S6E22 – OSP 19 – “Lost in Translation”

Oyarsa interviews Weston and Devine.

S6E22: “Lost in translation” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Drop-In

• Dr. Diana Glyer

Quote-of-the-week

“Through his knowledge of the creatures and his love for them he began, ever so little, to hear it with their ears.”

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Episode Movie Title

Chit-Chat

• David
  • The listener survey returned our hnau-assignment:
    • David is a pfifltrigg
    • Andrew is a sorn
    • Matt is a hross (despite not liking poetry)
  • This episode was recorded the week of King Charles’ coronation.
  • Took a trip to Chicago to watch BareFace (episode coming out soon)
  • Started working at my new job
  • Steven Beebe celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in Oxford
  • One of Patreon supporters, Michael Kelley, came up with the Malacandrian version of “Christ is risen”…

“Crah-es-Maleldil”. It’s not canon, but I came up with the phrase because it seems to be the way the hrossa would describe Maleldil’s resurrection on Thulcandra. In Ephesians 2:10 we are described as God’s “poiema”, and “crah” literally in Old Solar refers to the final section of a poem. Therefore, the Resurrection began the last section of the poem of redemption. [Old Solar seems to use a lot of metaphorical imagery for concrete things, such Eribol-ef-Cordi (The Fields of Arbol, for the Solar System) and the Dancers Before The Threshold for the Asteroid Belt]

Michael Kelley (Listener)

• Andrew
  • Just got back from preaching at All Saints Chevy Chase and was at a symposium with Karen Swallow Prior, as well as Jane Williams, wife of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. A book is going to be published as a result: “Still Speaking: C.S. Lewis as theologian for the third millennium”
  • Shared the expression “Having an expectation is like planting a resentment in the ground and waiting for it to bloom”.

Toast

• Drinks
  • Andrew was drinking Penderyn
  • David was drinking a beer (not a “bier”), Hoegaarden.
  • Matt was drinking Mortlach 12
• Foreign language “cheers”
  • “Hajas!” (Dothraki from the TV Show, Game of Thrones)
• Patreon toast
  • King Charles III

Story Recap

Kidnapped and taken to Mars, Elwin Ransom has done everything he could to avoid meeting the ruler of that planet, Oyarsa, but now at the climax of the book, he finds himself brought before the tutelary spirit. This is the moment we have been building toward…

His interview with Oyarsa is interrupted by some hrossa, carrying a number of burdens.

Today we get to witness the complete meeting of two completely different journeys (Ransom vs. Weston/Devine). All three ignorant when they came to the planet, but one much more open than the other two.

The story so far…

Discussion

1. “Seeing through the eyes of others”

Recognising Humanity

Ransom doesn’t initially recognize Weston and Devine, or even that they’re human:

[We’re told that their]… heads were neither round like those of hrossa nor long like those of sorns, but almost square… [and that their faces are]… masses of lumped and puckered flesh of variegated colour fringed in some bristly, dark substance

Suddenly, with an indescribable change of feeling, he realized that he was looking at men. The two prisoners were Weston and Devine and he, for one privileged moment, had seen the human form with almost Malacandrian eyes.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

We recalled Ransom’s own reaction to the pfifltrigg’s rendering of his portrait:

He recoiled from them in disgust. Even allowing for the strangeness of the subject from a Malacandrian point of view and for the stylization of their art, still, he thought, the creature might have made a better attempt at the human form than these stock-like dummies, almost as thick as they were tall, and sprouting about the head and neck into something that looked like fungus.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 17)

Lewis briefly sees through Malacandrian eyes:

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others

C.S. Lewis, Experiment in Criticism

2. “Looking less than Devine…”

The appearance of Weston and Devine

We’re told that they’re Weston and Devine are pale and travel-stained. The bristly, dark substance which he initially saw, turns out to be facial hair – it seems that all of the humans have been letting their beards grow while on Mars. Weston has an elaborate, expression of desperation and Devine is in a state of furious sulks. They both seem to know that they have reason to be afraid, but they’re keeping a stiff upper lip.

Andrew mentioned that Lewis grew a beard for a brief period of time when he had chicken pox:

Your mother tells me you have all been having chicken pox. I had it long after I was grown up and it’s much worse if you are a man for of course you can’t shave with the spots on your face. So I grew a beard and though my hair is black the beard was half yellow and half red! You should have seen me.

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Laurence Krieg (27/4/56)

The charges against them

Hyahi charges the humans with the murder of Hyoi, “a great poet and hnakrapunt”. His brother says that:

Hyoi they hit from afar with a coward’s weapon when he had done nothing to frighten them

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Interestingly, he doesn’t charge them with the death of the other two hrossa who seem to have been killed when they captured the humans. This is regarded as fair and the equivalent to death by hnakra.

3. “The ventriloquist and the dummy”

Weston and Devine are confused because they don’t see Oyarsa. Devine wonders whether they must have some kind of loud-speaker. Weston though is confident that it’s ventriloquism and that some hross witch-doctor is pretending to be in a trance and then throwing his voice:

By Jove—I’ve spotted him.

…

Why you take our puff-bangs away? We very angry with you. We not afraid.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

This dialogue reveals that his language proficiency isn’t very high, which is rather funny, considering how condescending he was about subjects such as philology earlier in the book.

Weston demands to know why their guns were taken away. He says they’re angry and not intimidated in the slightest. Oyarsa asks his question again and receives the response:

‘You let us go, then we talkee-talkee… You think we no power, think you do all you like. You no can. Great big head-man in sky he send us. You no do what I say, he come, blow you all up—Pouff! Bang!’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

He’s basically demanding their freedom and says that he and Devine can still hurt them all if they choose, claiming that they have been sent by somebody powerful (Great big head-man in sky) who can blow them up. Devine exhorts Weston to just say that Hyoi’s death was an accident, but Weston is certain that intimidation is the best way forward. The reference to “big head-man in sky” reminded David of the TV show, Rick and Morty:

4. “I feel pretty”

Bribery

Weston says that if they do what they want, he will give them much pretty things. He pulls out a cheap necklace which he no-doubt bought from a low-end highstreet store (Woolworth’s), and parades it around saying ‘Pretty, pretty! See! See!’

Laughter

Everyone, even the eldila, start laughing. Weston thinks that they’re roaring at him. However, he is undeterred. Oyarsa explains that they’re laughing:

But Weston did not know the Malacandrian word for laugh: indeed, it was not a word he understood very well in any language.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Andrew connected it to the opening of The Screwtape Letters, where Lewis quotes both Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More:

“The devill . . the prowde spirite . . cannot endure to be mocked.”

Thomas More

“The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”

Luther

Weston tries again with the beads, with even more extreme movements, with inevitable results.

Giving up

Devine tells him to stop making a fool of himself. Weston curses:

‘Oh, Hell!

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Weston does stop, and attributes his failure to lack of intelligence on the part of the Malacandrians. There’s a line in the narration which is an echo of Milton:

The stars in their courses were fighting against Weston.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Andrew drew a parallel to The Last Battle:

“Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.” He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low, but it set all the air shaking. But the Dwarfs said to one another, “Hear that? That’s the gang at the other end of the Stable. Trying to frighten us. They do it with a machine of some kind. Don’t take any notice. They won’t take us in again!”

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chapter 13)

Ransom’s explanation to Oyarsa

He says that they don’t believe Oyarsa is there because they can’t see him. He explains that they also think the other creatures are not very intelligent (“like very young cubs”), so Weston (The thicker hmān) is trying to intimidate them and offer gifts.

5. “Ransom made us do it”

Rejected advice

Ransom tries to speak sense to Weston, but Weston still hold the Malacandrians in very high esteem, viewing them as animals:

The brutes seem to have intelligence enough to take you in, anyway

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Change of tone

However, the text does say that he modifies his tone a bit. He apologises to the sleeping elderly hross, saying that they were just trying to give Ransom to their leader (“your big head”). He says that Ransom is very bent man and because he ran away, Hyoi died, and they’re welcome to now take Ransom off their hands…

Andrew connected Weston’s curse (“Oh hell”) to Iago in Othello:

Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light

William Shakespeare, Othello (Act 1 sc. 3 L.385-6)

The co-hosts discussed the identity of the “big head” which Weston claims sent them. While he may be pretending to have a powerful god at his back, in one sense it is Maleldil, but in another, it’s Satan!

6. “The hot head”

Oyarsa’s command

Oyarsa says:

Something is wrong in your head, hnau from Thulcandra. There is too much blood in it

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

He calls a pfifltrigg, Firikitekila and tells him to take Weston to the guesthouse and bathe his head in lots of cold water seven times. Weston is still trying to work out where the voice is coming from, but starts panicking as he’s taken away, even calling out to Ransom! Weston himself was shouting too loud to hear him.

Biblical echos

This reminded David of this verse from James’ epistle:

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak.

James 1:19

…and Andrew connected it to the healing of Naaman the Syrian:

And Eli′sha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”

2 Kings 5:10

7. “All hnau must endure going hence”

Hearing with their ears

Ransom had heard hross song before, but when they begin to honour the dead hrossa, he receives a moment of insight:

To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

The narrator says that he receives this insight because of two things, knowledge and love:

Through his knowledge of the creatures and his love for them [Ransom] began, ever so little, to hear it with their ears… [He] bowed down his spirit as if the gate of heaven had opened before him.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Andrew referenced Reading for the Love of God by Jessica Hooten Wilson.

Funeral lyrics

It opens with “Let it go hence”:

‘Let it go hence,’ they sang. ‘Let it go hence, dissolve and be no body. Drop it, release it, drop it gently, as a stone is loosed from fingers drooping over a still pool. Let it go down, sink, fall away. Once below the surface there are no divisions, no layers in the water yielding all the way down; all one and all unwounded is that element. Send it voyaging it will not come again. Let it go down; the hnau rises from it. This is the second life, the other beginning. Open, oh coloured world, without weight, without shore. You are second and better; this was first and feeble. Once the worlds were hot within and brought forth life, but only the pale plants, the dark plants. We see their children when they grow to-day, out of the sun’s light in the sad places. After, the heaven made grow another kind on worlds: the high climbers, the bright-haired forests, cheeks of flowers. First were the darker, then the brighter. First was the worlds’ brood, then the suns’ brood.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

This is strong echo of the epitaph which appears on several Lewis gravestones (Flora, CSL, Warnie). It comes from King Lear: “Men must endure their going hence”.  It’s also noteworthy that the body is now referred to as “it”. Hyoi was originally “it” in Ransom’s estimation. Also, if you recall, in an earlier episode I quoted Surprised By Joy where he referred to his mother’s body as “it”.

Andrew referred to the essay First and Second Things.

8. “Malacandrian Cremation”

Liturgy?

As the song ends, Oyarsa gives almost a liturgical command:

‘Let us scatter the movements which were their bodies. So will Maleldil scatter all worlds when the first and feeble is worn’.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

Cremation

The bodies disappear in a flash of light and gust of wind. They’ve effectively been efficiently cremated. Devine responds to this rather creepily…

‘God! That would be a trick worth knowing on earth,’ said Devine to Ransom. ‘Solves the murderers’ problem about the disposal of the body, eh?’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 19)

What happened to “Miss Alice”, who previously owned the house in which Weston and Devine were staying on earth?! Was the disrupted earth around the house only from heavy machinery or might a body be found beneath it…

It’s beyond the scope of our discussion here, but we have records of the Inklings arguing about the validity of cremation a couple of years after this book was published.

Wrap-Up

Question-of-the-week

Has there ever been a time in your life where you went through a transformation like Ransom where you started ignorant and by the end were able to see through the eyes of the other? If you contact us, please let us know whether we can share your response!

Do you think the hnau of Malacandra will have the resurrection of the body?

Question-of-the-week

Support Us!

• Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
• We would be grateful if new listeners would rate and review us on their preferred podcast platform.