Out of the Silent Planet

In a previous post, I wrote about the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. (Oct. 20, 08.) In 1936, they flipped a coin at Magdalen College. They had decided they themselves had to write the quality adult fairy tales they so wanted to read. Heads and Tolkien would write a time travel and Lewis a space travel. Tails and they would switch. The coin turned up heads. Tolkien eventually wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy as the time travel tale. Lewis wrote Out of the Silent Planet as the first part of his space travel trilogy.

Up till the 1930s, the most famous science fiction book was H.G. Wells' 1898 book, War of the Worlds. Wells presented extremely scary alien Martians out to invade and take over planet earth, and terminate any human life that got in their way. Orson Wells produced a radio drama broadcast on October 30, 1938, the day before Halloween. The broadcast on the Mercury Theatre on the Air literally scared people to death. Though the broadcast was clearly identified as a radio broadcast four times during the hour long broadcast, people listening believed it was a real event because of the news bulletins in documentary style that Wells innovated as part of the radio play. You can listen to the broadcast at a website devoted to Mercury Theatre broadcasts. http://www.mercurytheatre.info/

In sharp contrast, the aliens in Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet are good, caring, and even altruistic. The book was published in 1938, the same year as the as the War of the Worlds radio drama broadcast. The aliens are also Martian. However, they do not come to earth. Instead, earthlings go out of Earth (the silent planet - called Thulcandra on Mars) and go to Mars (called Malacandra on Mars). Earth is the silent planet because no one has heard from it since its Oyarsa, its spiritual ruler (Satan) led it in rebellion against the "old one" - the creator, a fate Malacandra has not undergone. This explains why the Malacandrans are essentially good - they have not undergone the fall. In contrast, the earthlings come to conquer Malacandra, with the exception of Ransom, the protagonist in the book.

Elwin Ransom bears an uncanny resemblance to Tolkien. He is a philologist and a fellow at Cambridge College. Elwin means elf-friend. Ransom thrills at meeting the Malacandrans, after overcoming his initial fear, and learning their language. Just as Tolkien developed a language for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lewis develops a language for his space trilogy. Ransom loathes his fellow earthlings who treat the Malacandrans as native children ripe for colonizing, though he eventually identifies with them enough to choose to make the return trip to Earth with them.

While traveling between planets, Ransom finds that instead of space being a cold, empty void, he feels invigorated and that it is full of light and energy. The side of the spacecraft facing the sun is in fact very warm. I find this interesting because scientists today think of space being full of dark matter instead of void space.

In this book, Lewis fully explored his imagination, his faith, and his desire to challenge modernity, and took us along for the magnificent journey of discovery.