C S Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet” — a Commentary

CS Lewis

By default, I am the leader of a reading group made up of seven Christian men.  All of us are retired, and this activity gets us out of the house (and briefly out of our wives’ hair).  We have made it through a number of books, and are now working our way through C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy.  It is his attempt at writing science fiction — a genre perhaps fifty-plus years in development at the time the first book, Out of the Silent Planet (hereafter referred to as OSP).  It was published in 1938.

A confession:  I am not really a fan of Lewis.  This makes me the odd duck of the group.  But for the good of all, I relented.  Upon reading OSP we were all scratching our heads as we tried to find its purpose.  In jest, I commented that the novel is “Narnia on LSD.”  There was agreement with the assessment.  However, prior to our discussion of the book, I called a friend who is a champion of Lewis’ works.  “What is the purpose of OSP?”  There was a pause, “Well, it’s really to introduce the character of Ransom.”  This honest answer gave me the key to my analysis of his character, and his importance in the three books.

Allow me to introduce you to Elwin Ransom.  He is about 40 plus-years of age.  He is “a pious man,” and is a professor of philology at Cambridge University (is this nod to JRR Tolkien even though he was with Oxford?).  The book begins by informing the reader that he is on a walking holiday in the English countryside.  On his way to find lodging for the night, he assists a woman who is distraught:  her son has not returned from his day’s work at a nearby house.  Ransom, with some difficulty, makes his way to the house.  Two men receive him onto their property.  They are Dr Weston, an arrogant, sociopathic, elitist physicist (a parallel to our day’s arrogant, sociopathic, technocratic elite), and his investor who is named Devine, who is nearly amoral as Weston.  The boy is dismissed and returns to his mother.  However, to take the place of the boy, Ransom is drugged and abducted, and is then put on board Weston’s space ship which is to travel to Malacandra (Mars).

The analysis of Ransom begins with reference to Dr Martin Shaw’s book, Liturgies of the Wild.  Shaw is a professor of mythologies, and in the book he analyzes  the three-step process involved in the “hero’s quest” of a mythological tale.  The first step, according to Shaw, is the point of Severance:

You break with the familiar when a threat comes to shake up what you thought you knew.  The initiatory summons has arrived, and you have to set out, no matter how your legs may totter.

Hence, Ransom has his point of Severance that begins with his abduction.  Let me add that in Tolkien’s famous works of fantasy fiction, both Bilbo and Frodo have their points of Severance, as do the rabbits of Richard Adams’ Watership Down.

After Severance comes the second step:  Threshold.  Shaw defines Threshold for us:

You encounter the world turned upside down.  This period may last for a significant amount of time.  There may be a journey…It can be baffling, depressing, and a wasteland or a sea storm, but you will be rewired in some fashion…and redeemed by the holy.

Tolkien, in his essay entitled, “On Fairy-Stories,” calls Shaw’s Threshold Faerie, or The Perilous Realm.  He describes it in this way:

Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons:  it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it:  tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted…Most good “fairy-stories” are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon it shadowy marches.

This is where and how Ransom is tranformed.  Upon landing on Malacandra, he escapes Weston and Devine (who plan to kill him as a human sacrifice)— he runs into the bewildering and unknown world of the alien planet.  Tolkien, by the above quote, states many and varied creatures may be encountered.  And so it is for Ransom.  He encounters Hyoi, a Hrossa, a tall otter-like creature.  They befriend each other.  Hyoi takes Ransom to his village where he begins to understand them and their language.  Later, they, together with other Hrossa, go on a dangerous hunting expedition to kill a violent animal called a hnakra.  By means of the hunting expedition, Ransom observes his “rewiring”:

It was necessary and the necessary was always possible.  Perhaps, too, there was something in the air he now breathed, or in the society of the hrossa, which had begun to work a change in him.

The hnarkra, the enemy of the hrossa, was killed by them, and Ransom has “a new-found manhood.”  

They had stood shoulder to shoulder in the face of and enemy, and the shape of their heads no longer mattered. and he, even Ransom, had come through it and not been disgraced.  He had grown up.

Ransom’s time in Threshold — the Perilous Realm — continues, and he encounters more challenges and dangers.  He meets more creatures such as the tall, spindly Sorns as well as the eldila (a species of angels), and the ruling seraph of Malacandra named Oyarsa.  So, we come to the third step of Shaw’s process:  The Return.

Having journeyed through the Threshold…you come upon, and take to yourself a gift that you can impart to others.  The prize you gain must be shared with others, otherwise you have no return.

Ransom, though by force, had left the comfortable, the familiar, and the ordinary.  He entered into Threshold — the Perilous Realm —quite apart from his “civilized” life in Cambridge.  In Malacandra he had to trust an alien and immerse himself into their world, ways, and lives.  There, he was passing through both danger and fear which would never have happened in England.  By this, he received the gifts of manhood and courage.  He will return to Earth with these gifts.  The Space Trilogy will continue, and these gifts will be shared with others on another world.  In this other world, Perelandra, he will re-enter the Threshold once more while on a journey commissioned by the seraph Oyarsa.  .

Whether Ransom, Bilbo, Frodo — or you or me, at some time we will have our own points of Severance, Threshold, and Return thrust upon us.  Whatever may come your way, my way, or our way, we are not to reside in self or curl up into some pathetic, whimpering ball.  We are to step out the door to begin the journey of faith and growth in Christ who gives us our own hero’s quests.

In Christ, and together with Christ in the Threshold,

Fr Irenaeus