“As far as we know, we are doing what has never done in the history of man, perhaps never in the history of the universe. We have learned how to jump off the speck of matter on which our species began; infinity, and therefore perhaps eternity, is being put into the hands of the human race” (29).
At the beginning of Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis issues an apology for penning numerous “slighting references to the works of H.G. Wells” which are indeed rife throughout the novel. In some ways, Out of the Silent Planet reads like a preachy polemic against modern science, science fiction, and really anything that doesn’t echo an explicit Christian allegory. It goes without saying that C.S. Lewis would have sought to smuggle religious dogmatism into any work of speculative fiction –and apparently this book came about after a discussion with fellow “Inkling” J.R.R. Tolkien in which both men lamented the state of contemporary fiction and agreed to each write a science fiction novel. After a coin toss, Lewis was assigned to write a novel about space travel and Tolkien would write a novel about time travel. Tolkien’s planned novel was never finished while Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet was later expanded into a trilogy (the “Space Trilogy” or sometimes called the “Ransom Trilogy”) with Perelandra (1943) and That Hideous Strength (1945) released in the ensuing years.
At the start of Book I, we meet Dr. Elwin Ransom, a tall, round-shouldered man of about thirty-five or forty, on a holiday and dressed in the typical shabbiness of intelligentsia (he might have been mistaken for a doctor or schoolmaster). Dr. Ransom is a philologist and a fellow at Cambridge college on a pedestrian walking tour of England when he has suddenly come upon a famed professor and physicist named Weston and his counterpart, Mr. Devine, a disagreeable old college acquaintance of Ransom’s. When Ransom encounters the two men, they are apparently attempting to do something sinister to a young boy, but when Ransom arrives, they release the boy and begin speaking with Ransom instead. They quickly learn that Ransom has no next of kin or close friends who know of his whereabouts, only a married sister who lives in India.
Moments later, Ransom is kidnapped and drugged. He awakens in a dark, warm room and steps out to find he has been placed inside a spherical space ship in outer space (recall that this novel was written prior to the dawn of human space travel). The complex inner workings of this ship can only be understood by a few living physicists, it works on “less observed properties of solar radiation.” The windows are filled with the brightness of the stars, earth, and the sun (forcing Ransom to wear sunglasses).
“There was some kind of skylight immediately over his head –a square of night sky filled with stars. It seemed to Ransom that he had never looked out on such a frosty night. Pulsing with brightness as with some unbearable pain or pleasure, clustered in pathless and countless multitudes, dreamlike in clarity, blazing in perfect blackness, the stars seized all his attention, troubled him, excited him, and drew him up into a sitting position” (24).
Notably, Ransom is awestruck by the appearance of space as a bright and lively place, rather than a dark and empty void, indicating that perhaps “space” is the wrong word to describe this place that marks the distance between planets.
“He had read of ‘Space’: at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds. He had not known how much it had affected him til now –now the very name ‘Space’ seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it ‘dead’: he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come? He had thought it barren: he saw now that it was the womb of worlds, whose blazing and innumerable offspring looked down nightly even upon the earth with so many eyes –and here, with how many more! No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens…” (34).
But despite the sheer majesty of the cosmos surrounding him, Ransom soon grows terrified –he has been kidnapped by Devine and Weston and is taken to the mysterious planet of Malacandra (later revealed to be Mars) where Ransom will be offered as a human sacrifice to the “savage” creatures who dwell therein (aliens called the “sorn”). When they arrive on Malacandra, Ransom is surprised to discover it is a poetically beautiful world rather than a stark barren wasteland –a colorful planet filled with warm water, purple tree forests, and many other wonders, including “suns’ blood” (or gold) which lies strewn about in streams across the planet. Naturally, Devine and Weston are eager to rob Malacandra of its gold. But Ransom immediately escapes from his captors and comes upon a farming and fishing species known as the “Hrossa” (they are tall, thin creatures with long, black hair and webbed feet, likened to seals). Ransom befriends two Hrossa named Whin and Hyoi (the latter of whom is later cruelly and needlessly killed by an eruption of gunfire from Devine and Weston). At any rate, as a skilled philologist, Ransom easily learns the language of the Hrossa and he is surprised to find they are a peaceful species (in contrast to the horrors that might be found in an H.G. Wells novel). In this way, there is more of an explicit anti-colonial narrative that runs throughout Out of the Silent Planet. In actuality, Ransom learns there are three intelligent species on Malacandra –the “Hrossa” (singular “hross”), the “Seroni” (singular “sorn” –they are tall, white, intellectual beings, whom Ransom initially thought were ogres but after befriending one named Augray he realized they were better described as titans or angels), and the little creatures called “pfifltriggi” (they are miners and artisans, the builders and stone craftsmen).
Ransom is brought before the ruling divinity of Malacandra known as “Oyarsa” for a lengthy discussion about why he has arrived on this planet. What is Oyarsa? Oyarsa is described as “the merest whisper of light –no, less than that, the smallest diminution of shadow…” (118). After Ransom explains he was kidnapped, we learn that Earth is known as “Thulcandra,” the silent planet, where a great battle once occurred before the “Bent One” was left imprisoned on the planet (presumably this is intended to be a metaphor for Satan). At any rate, we also encounter strange creatures on Malacandra called “Eldila” who can float like light and are barely visible to the naked eye –they can travel to the old petrified stone forests on Malacandra where creatures like birds once lived. Presumably, the Eldila are intended to be angels. But the Oyarsa who rule the other planets in our solar system answer only to Maledil, the one God. Cue the eyerolls from me. This yawning, entirely predictable plot point leaves the reader with a headshaking sensation of sheer disappointment –why must every novel of this kind enforce the same tired narrative? Does every genre of fiction really need to have its own special Christian alternative to the real thing? Was there any other purpose to this novel other than to push a dogmatic religious narrative? Lewis’s attempt to smuggle through customs a John Bunyan-esque allegory is wildly underwhelming and it renders the novel a fairly superficial outing unfortunately.
In the end, Devine and Weston are brought before Oyarsa where they show themselves to be perfectly uncivilized swine for their attempts to conquer Malacandra and steal all of its gold –both Devine and Weston are representatives of mankind being naturally “evil” and “fallen,” at least according to the Christian paradigm. They are both banished from Malacandra, and while Ransom is offered the chance to stay if he so wishes, he decides to return to earth with Devine and Weston to be among his own people. Ransom thanks Oyarsa and all the creatures of Malacandra: “You have shown me more wonders than are known in the whole of heaven” (141).
The novel concludes with a faux letter written from Ransom to C.S. Lewis, thereby introducing an element of realism to the novel, in which Ransom amusingly critiques Lewis’s writing and reminisces about his time on Malacandra while explicitly makes connections to Medieval Christian theology, religious cosmology, and Neoplatonist concepts of Heaven (rather than referring to the area beyond Earth as simply “outer space”).
“…what we need for the moment is not so much a body of belief as a body of people familiarized with certain ideas. If we could even effect in one per cent of our readers a change-over from the conception of space to the conception of Heaven, we should have made a beginning” (152).
I first read Out of the Silent Planet when it was assigned reading in high school. For reference, I had the grave misfortune of attending a conservative fundamentalist Christian high school where readings like this were fairly commonplace. In certain crowded corners of American religious education, only a handful of Christian writers like Lewis are considered worthwhile novelists, primarily because they echo the same tired religious narratives and approved allegories. Both then and now, Christian education tends to be a deeply fearful and insular withdrawal from society –many of these institutions view themselves as bulwarks against a supposed tidal wave of atheistic materialism and soulless Darwinism and so on, leading them to retreat into safe, familiar territory where they can comfortably regurgitate the same theological interpretations of the world. Out of the Silent Planet is sure to gratify religious audiences since it is essentially a preachy polemic against modern science and materialism, as well as a critique of other more-celebrated speculative fiction (especially the brilliant novels of H.G. Wells), but for those who are searching for more a challenging, nuanced, compelling science fiction novel, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
Lewis, C.S. Out of the Silent Planet. Scribner, NY, NY (2003, originally published in 1938).
Out of the Silent Planet is dedicated to Lewis’s brother W.H.L., “a life-long critic of the space-and-time story.”