest fucking way. Like it's it honestly feels like a book written by aliens.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Um it just yeah, completely, absolutely can't possibly understand the motivations in them. But once like it actually kind of gets going and it starts to explore the allegory and stuff, it's like a really fun book, and I like the fact that it's trying to like invert the science fiction tropes, and I really like the way he weaves Christian mythology into this like science fiction vision. So I'd give it a good eight out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Nice. I think I'm I'm kind of similarly torn because the beginning of the book is very, very dull and really bizarre. And I'd say the end of the book is also quite dull when Ransom um well when Weston makes this very long speech and ransom has to translate it. No, I found it really funny. I skipped bits of that. But I think the the middle bits are genuinely really good. I think what comes across is yeah, the strangeness of Mars. I think often in science fiction um they go to people go to a different planet and it's just like Earth, but everyone has a weird forehead. Um that's not the case here, so that was very refreshing. I liked the cosmology stuff. I liked the kind of strange eco message which I read in the book, even if Nikki didn't.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

Um, I agree, there is an eco message. I just think it's an eco message that's like freighted with a bunch of other stuff, but that's integral to it.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

It's obviously a very Christian book, but you expect that from C.S. Lewis, so I forgive it.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

Clive did love Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

He did. Um Clive. His name was Clive. Clive Staples Lewis. Staples. I didn't know. Staples. His middle name was Staples. I don't know if that was like a surname, like it was double barreled, or if that was his middle name, because it's it's certainly a choice if it was a middle name.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

Clive Staples Lewis. He do you think when he was making up all of these like extraordinary names, he just thought they were actually normal names?

SPEAKER_00 59:06

I mean, maybe because his name was Clive Staples.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Because Clive Staples is like a used to scrub.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Yeah, it's really weird. I have an uncle Clive.

SPEAKER_02 59:15

But he is not a Clive Staples, though.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

He's not a Clive Staples, nor is he a philologist. But yes, Clive Clive Staples. Uh you would expect some Christian stuff from Clive. So I think I would probably give it, I'm gonna say a six. A six. A six, because the opening and the ending was boring, but I liked the middle. And there were some very interesting ideas.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Okay. Well, so I think I think the real question there is do we agree with Sir Hugh Walpole? Was it a very good book of thrilling interest as a story? But more than that, was it a kind of poem, a unique thing?

SPEAKER_00 59:58

Um, I would agree that it was a very good book. I would not agree that it was a kind of poem. I would agree that it was a unique thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Yeah, I think the next book is kind of a poem. There's something like a big mystical tract in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Well, I'm very excited to read Voyage to Venus because I so I hadn't read Out of the Silent Planet. I haven't read That Hideous Strength, but Voyage to Venus I actually read when I was 14.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

And that must have been an incredibly weird book to come in first on. Because I like not these are weird books. These are weird books, but without the kind of background that starts up in this book, it become like I would imagine it's a million times weirder.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Well, my only memory of it is that it's insanely trippy. Um I remember nothing of the plot, but I I quite enjoyed it, so I'm really excited to read it again. I'm also kind of excited because this man book was full of phalluses. What is the woman book going to be full of? A geography entirely of valleys, perhaps? Um. No, interesting. Uh so yes, there's that to come. Let's find out what a Venus looks like.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

All right, well, see you on the next episode of Space Archive. See you on Venus.