Out of the Silent Planet

"Yes. This is the first in the Space Trilogy , and as implied by both titles, this is technically Lewis trying his hand at sci fi . But it reads like fantasy. There is something mythic and luscious about his version of Mars, which is not Mars in any meaningful sense at all. We might as well have gone through a wardrobe. Dr. Elwin Ransome is kidnapped and sent to Mars against his will. In keeping with elements of his fantasy, Lewis does not seem to think highly of those who want to cross worlds – Ransome’s kidnappers in this case. They are up to no good, out to line their pockets with limited respect for the life forms of Mars. Ransome, meanwhile, becomes engaged in a quest-like story to meet a great power on the planet. The fantasy feel strikes you immediately when you read it, and you don’t have to dig very far to confirm that it was very much Lewis’ intention; he wrote to one Roger Lancelyn Green, “I like the whole interplanetary ideas as a mythology,” and recommended Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay in the same letter as being “entirely on the imaginative and not at all on the scientific wing.” To Ruth Pitter, he wrote, “From [ Voyage to Arcturus ] I first learned what other planets in fiction are really good for: for spiritual adventures. Only they can satisfy the craving which sends our imaginations off the earth. Or putting it another way, in him I first saw the terrific results produced by the union of two kinds of fiction hitherto kept apart: the Novalis, G. Macdonald, James Stephens sort and the H. G. Wells, Jules Verne sort.” (Although, I should add, he abhorred the actual content of Lindsay’s philosophy). His aim, then, is to move you, myth-style, and I think he has a fair amount of success. It’s beautiful in places, and also interesting to realise he was writing against the implicit morality he saw in much other space exploration writing. Also, while we’re digging into the origins – Dr Ransome is a philologist and uses his specialism to learn the aliens’ language. There are definite shades of Tolkien there… We’re back at the Inklings again."