REVIEW #7: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET
By C. S. Lewis
(Longmans, Green and Co Ltd., 1966)

Within the first four chapters, the battle for our hearts and minds between the sciences and humanities is posited by Lewis through Western, the obsessed scientist leading the space expedition. He arrogantly justifies his kidnapping of a stranger to help with this mission by citing the old argument made so famous by the great pragmatist, Niccolò Machiavelli: the end justifies the means. In this case, however, the end is in service to the whole of humankind not the vain ambitions of one individual. This is ironical, since Western’s philosophical argument is used by a man who doesn’t consider ‘classics and history and such trash education.’ (24) We are also challenged to consider the nature and function of time on this journey where ‘day’ is an eternal ‘dazzling golden light’ not divided into recognizable sections with familiar corresponding human actions. With the protagonist’s head spinning from the discovery of his extraordinary situation, these deep philosophical questions about time, motivations, science and philosophy are initially flashing past him (and the reader), but Lewis will begin to grind away at many important points in the course of this journey, one that takes us on a quest to understand our place in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

From the outset, Lewis challenges the language we use, suggesting that it fails to capture the true essence of our experience. ‘Space,’ for example, is hardly adequate to convey the ‘empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam’ on their journey and the way it energized and mesmerized his protagonist. Lewis reminds us that language, body language, conventions, values and attitudes are all learned. These are the means of ‘reading’ each other. The means of making sense of our environment. Through the protagonist’s reaction to the creatures he meets, Lewis exposes the human propensity to stereotype the unfamiliar and critiques our instinctive fear and loathing for anything that is alien to us, preventing us from thinking objectively, or being open to discovery through the exchange of ideas. However, he ultimately shows us that, with time for reflection and familiarization, our responses to an experience can reshape us. ‘A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered,’ he says. Wordsworth made the same point about poetry in his ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ when he defined poetry as ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquillity.’ One of the dominant messages of Lewis’s science fiction is the need for reflection. Moreover, he stresses the need for nuanced thought. The need to see ourselves as we truly are. To be honest about ourselves. When the Hrossa, Hyoi, states ‘It is a bent knau that would blacken the world,’ we understand the underlying message; the corrupted human heart is to be feared and opposed more than any other creature on earth or beyond. (One can’t help drawing a parallel with Jonathan Swift’s Yahoos in his political satire, Gulliver’s Travels.) Lewis uses the dialogue between the Sorns and Hrossa to open Ransome’s eyes to the hubris of human beings who struggle ‘because every one of them wants to be a little Oyasa himself,’ setting up inevitable power struggles.

Lewis is constantly challenging our perspective. When Ransome looks down on the earth from outer space, he realizes how irrelevant it is in Malacandra. All the extraordinary places and ideas and civilizations are meaningless. He was also wrong about the Sorn and the Hrossa. They were not monstrous and fearful and unintelligent, as he had at first assumed. He also tries to show us a new way of looking at people which is not hierarchical, but appreciating them for the particular skill they contribute to society. This has a theological basis through the fruits of the Spirit and the idea that each person is a member of the body of Christ irrespective of the part they play; all parts of the body are needed and valued. However, this allegory breaks down in the light of the separate lives of the creatures on Malacandra and the distance between them and Oyarsa. This contradicts our understanding of being made in the image of a triune God who is relational and has created us to be in a loving and harmonious relationship with him and each other. Nevertheless, through his protagonist’s fantastical journey and the actions of his antagonist, Lewis is able to pose questions about who we are, our nature and our purpose, pointing the reader to the age-old human quest to discover the meaning of life, a question with deep theological resonance. Western demonstrates that even good intentions can corrupt the human heart and distract us from our true purpose. As the prophet, Jeremiah, warned, ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure’ and Lewis reminds us of this and the fact that we have a terrible capacity for self-justification.

Lewis has tackled hard lessons in life using a science fiction medium and, personally, I loved approaching these scientific, philosophical, theological, political, sociological and linguistic questions in this way. I have barely scratched the surface. If we define great literature as challenging works which make you think about the human condition, then this qualifies. May I recommend you follow it up with Perilandra and That Hideous Strength the other two books in this trilogy.