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Title: Out of the Silent Planet
Title: Out of the Silent Planet
Series:
Space Trilogy #1
Author:
C.S. Lewis
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
SFF
Pages:
241
Format:
Digital Edition
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Synopsis: Spoilers |
Professor Ransom, taking a long sabbatical from work, is walking about England for the sheer heck of it. He gets involved in a situation with a former classmate and ends up being kidnapped and taken to another planet as a human sacrifice. He escapes and begins to learn a little bit about this new [to him] world, Malacandra and eventually comes before the ruler of the world to face his kidnappers and learn what fate awaits him.
The postscript, or Epilogue, takes a
slightly different tone and is from the viewpoint of Lewis, who has
been hired by Ransom to tell his story. Lewis learns that Ransom is
not a balmy old bat but a man with some seriously influential
spiritual friends. Ends with Ransom being prepared for some sort of
mission.
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My Thoughts:
|
This Space Trilogy has a story associated with it for me, so please bear with me as I meanderingly make my way to the actual review. When I was in 3rd grade, our school had a book fair and in one of the “big kids” booths was this paperback trilogy in a nice slipcase:
Not
the best picture, but shows the colors and the picture that just drew
me in. The books themselves are light blue, orangey'-red and then a
darker blue. For whatever reason, when I saw this set, for $8, my 3rd
grade self knew that I would DIE if I couldn't own these. My father
lent me the money [where he got it, I have no idea, as we were
literally dirt poor] and thus I became the proud owner. I manfully
struggled through the first book, understanding it was about a man
going to another planet. I simply read, without comprehending a
thing, the second book and the size of the 3rd
one kept me from even trying it. It wasn't until years later in
highschool that I revisited these and “understood” what I was
reading. But I will always associate these books with that feeling of
OWNING my first Grown Up books.
Onward!
I
really enjoyed this read. The main reason for it being a 3.5star read
has more to do with comparison than a lack in the book itself. I
read this primarily as a Science Fiction book and not as a
theological one wrapped in an SFF wrapper. In that regards, there are
a lot of better written, more enjoyable, more fleshed out books out
there.
The
other thing that dragged it down a bit for me was the epilogue with
Lewis and from Lewis's point of view. It was supposed to be fearful,
unsure and unconvinced, but I didn't like that change of tone from
Ransom's earlier in the book. Maybe I'm just so mired in the mundane
that I have lost any fear, in the right sense of the word, of the
spiritual world and Lewis's account just made me uncomfortable with
the reality?
I did
find it interesting to see how Lewis dealt with the very idea of
“aliens”. I also realized just how deeply formed my views on life
and how humans interact with the universe have been shaped by this
book. As a Christian I'm not convinced God has created other
lifeforms beyond angels and humans but if He has, I can totally buy
into Lewis's idea of a Quarantine around Earth because of the Fall of
Man starting with Adam and Eve. I suspect that a lot of the
conclusions that I've come to on my own about alien life are, in
fact, the workings out of my initial reading of this book back in 3rd
grade.
The
next book, Perelandra, is
a very different beast, so we'll see how my read of that goes. I
suspect I'll be looking at much more from the theological and
philosophical than just the SF angle.
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