S6E26 – OSP 22+Postscript – “Heaven is for real”

We wrap up “Out of the Silent Planet” with a twist!

S6E26: “Heaven is for real” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Drop-In

• Will Vaus

Quote-of-the-week

“…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.”

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

Episode Movie Title

Chit-Chat

• David
  • Going to Chicago for work, will be having coffee with John Stanifer (fiancé of Laura Schmitt), and visiting The Wade Center:

• Andrew
  • Finished a sermon and will be visiting a C.S. Lewis friend this weekend.
• Matt
  • Very busy at work!
  • Unsettled because David’s webcam isn’t on, so he can’t see him glaring at him!

Toast

• Drinks
  • David was drinking a Newcastle Brown Ale.
  • Andrew was drinking a bit of Jura and some Macallan 12. Still thinking about “Ransom’s Bitter” from last week… #PleaseSendMore
  • Matt was drinking an Old Fashioned.
• Foreign language “cheers”
  • “Στην υγειά μας!” (Greek)
• Patreon toast
  • Stuart F

Story Recap

Ransom is kidnapped and taken to Mars. He escapes his captors and lives among the hrossa.

All of the humans come before Oyarsa, the guardian of the planet, who questions them. One of Ransom’s captors wants the gold of Mars. The other wishes to spread humanity among the stars, displacing the populations they find along the way. Oyarsa sends them back to earth.

After enduring the grueling journey, Ransom wakes up to find his abductors have fled. He leaves the crumbling ship and makes his way to the nearest pub for a pint.

The story so far…

Discussion

01. “Lifting the veil (or lying)”

The author reveals the twist:

At this point, if I were guided by purely literary considerations, my story would end, but it is time to remove the mask and to acquaint the reader with the real and practical purpose for which this book has been written.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

02. “Initial Silence”

Initially he did not plan on sharing his story:

Dr. Ransom… soon abandoned the idea of his Malacandrian dictionary and indeed all idea of communicating his story to the world. He was ill for several months, and when he recovered he found himself in considerable doubt as to whether what he remembered had really occurred. It looked very like a delusion produced by his illness, and most of his apparent adventures could, he saw, be explained psychoanalytically.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

David questioned why nobody noticed that Ransom was missing – he’s been away for months! Matt suggested that his doubts might have been a result of the influence of the fallen planet of Thulcandra.

03. “CSL enters the story…”

Lewis was drawn into the story when he wrote a letter to “Ransom”, saying that he was working on the text of a 12th Century Platonist and that there was a word he wanted to discuss:

I am now working at the Platonists of the twelfth century and incidentally discovering that they wrote damnably difficult Latin. In one of them, Bernadus Silvestris, there is a word I should particularly like your views on—the word Oyarses. It occurs in the description of a voyage through the heavens, and an Oyarses seems to be the “intelligence” or tutelary spirit of a heavenly sphere

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

Lewis’ friend C.J. thought Oyarses was a corruption of “Ousiarches”, which is Greek for “Supreme being” or “source of existence”. Interestingly, there’s a discussion about this work in Appendix I of Lewis’ work, The Allegory of Love. C.J. is probably a reference to Oxford philosopher and historian Clement C. J. Webb, of Magdalen College. Andrew suggested that C.J. might alternatively be C. E. M. Joad.

04. “Middle Ages and the Celestial Year”

They eventually decided to go ahead and tell the story in some form, because they believe that we’re living in the same “celestial year” as the 12th Century, which is when all this seems to have possibly begun. 

05. “Working on the mystery”

Ransom invites Lewis to spend the weekend with him. Lewis says that since then he and Ransom have been trying to solve “the mystery”, presumably how it is that Ransom’s Malacandrian word ended up in a Platonist text all the way back in 12th Century! Did they have some kind of contact with Mars? Does it point to some common history or linguistics?

06. “How to tell the world?”

Subsequent events

Ransom and Lewis didn’t just tell the world in a straight-forward manner because they feared that it would lead to incredulity, as well as result in a libel action from the person on whom Weston is based. Lewis and Ransom see it as their job to stop the forces between Weston:

And we have also evidence—increasing almost daily—that ‘Weston,’ or the force or forces behind ‘Weston,’ will play a very important part in the events of the next few centuries, and, unless we prevent them, a very disastrous one.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

The use of fiction

Ransom thought that in fiction they could get a fair hearing and possibly even reach a wider audience. Lewis was al little less convinced, suggesting that fiction might make it less believable, but Ransom insists that there would be enough clues for some people to realize its truth and to seek them out. The other reason was to get past watchful dragons:

…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…

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

Andrew quoted a section from this letter about how Lewis’ project is “catching the reader unawares-thro’ fiction and symbol”:

My thought and talent (such as they are) now flow in different, though I trust not less Christian, channels, and I do not think I am at all likely to write more directly theological pieces. The last work of that work which I attempted had to be abandoned. If I am now good for anything it is for catching the reader unawares—thro’ fiction and symbol. I have done what I could in the way of frontal attacks, but now I feel quite sure those days are over.

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Carl F. H. Henry (28/9/55)

07. “The wartime message”

Matt asked about the battle that’s going on and David quoted this passage from Scripture:

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12

08. “Subsequent events…”

Ransom makes a curious comment, which probably may refer to the events which will culminate in World War II:

These events have already made it rather a prologue to our story than the story itself.. For the later stages of the adventure…  ‘That is another story.’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)

Matt referenced A Compass for Deep Heaven, edited by Dr. Diana Glyer.

09. “Ransom’s Letter”

The final section of the book is an extract, drawn from a letter by Ransom to Lewis.

10. “Inklings feedback”

Explaining the Postscript

We suggested that Lewis wrote this after reading it to the Inklings.

Limits of language

I know [the hrossa], Lewis; that’s what you can’t get into a mere story…

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

In the narrative, Ransom is a bit disappointed in the text, sad that the philological parts have been ruthlessly cut down. He agrees that the story needs to be telescoped, but he isn’t happy about it:

Those quiet weeks, the mere living among the hrossa, are to me the main thing that happened. 

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

He’s sad that it doesn’t fully convey the atmosphere and people of Mars. The limits of words…

Plot holes

Andrew mentions the story recounted by Ruth Pitter where she stumped Lewis by asking where the oranges for the Beaver’s marmalade came from if the land was covered in snow.

Inkling influence

Andrew mentioned Dr. Diana Glyer’s book, Bandersnatch, where she points out the Tolkien’s edits to his work following a discussion with Lewis.

Allusions to arguments

There’s a line where Ransom digs at Lewis for “knowing the devil of a lot about them [the readers]”, suggesting that they’ve crossed swords over what details to include in the story, but in this letter Ransom gives a handful of examples of things not yet included…

11. “Miscellaneous”

Ransom example he gives is some miscellaneous data bout the hrossa…

Temperatures and themometers

…the normal temperature of a hross is 103°… they live about 80 Martian years, or 160 earth years; that they marry at about 20 (= 40); that their droppings, like those of the horse, are not offensive to themselves, or to me, and are used for agriculture; that they don’t shed tears, or blink; that they do get (as you would say) ‘elevated’ but not drunk on a gaudy night—of which they have many.

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

For David, this just begs a bunch of questions: Why does Lewis take a thermometer with him on holiday and how has it saved vacations?!  How does he know the hross temperature? Did he have the thermometer with him?!

Hnau and pets

Another example of something not communicated in the book is the relationship between the hnau and the lower animals:

For example, can I make even you understand how I know, beyond all question, why it is that the Malacandrians don’t keep pets and, in general, don’t feel about their ‘lower animals’ as we do about ours? Naturally it is the sort of thing they themselves could never have told me. One just sees why when one sees the three species together. Each of them is to the others both what a man is to us and what an animal is to us. They can talk to each other, they can co-operate, they have the same ethics; to that extent a sorn and a hross meet like two men. But then each finds the other different, funny, attractive as an animal is attractive. Some instinct starved in us, which we try to soothe by treating irrational creatures almost as if they were rational, is really satisfied in Malacandra. They don’t need pets.

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

Diversity

Ransom also notes that the three species are less homogeneous than described. There are silver hrossa, crested hrossa (who are dancers), he saw at least one white hross, and there are also red seroni called “soroborn”

Prifltriggi Facts

He also shares more information about the prifltriggi. He says it would be tempting to including a fictional visit in the book to see their home, but says that he doesn’t feel right about it. Here are the additional facts:

…they are oviparous [youngs from eggs] and matriarchal, and short-lived compared with the other species… they inhabit… the old ocean-beds of Malacandra

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

12. “Eldila Questions”

Intelligence flows for their bodies?

Lewis seems to have asked Ransom about the relationship between the nature of the eldila bodies and their intelligence. In response, Ransom asserts that they are two independent features, with their intelligence no necessarily flowing from their body type:

…the eldila had bodies different from those of planetary animals, and that they were superior in intelligence.

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

In fact, Ransom quotes Chaucer’s “The House of Fame”, suggesting that there may be  irrational animals with the same sort of bodies as eldila.

A nod to Sayers?

There is a nod to Dorothy L. Sayers’ recently-published book, Gaudy Night:

…that they [hrossa] do get (as you would say) ‘elevated’ but not drunk on a gaudy night—of which they have many

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

How can they be heard?

The text also addresses the “problem of eldil speech” – how can persons without bodies speak and be heard? Do they manipulate the air or manipulate the ears of the hearers?

He runs these theories past “J”, a scientist he knows, prefers the latter. “J” may be JBS Haldan or Roman Jakobson.

Are they angels?

Regarding whether or not the eldila are angels, Ransom says that we just don’t have the data:

When I attempted to give Oyarsa some idea of our own Christian angelology, he certainly seemed to regard our ‘angels’ as different in some way from himself. But whether he meant that they were a different species, or only that they were some special military caste (since our poor old earth turns out to be a kind of Ypres Salient in the universe), I don’t know.

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

David thinks this is just to throw off the scent folks who might be suspecting what Lewis is doing in this book as he sneaks past watchful dragons!

13. “Shutter Jam”

Ransom also wants Lewis to point out in the text that their shutters on the ship jammed:

Without this, your description of our sufferings from excessive light on the return journey raises the very obvious question, ‘Why didn’t they close their shutters?’ I don’t believe your theory that ‘readers never notice that sort of thing.’ I’m sure I should.

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

14. “Missing Scenes”

Ransom includes two scenes he wishes could have been included…

15. “Scene #1: The hross funeral”

The first is a scene of an early morning Malacandra with three hrossa going to Meldilorn to die.

It is, in fact, a hross funeral. Those three with the grey muzzles whom they have helped into the boat are going to Meldilorn to die. For in that world, except for some few whom the hnakra gets, no one dies before his time. All live out the full span allotted to their kind, and a death with them is as predictable as a birth with us. The whole village has known that those three will die this year, this month; it was an easy guess that they would die even this week. And now they are off, to receive the last counsel of Oyarsa, to die, and to be by him ‘unbodied.’ The corpses, as corpses, will exist only for a few minutes: there are no coffins in Malacandra, no sextons, churchyards, or undertakers. The valley is solemn at their departure, but I see no signs of passionate grief. They do not doubt their immortality, and friends of the same generation are not torn apart. You leave the world, as you entered it, with the ‘men of your own year.’ Death is not preceded by dread nor followed by corruption.

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

16. “Scene #2: Jupiter Ascending”

Lights in the sky

The second scene is of night. Ransom is messing around in the water with Hyoi, and then he sees the night sky. It’s blacker and brighter than on earth:

Imagine the Milky Way magnified—the Milky Way seen through our largest telescope on the clearest night. And then imagine this, not painted across the zenith, but rising like a constellation behind the mountain-tops—a dazzling necklace of lights brilliant as planets, slowly heaving itself up till it fills a fifth of the sky and now leaves a belt of blackness between itself and the horizon. It is too bright to look at for long, but it is only a preparation.

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

The king arrives

But this is only a preparation for the rising of Jupiter (Glundandra):

There is a glow like moonrise on the harandra. Ahihra! cries Hyoi, and other baying voices answer him from the darkness all about us. And now the true king of night is up, and now he is threading his way through that strange western galaxy and making its lights dim by comparison with his own. I turn my eyes away, for the little disk is far brighter than the Moon in her greatest splendour… —Jupiter rising beyond the Asteroids and forty million miles nearer than he has ever been to earthly eyes. 

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

We didn’t know what “Ahihra” means? “Look”? We find out that Jupiter is important, but Ransom doesn’t know why:

Glundandra (Jupiter) is the greatest of these and has some importance in Malacandrian thought which I cannot fathom. He is ‘the centre,’ ‘great Meldilorn,’ ‘throne’ and ‘feast.’ 

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

Andrew played a section of “Jupiter” from “The Planets” by Gustav Holst:

Jupiter is connected with Maleldil somehow…

They are, of course, well aware that he is uninhabitable, at least by animals of the planetary type; and they certainly have no pagan idea of giving a local habitation to Maleldil. But somebody or something of great importance is connected with Jupiter; as usual ‘The séroni would know.’ 

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

17. “The Great Africanus”

Towards the end, he quotes Cicero, from “De officiis”, where he refers to a Roman General:

‘…he was never less alone than when alone, so, in our philosophy, no parts of this universal frame are less to be called solitarie than those which the vulgar esteem most solitarie, since the withdrawing of men and beasts signifieth but the greater frequency of more excellent creatures.’

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

Andrew referenced Lewisian.nl’s commentary on Out of the Silent Planet.

18. “The Dark Tower”

Lewis hints towards his attempted sequel, The Dark Tower:

More of this when you come. I am trying to read every old book on the subject that I can hear of. Now that ‘Weston’ has shut the door, the way to the planets lies through the past; if there is to be any more space-travelling, it will have to be time-travelling as well . . .!

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

Andrew interviews Dr. Junius Johnson about this work in two weeks (S6E28).

Wrap-Up

Upcoming Episodes

We’ll be having a few more episodes relating to the Ransom Trilogy, but after that we will be beginning “Jack’s Bookshelf” series afterwards!

Concluding thoughts

Read this stuff carefully and slowly!

Question-of-the-week

How has your view of space changed over the course of this book?

Question-of-the-week

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