That Hideous Strength

This book* is the final instalment in C.S. Lewis's Space trilogy (see here for the first & second ones) - and whooo boy, is it a stonker. It's very different from the first two - being longer than both of them put together, much darker in tone & content, with several dozen characters rather than the less-than-ten of the prior instalments, and whereas books one & two developed their sci-fi themes by entailing the visiting of other planets & conversing with alien species in this one we are restricted to three or four small rural English towns; it also somewhat straddles the line between sci-fi & fantasy as the machinations of the eldila manifest much more strongly. As is my wont with series, this being the third book of the trilogy, I will endeavour to give a quick [spoiler-free] summary of the plot before diving into some broader reflections on the characters, themes, etc. of the series as a whole.

   So - the story. We follow a young married couple, Mark & Jane Studdock. Mark is a fellow of sociology at Bracton College, in the small [fictional] university town of Edgestow; Jane is currently working through a doctorate on John Donne [the 17th-century metaphysical poet]. Bracton is currently facing a dilemma over its dealings with the NICE [the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments; nice acronym, Lewis] who want to purchase land off it for reasons unclear. Mark is, by and by, brought by his associate Feverstone [slight spoiler alert - this is Devine from the first book] into direct contact and possibly employment by the NICE: though the more time Mark spends in that world the more questions he has about its moral intent. Jane, meanwhile, has started having clairvoyant dreams: after seeking help for this she is brought into contact with a ragtag collective of people following some indiscernible purpose under the stewardship of a man called the Director [spoiler alert - this is Dr Ransom from the first two books]. Tensions are high, the stakes keep getting raised, questions go unanswered, the pride of science & bureaucracy rear their monstrous heads, and the mounting conspiracy rolls us with a tremendous crescendo throughout the course of the plot. Oh yeh, and Merlin's knocking about somewhere, and both NICE and Ransom's collective want to get him on their side.

   Lewis did in fact intend this novel as an imaginative exploration of the ideas he presented in his essays The Abolition of Man, but I think they come through far more clearly & powerfully here than they did in his non-fiction. The themes of man's struggle with/against nature [including, in the final event, human nature] in the light of cold reason & the essentiality of moral truth, given the chaos that questioning it too skeptically can induce, are both explored here with prosaic perfection. Other remarks I will make about this novel specifically are that Mr. Bultitude is the greatest fictional bear I have ever encountered, "the Head" is truly horrifying as a quasi-impotent villain, Lewis's Merlin is the most original Merlin I have seen in book or on screen, the Inklings** get a couple of generous hat-tips (eg. Tolkien's Numénor is referenced several times as "the true original West" [albeit spelled "Numinor" by Lewis] & Barfield gets a mention without even changing his name), and chapter fourteen ends with the best description of a mystical experience I have ever read outside of actual mystics' own works.

   But what of the series as a whole? I have to say, despite this third one being such a dramatic superficial departure from the first two, the thematic coherence presented across all three is remarkably tight, and builds organically in a truly epic manner. The ideas of innocence, Fallenness, experience, redemption, etc. are explored with poetic precision - one could easily write a PhD digging into the metaphysical & theological dimensions of this trilogy's world. Lewis here is at his best, most inventive writing self; whether the floral beauty of the descriptive passages in Perelandra, the alien strangeness of the races on Malacandra, the unutterable transcendence of the eldila & especially the Oyarsas, the turns of deft phrasing that convey complex feelings exactly, the purposed depth of the dialogue - this trilogy might be the best thing Lewis ever wrote, because not only does it make a heap of philosophically & religiously chewy points, but it also works as a coherent compelling story in its own right. Mark & Jane, as Weston, as Devine, as the several-dozen other characters in the third one [especially Mrs. Ironwood & "the Fairy" Hardcastle] are rich & believable; and at the beating heart of the cast Dr. Ransom undergoes a prodigious character arc over the course of the trilogy, from unassuming academic to a sage who converses with archangels, but he never loses the sense of being a somewhat relatable everyman for the audience to cling to as the worlds are unveiled. There are also curious ruminations on the nature of gender particularly in the second and third books, but I won't start unpicking that here.

   I absolutely loved reading this trilogy. Lewis is as well known for his incredibly insightful & edifying Christian apologetics but is most famous for The Chronicles of Narnia - but call it writing better for adults [rude] this trilogy is in my opinion far superior in its potency of theme & display of imagination & even prose style. I would highly recommend these books to anyone who enjoys a good sci-fi and/or fantasy adventure that's as thought-provoking as it is unpredictable: and while to be sure there are overt Christian messages littered throughout, these are not polemical or evangelical in form & are so well-integrated into the overall fabric of the story that even Philip Pullman would have to admit it's not unreasonable to have them in there.

* Certainly not to be confused with this terrible book of the same title.

** The Inklings were an informal club of creative Oxford academics of whom Lewis was a core member, alongside J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and others. They used to meet weekly at The Eagle and Child [nice pub if you're ever in Oxford and fancy a pint where great minds have been] to discuss their works and ideas.

Perelandra

This book by C.S. Lewis is the second in his Space trilogy (see here for the first - as always with my posts about series I am here going to give a spoiler-free[ish] summary of the plot, reserving my reflections on the characters & themes for the post about the last one).

   We open with the narrator, Lewis (an obvious author self-insert if ever I saw one) recounting his recent visit to his friend Dr. Elwin Ransom, the protagonist. Ransom is mysteriously abducted & then returned & then recounts his travels to Lewis, which is from where we get the prose narrative of the majority of the book. Ransom had been taken to Perelandra (i.e. Venus) by the eldila, where, after a few chapters of frankly gorgeous scenic descriptive passages, he finally meets another humanoid - the 'Green Lady' as she is called. Ransom & the Green Lady have a shared language thanks to Ransom's time on Malacandra [Mars] but little shared in terms of communicable concepts, given the essential innocence of the Lady's world. In no short order though, Professor Weston (as in the antagonist of the first book) lands on Perelandra in his space-ship, and soon learns of the single divine command given to the Lady and the only other sentient inhabitant of this world, whom she calls 'the King', that they are never to spend a night on fixed land.* Weston, whom Ransom almost immediately perceives as to be under devilish control,** spends several chapters whispering poison to the Lady to doubt & thus eventually transcend this command of Maleldil, combated rhetorically (and eventually physically) by Ransom. I don't want to spoil the ending so I will leave off here, about halfway through the book, but let me assure you that when we finally meet 'the King' and realise the metaphysical & eschatological implications of a world having narrowly escaped its 'Fall' (to use a classical Christian term) the sublimity of the descriptive passages reaches new undreamt-of heights. Truly a great book with much on the nature of innocence, obedience, and sin to provoke deep thought.

   The third book in the trilogy is almost twice as long as this one, but I'm enjoying them so much that I might finish it sooner that expected. In any case, watch this space for my overall ruminations on the trilogy.

* As Perelandra is basically an ocean planet, with the vast majority of its 'land' being free-floating vegetative islands, with the exception of a tiny minority of 'fixed' land that is rooted to the spot amid the roiling oceans.

** The devil, or "The Bent One" as known in trans-solar language, is in these books a real metaphysical entity determined to sway sentient beings away from the will of Maleldil, a.k.a. God. I have to say that Lewis's descriptive depictions of evil as it is in this book is just as horrifying & unsettling as his more beauteous description of the Perelandran landscapes are edifying & inspiring. Why couldn't he have brought this style of prose to Narnia? As imaginative as it may well be, I can't help but affirm that Lewis is letting his imagination find much greater fruit here in his sci-fi for adults than he ever did in his fantasy for children. Which is a shame.

Out of the Silent Planet

This book is the first instalment of C.S. Lewis's Space trilogy. As is my wont when dealing with series, in this post I will only give a rough [spoiler-free] sketch of the story & reserve my broader reflections on characters/themes/etc for the post about the final book.

   We are introduced to Dr. Ransom, a Cambridge philologist on a walking holiday. Quite by chance he bumps into an old schoolmate whom he cordially dislikes, named Devine, and his associate, an eminent physicist named Weston. The pair invite Ransom back for a drink, and - lo! - he finds himself drugged. Ransom wakes up on a spaceship headed for the planet Malacandra [spoiler alert - it's Mars] where his captors intend to sell him as a sacrifice to the planet's locals in exchange for precious objects. Upon arrival however, Ransom manages to escape their clutches, and soon finds himself embroiled in a rambling, largely aimless adventure during which he is introduced one-by-one to the three sentient races peopling Malacandra - the seal-like poets, hrossa; the spindly-humanoid thinkers, sorns; and the frog-like masons, pfifltriggi. Each of these alien races are deliciously well-sketched in both physiology & culture, displaying an imagination far beyond the folklore-lucky-dip population of Narnia, to make a harsh but fair comparison with Lewis's other forays into imaginative fiction. Ransom spends long enough with these locals to get to grips with their language, but when Devine & Weston shoot dead the hross whom he had best befriended, he is prompted to go on a solitary quest in pursuit of the eldila, spiritual-ish beings who are revered on Malacandra, and who the locals think it is important Ransom explain himself to. We find out why in the final few chapters, in which the conflicting philosophies of Malacandra & the silent planet Thulcandra [i.e. Earth] are brought into colourful dialogue.

   I really enjoyed this book* - it has a lot of really interesting anthropological & ethical reflections littered casually throughout, and is told in lively immersive prose; I look forward to reading the next two books soon.

* Arguably not as much as I apparently did the first time I tried to read it, though that was back in the summer of 2020 while I was midway through a psychotic break - as is evidenced by the insanely dense underlinings & annotations on the first five or so pages [as well as pages 42-3 for some reason] of my copy of this book.