tek's rating: see introduction

Out of the Silent Planet (pub. 1938)
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The protagonist is Dr. Elwin Ransom (described as 35 to 40 years of age), who was a philologist and a fellow of Cambridge College. As the book opens, he is on a sort of walking holiday, trying without much luck to find lodging for the night. He ends up getting kidnapped by a couple of men named Weston and Devine. Weston was a physicist who had built a space ship (of course you will recall this was written more than two decades before Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, and more than three decades before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon). Anyway, Weston and Devine take Ransom to a planet which is called Malacandra by its inhabitants; it's some time before Ransom learns which planet it is by the name given it on Earth, but I don't consider it a terrible spoiler to tell you that it's Mars.

At one point during the voyage to Malacandra, Ransom overhears part of a secret conversation between Weston and Devine, which involves the plan to hand Ransom over to creatures called sorns, presumably as a sacrifice; though they don't really know what the sorns intend. So, he decides to escape when they reach the planet. And when on Malacandra he finally sees a group of sorns for the first time, he runs away, and spends some time alone, almost going mad. But after awhile, he meets a different kind of creature, called a hross. From him, he begins to learn the language of the hrossa (his philological skills came in quite handy, and he ends up becoming more conversant in the language than Weston or Devine, even though they'd been here before).

The hross who found him was Hyoi, who takes him to his people, among whom Ransom lives for a time. He begins to learn more of their language from a hross named Hnohra, and more about Malacandra. There were three intelligent species on the planet: the hrossa, the séroni (the proper plural of "sorn"), and the pfifltriggi. Intelligent species such as these three, and humans, are called "hnau" (or just "nau," because hrossa tend to pronounce an unnecessary "h" at the start of many words). Earth is called Thulcandra, which means "the silent planet." Malacandra is ruled by someone called Oyarsa, who is not hnau in quite the same sense, though it's some time before Ransom learns what he actually is. (But I'll again provide a minor spoiler and tell you that Oyarsa is an eldil, which is something like what we might call a spirit or angel, though not exactly.) All the worlds are ruled by Maleldil the Young, who I gather is sort of God, as we would call Him, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call Him Jesus Christ, though... this is never made explicitly clear. In any event, Maleldil is said to live with "The Old One" (who I'd presume to be God the Father, though nothing is really said about Him). But I get the impression that Maleldil was the one who made the worlds, as well as all hnau and eldila, so it's kind of confusing (though I suppose it's possible both Father and Son could bear the name "Maleldil," I sort of vaguely doubt it).

Eventually, an eldil appears and commands Ransom to go to see Oyarsa. On the course of that journey, he is eventually helped by a sorn called Augray, from whom he learns more about Malacandra and eldila. Ransom had a tendency to think of the séroni as the planet's dominant species, but actually they're all equal, all ruled by Oyarsa. It's just that each species is adept at different types of knowledge and skills, and the séroni are the ones who would seem the most advanced, from a human point of view. Anyway, finally Ransom reaches a place where many hnau and eldila are gathered, and Oyarsa soon comes and converses with him. Ransom learns more about certain things, including just why Oyarsa wanted the séroni to bring a human to him. Weston and Devine had misunderstood his intentions, and were scared, so they had returned to Earth to get someone to serve as a sacrifice. But what Oyarsa really wanted was to talk, and learn more about Thulcandra, from which the eldila of outer space had been cut off for a very long time. (I wish I could avoid spoiling why they'd been cut off from Earth, aside from saying that it happened before mankind existed, but I feel a certain degree of spoilers are necessary to set up my reviews of the other two books in the series. So, if you wish, perhaps you should skip the next paragraph, and possibly the two after that. The final one should be reasonably safe, though. But it may also be that you won't consider the story unduly spoiled by the next three paragraphs. *shrug* It's up to you.)

The reason they were cut off from Thulcandra (a name, btw, which was given to the world after the event in question) is this: the Oyarsa of Earth- "Oyarsa" being the title of the eldil who rules a planet- had become bent. ("Bent" is the closest word Malacandrians have for "bad" or perhaps more accurately "insane" or "foolish," or some concept that overlaps those three adjectives. I don't think we ever heard the actual Malacandrian word for "bent," though.) Weston and Devine, and perhaps all of humanity, are to some degree bent, from an extra-terrestrial perspective, due to the influence of our Oyarsa (aka "the Bent One"; and I suspect you could guess some other names we have for the Bent One). Anyway, before mankind existed on Earth, the Bent One made both our Moon and Malacandra nearly uninhabitable (the Oyarsa of Malacandra barely managed to save the hnau of his world). And so, the Bent One and the eldila who followed him were, after a great war, confined to Thulcandra (unable to reach farther than our Moon), to prevent them doing further harm to the rest of the Solar System (or Field of Arbol, "Arbol" being the Malacandrian name for the Sun). Since then, the Oyarsa of Malacandra (among other eldila) has heard rumors of Maleldil's struggles against the Bent One on Thulcandra, and is curious to learn the truth about it, from one of Earth's inhabitants.

While Ransom is conversing with the Oyarsa of Malacandra, Weston and Devine are brought forward as prisoners, and attempt to converse as well, in spite of not seeing, only hearing Oyarsa, and disbelieving in the existence of eldila. And, after Weston has limited success in his attempt to communicate with Oyarsa, Ransom has to translate Weston's words as best he can, which is tricky because, aside from Ransom's own grasp of the Malacandrian language being incomplete, the concepts Weston was expressing were a bit complicated and didn't exactly have direct parallels in the understanding or mindsets of Malacandrians or eldila. So it takes awhile to explain things, and while Weston's intentions, and the very philosophy of Life which he espouses, are on the surface objectionable from a moral standpoint, to say the least... at least one can perhaps somewhat understand how he can think as he does. I doubt any reasonable person would agree with him, in the entirety; though one might agree at least on some points. But the way Ransom translates it- which involves breaking down complex concepts into simpler ones- it becomes much plainer how absolutely absurd and unconscionable those intentions really are. Anyway, in the end, Oyarsa sends the three humans back to Earth. He advises Ransom to keep an eye on Weston and Devine, who may continue to cause trouble. But there is also the hope that the "siege of Thulcandra" may soon be over. Great changes have been prophesied to happen in this year (though he speaks of a celestial year, which is far longer than one of years; the current celestial year apparently began in the 12th century).

And then, there is the revelation that the author himself, C.S. Lewis, had learned of all these things from his friend "Ransom" (which turns out to be an alias used for the purposes of this book, as are "Weston" and "Devine"). The story has been published in the guise of fiction, so that people might learn of these things, and some might find their way to the real Ransom or Lewis. Then there's a postscript, a letter from Ransom to Lewis about various things the author had left out of his book, so we learn still a bit more about his time on Malacandra, which didn't quite fit into the story. Anyway, I don't know what else to say about that, except that I've always been fond of the idea of an author inserting himself into his own story, and it's something I've done myself in the past, and very well may in the future....

Well, as for my general impressions of the book: I quite enjoyed the descriptions of space travel, and the terrain of Malacandra, and of its various species, and of eldila (their nature makes them hard to see, because they're made of a kind of light, and also their physical presence in relation to places is different from ours), and... everything. It's all rather fascinating, as is the philosophical thought in which Ransom engages throughout his strange experiences. All he learns about the real history of the Solar System and whatnot, and about the differences between the various hnau, what things like space and planets and light and movement and such are all "really" like... And of course, I always enjoy seeing theology reworked into fantasy or science fiction, to look at it in a new way. And... I don't know what else to say except... it's just all very well written and quite interesting, really makes you think about things- not just theology- in new ways. (I suppose I should say that our understanding of space is different now than it was when the book was written, but Lewis's descriptions of it, and its relation to "heaven," per se, are nevertheless quite thought-provoking.)

Followed by Perelandra