It's been so long since I read anything by C.S. Lewis, I wasn't sure what to expect from this. Though I've much more recently seen the latest film adaptations of the first two Narnia books, I don't remember much about reading them, except that I enjoyed them, so it shouldn't be too difficult to restrict my comments to this book and refrain from (always tempting) comparisons with his better-known work. This short book was brought to my attention when my son read it for his 10th grade English class, and I probably never would have read it if he didn't recommend it to me, and/or it wasn't already in the house- but I'm glad I finally got around to it.
This fictional story is told as if it were a factual account of the experiences of an Englishman called Ransom (though it is eventually "revealed" that names have been changed throughout to protect identities). Ransom is forcibly kidnapped, taken aboard a spaceship by two unscrupulous men, to the planet Malacandra. For their own purposes, as Ransom discovers en route, they plan to hand him over to indigenous aliens, for sacrifice. Ransom's mind conjures plenty of horrific alien creatures for the remainder of their interplanetary trip, and he resolves to escape at the first available opportunity. Soon after they arrive on Malacandra, the expected aliens come for him. Ransom, terrified, manages to escape his captors afoot, fleeing into the strange wilderness. He eludes pursuit long enough to overcome his initial fear of the unknown and come to terms with his situation, eventually discovering the true nature of the world on which he's stranded and of the creatures that inhabit it. By contrast, he also comes to some conclusions about our own world, and about humanity.
Overall, the story is a sort of "manifest destiny" parable, written in 1938. It's actually a surprisingly short book for the scope of story Lewis attempts, and to his credit he does a remarkable job of creating a reasonably realized portrayal of Malacandra. In 1938, with the atom yet un-split, and 30 years before the onset of manned space travel, it was an order of magnitude more plausible that intelligent life might exist on other planets in our solar system, and though this is by now obviously false, it would be a shame if potential readers allowed pesky facts to dissuade them from discovering or enjoying this work of science fiction. Many older science fiction books suffer from this type of outdating, but this one doesn't. The technical details of space travel are largely left out of the narrative to begin with, leaving only the actual conditions on a certain (subsequently visited) solar neighbor to require suspension of readers' disbelief. For me, this required surprisingly little effort.
I haven't read enough of Lewis's stuff to know for sure, but judging from this book and the spiritual references present throughout the Narnia series, I suspect he displayed a lifelong inclination to bring a touch of the metaphysical to his stories. I think it would also be a shame to discount his work on those grounds. I'm a lifelong atheist, but I find these references indispensable in terms of the stories he's telling. These references aren't necessarily the whole point, but the stories would be considerably diminished in substance and scope without them, as they seem somewhat integral to both plot and theme. I look forward to seeing if the entirely unique (in my experience) metaphysical system present in this story continues in the following two books of the series, known alternately as Lewis's "Space Trilogy" or "Cosmic Trilogy".
Out of the Silent Planet is an interesting book, well worth reading, and good enough that I intend to get my hands on the following two books.
Cover of the Scribner paperback edition I read (in which, incidentally, I noticed no editorial errors):
This is another cover, which I find a bit more accurate to Lewis's descriptions:
Some other covers, which touch on some of the other elements in the book, and are just fun to look at:
More info and reviews at amazon.com
2009-05-12
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
post labels
1979
480p
a perfect circle
accountability
ADSR
adventure
age progression
AIDS
AIG
alfred molina
alternate geography
alternate history
america
animation
anxiety
apology
apprentice
array instruments
art crimes
attention spans
audioslave
avatar
bad weekend
bailey's
bailout
beach
beavis
being broke
benefits
beverage
big three
bill the cat
bitching
black and white
blogger
blogging
blue screen
bob marriott
book
bored
brinsley schwarz
bus schedule
butthead
c.s. lewis
cable coiler
car crash
car repair
carolan's
cartoon
cate blanchett
charles darwin
charles van doren
chloe moretz
choir
chores
chowder
chris cornell
christians
christina ricci
christmas
christopher mintz-plasse
chrome
cigarettes
cinnahoney
cinnamon
class envy
coding
coffee
comcast
comedy
commuting
contact list
cooking
crime
da vinci code
dakota
dan brown
daylight savings time
deconstruction
display resolution
dodge
dog park
domino
dozer
dream
dreamworks
drinking
driving
e.t.a.
economy
edmonds
edmonds marina
electricity
elvis costello
email
england
epic
escape
ethan
everett chorale
evolution
fabricate
facebook
fantasy
fiction
film trailer
first post
fitness test
flag
flash
flickr
font
ford
fotomorph
free hugs
free market
freedom
freedom of speech
freeware
friends
futility
galapogos
geology
GFHS
girl
glitch
GM
good will
google
gratitude
green screen
hallmark version
handwriting
happiness
harley
harry potter
harry thompson
harry turtledove
HD
headache
healthcare
hershey
hershey's syrup
hip hop
history of knowledge
HMS beagle
hollywood lights
honey
hosting
HTML
human rights
IE
immigration
indispensable opposition
intelligentsia
internet explorer
interview
Ira Glass
irish cream
irish whiskey
it got big
jakob dylan
jason
jenny lewis
job hunting
journalists
julia navarro
junk
kalimba
kansas
kick-ass
kitty
knights templar
la fete nationale
lacking motivation
last airbender
lego
lineman
live
looseworld
loren
love
m night shyamalan
malacandra
malaguena
manifest destiny
mark millar
marriage
martha stewart
mbira
mcafee
megamind
melissa
memorial
mickey
microsoft
monotony
montreal
music
music video
my life
my music
mystery
natural philosophy
naturalist
new car
new chair
new computer
new TV
new zealand
nick lowe
nicolas cage
NSFW
obama
old friends
opening atlantis
opinion
opus
organ
out of the silent planet
overheat
peace
performance
pic post
picasa
polygons
PUD
puget sound
quebec
qwest field
racey
radiator
random
realD 3D
realism
recipe
redletter media
reggie watts
reginald veljohnson
repairs
reunions
ridley scott
robert fitzroy
robin hood
robin williams
robot
rockstar
russell crowe
sarcasm
science fiction
sea voyage
seahawks
shroud of turin
sick puppies
siphon
smoking
sorceror's apprentice
soundclick
south america
special effects
speech
spring
starling
stats
suicide
summer
sundome
syntax error
syphon
taking offense
tesla
test
the atlantic
the bus
This American Life
thriller
tim hawkins
tokyo plastic
toni basil
trade-marx
train
trouble
turning 40
TV
UAW
understanding
unemployed
unions
vacation
video
vimeo
virus
vundo
W3schools
walter lippman
water pump
wayward son
web design
weekend
whiskey
white house
windows 7
windows live mail
windows vista
wordpress
work
writing
xmas
xmas spirit
XP
yakima
yourfonts
zoey deschanel
No comments:
Post a Comment
authors of respectful and/or good-natured comments are welcomed with the full hospitality of the proprietor, and offered a comfortable chair in the warm glow of the hearth.
miscreants will be silenced, and hunted down by an ever-growing, unsleeping horde of darkly efficient Hideous Minions, each more terrible than the last, singularly and collectively gripped with an insatiable lust to brutally inflict whatever arbitrary and horribly whimsical retribution seems most ridiculously inappropriate to them at the time.