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] univeristy 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, Lewis's Merlin is the most original Merlin I have seen in book or on screen, & 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.
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