S6E8 – OSP 7+8 – “Arrival”

Ransom, Weston, and Divine arrive on Malacandra. When they are attacked, Ransom makes his escape attempt…

S6E8: “Arrival” (Download)

Clips

Show Notes

Introduction

Drop-In

• Jason Baxter

Quote-of-the-week

You cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

Episode Movie Title

Chit-Chat

• Andrew
  • At the time of recording, Andrew was about to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.  
    • Rev. Malcom Guite wrote him a poem and Phil Keaggy wrote him some music. This was posted in an earlier podcast episode.
  • He will be attending the Mere Anglicanism conference in South Carolina.
• Matt
  • He loved our season’s introductory episode which was just released!
  • Anti-hero by Taylor Swift
  • Bleachers
• David
  • Book resource pages on our website have been updated!

Toast

• Drinks
  • Andrew was drinking Jura.
  • David was drinking Ardbeg.
  • Matt was drinking a Margarita.
• Foreign language “cheers”
  • “Slánte!” (Irish)
• Patreon toast
  • Harry T Rhea

Story Recap

Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis’ first science-fiction novel and, in fact, his first novel, concerns the fate of Elwin Ransom, the Cambridge Philologist who meets an old former school-mate, gets kidnapped, and taken a mysterious planet called Malacandra. As he does, he finds himself disabused of many of his old notions and expectations of what he might find in space and begins exploring some of the spiritual ramifications of travel amongst the planets.

And in today’s chapters we find him landing on Malacandra and beginning to deal with what he finds there.

The story so far…

Discussion

1. “One small step for a philologist…”

• The healing of the blind man in Scripture (Mark 8:23-25)

…the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself…he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

• Analytical and Experiential Knowledge in Till We Have Faces is discussed in S2E34 – “After Hours” with Emily LaPorte

“You’re not—not a—?” asked Susan in a shaky voice. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ghost.

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chapter 15)

There was a tiny space of time in which I thought I could see how some swirlings of the mist had looked, for the moment, like towers and walls. But very soon, no likeness at all. I was staring simply into fog, and my eyes smarting with it.

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Part I, Chapter 12)

I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods.

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Part I, Chapter 12)

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they can not be taken out. But come, children. I have other work to do.”

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

And when some looked [at Aslan], the expression of their faces changed terribly—it was fear and hatred: except that, on the faces of Talking Beasts, the fear and hatred lasted only for a fraction of a second. You could see that they suddenly ceased to be Talking Beasts. They were just ordinary animals.

C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chapter 14)

• Malacandra’s description is reminiscent of Dr. Seuss books, such as The Lorax

…a water-colour world out of a child’s paint-box

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

• Martian gravity is 38% of that of Earth

“That’s a nasty idea. Still—a robin you know. They’re good birds in all the stories I’ve ever read. I’m sure a robin wouldn’t be on the wrong side.”

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chapter 6)

Now, with a certainty which never after deserted him…

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 6)

 It might mean death, but what a scaffold!

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

The same peculiar twist of imagination which led him to people the universe with monsters had somehow taught him to expect nothing on a strange planet except rocky desolation or else a network of nightmare machines. He could not say why, now that he came to think of it.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

They walked into the hut, let down the slats which served for windows, sniffed the close air, expressed surprise that they had left it so dirty, and presently re-emerged.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

• How far away is Mars?

As everyone who has ‘kept house’ will understand, he found that his preparations for the morning had been even more incomplete than he supposed. 

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

‘They’re human,’ he gasped. ‘They build houses?’

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

• Planet La Croix:

On the other side it was much narrower, not wider than fifteen feet perhaps, and seemed to be flowing over a shallow—broken and swirling water that made a softer and more hissing sound than water on Earth; and where it washed the hither bank—the pinkish-white vegetation went down to the very brink—there was a bubbling and sparkling which suggested effervescence.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 7)

“We were talking about St. Peter,” he said; “you remember that he was crucified upside down. I’ve often fancied his humility was rewarded by seeing in death the beautiful vision of his boyhood. He also saw the landscape as it really is: with the stars like flowers, and the clouds like hills, and all men hanging on the mercy of God.”

G.K. Chesterton, The poet and the lunatics

3. “Meeting the Sorns”

• The Uncanny Valley
• “Anthropocentric” is when one regards humankind as the central or most important element of existence, especially as opposed to God or animals.
• Martian gravity is 38% of that of Earth.
• The Great Divorce

“Think what Another World means—you might meet anything—anything.”

C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (Chapter 2)

Reality is iconoclastic

Dr. Jerry Root

• A Compass for Deep Heaven: Navigating the C. S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy edited by Dr. Diana Glyer

“In general the parallel between the popular uses of music and of pictures is close enough. Both consist of ‘using’ rather than ‘receiving’. Both rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them.”

C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

4. “Dash for liberty”

He prayed, and he felt his knife

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 8)

…he did not know why he should cross them, but for some reason he did.

C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 8)

A herd of unicorns came thundering through the glades… I heard the Ghost scream, and I think it made a bolt away from the bushes . . . perhaps towards the Spirit.

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 8)

• “Hnakra” – Malacandran Dictionary

5. “Into the wild”

• A Compass for Deep Heaven: Navigating the C. S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy edited by Dr. Diana Glyer

 For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Wrap-Up

Question-of-the-week

H.A.L.T. How does our physical condition move our mental and spiritual states, and what can we learn about ourselves from Ransom?

Question-of-the-week

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