book review

Out of the Silent Planet
C S Lewis
1938
Science Fiction

In Short: Elwin Ransom, Professor of Philology, is kidnapped on a walking tour and taken to the planet Malacandra (Mars) by a pair of immoral scientists, intended as a human sacrifice. While there, Ransom escapes, and forms strong bonds with the people of the planet, eventually meeting Oyarsa, ruler of Malacandra.

My Review:

Out of the Silent Planet is fantastic, in all senses of the word. Not only is it rich in detail and a beautiful, beautifully described world, but it is an early version of science fiction - almost more fantasy than science fiction. Its technology hovers between amusing and impressive, but its ideas and story are what carry it along.

The plot is simple: Ransom, captured and taken to Mars by two scientists, escapes and is led eventually to Mars' leader. The story is straightforward, with no divergences. Ransom's walking tour through the English countryside is not quite waved away as a frame for the actual story, but it's a certainly carefully constructed excuse for the story to happen. No one knows where Ransom is or how to contact him, his sabbatical is a year long, and he's got no relatives to ask after him. Clearly, he is the perfect specimen for a kidnapping-for-human-Martian-sacrifice.

The journey to Mars is, in fact, where the beauty begins. Ransom notes how bright it is on the shuttle, and one of our Depraved Scientists asks nastily, "forgotten the sun?" Space is painted as bright, as clear, as freer than Earth. Malacandra - alternately, Mars - is similar. Ransom is struck by its beauty: its green mountains, its pale sky, its bright purple trees, its many valleys and forests and streams. It is a paradise almost of the Romantic era, with a few tweaks: lush "greenery" (purplery?) abounds, the ground is never muddy and always covered in Martian heather (pale pink), and in the night, Jupiter rises in a shine of glory through the asteroid belt.

Lewis builds narratives that can work both at an allegorical level and a story level. So it is with his Narnia series, and so, of course, it is with his Space Trilogy. Mars has three types of people, all independant species, all sentient and rational. They live under and serve the eldil (who may be considered lesser angels), who live under and serve Oyarsa (presumably a greater angel/archangel), who answers to Maleldil (= God). The allegory is not clear at the beginning, but by the time Ransom stands in front of Oyarsa, explaining his journey and apologizing for his fellow Earth-people, the dialogue makes it clear. Stories that mention a great eldil that fell, and had to be bound, and how freely all Martian people give to each other and naturally, instinctually do right - all these stories are clear allegories that, while religious in nature, fit well to the universe they're constructed to.

Ransom is impressed by the Martian people, but also intimidated by them and automatically others them. He admits frequently how little he understands them, but makes mention of getting used to them. "It was a long time until I learned to read the Malacandran face," he says. But his philological background is his breakthrough: from his first encounter with a Malacandran, he begins learning the langauge immediately. "Handra" means "earth" - "Malac" has yet to be defined. People are "hnau", and the different types of Martian people all have their own names, and languages. Very little culture, though: science fiction this might be, but Lewis holds to the old belief that nature and technology stand in opposition.

Out of the Silent Planet is first in a series of three. It may easily be read alone, and indeed the next book was written five years later. It is worth reading, if only for the imagery. Despite my own thoughts on allegory being similar to Tolkein's ("I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."), I didn't mind it in this book: the double-reading of Malacandra's spiritual hierarchy is neither preachy nor does it obstruct the narrative. It grows out of the narrative, and is fairly unobjectionable.

Finally, it is a good story, well-written, on a beautiful and alien world. What more can one want from Science Fiction?