The Space Trilogy

C.S. Lewis book list

PrinceOfTheWest said:
A complete library of Lewis' works would be quite a collection. I don't have one, but I've got most of his works, including all of the most common theological ones. (Except I keep lending them out - I recently had to go get new copies of Screwtape and Mere Christianity!)
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Here is a List of books, available thru Amazon, written by C. S. Lewis.
 
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pacifiquesea said:
That Hideous Strength was my favorite as well! Hooray for someone else who likes it best. So many parts I loved, especially when Mark is put into the room where all of the symmetry is just a little bit off, and it doesn't warp him but makes him better.... and the inclusion of Numenorian mythology! I wonder what Tolkien thought about that.

What does anyone make of the way he plays around with first the Roman mythology and then with the whole Arthurian/Merlin thing?
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Boy have I got a loooong way to read in this thread! I'm quoting from, what, page 2?

That Hideous Strength was the toughest for me. It was 200 pages before it started to really move along, but once it did, I felt very rewarded. In fact, for a long, long time it was my favorite of the three. I can't say it still is, or if so, just barely. The whole things with the oyarsae of the various planets coming down, was really amazing to me. Also having Merlin show up. And I loved the confusion of languages scene. Hilarious and meaningful at the same time.

By the way, Tolkien did not really appreciate Lewis's back-handed compliment regarding Numenor... it's in one of his Letters.

Funny, I didn't think of it as Roman mythology as much as Lewis's own take on archangels and planets. Reminds me of a quote from Lewis: "Stars are not just balls of gas; that may be what they're made of, but it's not what they ARE." Anyway.... back to reading this loooong thread. :p
 
I know I haven't, but I think I've come across that book before.

Anyways, is there some sort of compilations of the Space Trilogy, you know, like what they did with the Narnia series, compile them into one book? I just thought having three books is just to cumbersome ...

Adib.
 
Why Won't Anyone Write Back To Me

I love narnia ok am I not in the club...look guys I LOVE NARNIA OK just because I'm stuck in the white witch's castle doesn't mean I don't love narnia!

I AM PRINCESS PETAL TRUE QUEEN/PRINCESS OF NARNIA
 
Okay, narnia4eva, consider yourself written back to! I'm glad you love Narnia - I have since childhood. How are things in the castle? A little stiff, perhaps? :)

God bless, and Merry Christmas!
 
Hey there king of the west a.k.a. edmund

lol I'm glad someone finally got the joke everyone seems to take me so seriously when I say I'm stuck in a castle geez! thanks for writing back! what is your favorite book? What did you think of the movie?
 
I Perelandra is slow getting started. And Out of the Silent Planet is a little better.(I ended up reading the 2nd one first and the 1st one second and I havent read That Hideous Strength yet)
 
some analytical blathering about the nakedness theme

I just finished reading this spectacular trilogy for the first time, and skimmed through this thread to see what others thought of it.

I'm used to reading C.S. Lewis for the primary purpose of wrapping my mind around some nourishing spiritual and intellectual food, delighting in new perspectives and savoring familiar ones, especially after I've been consumed by trivial things for too long a period.

But I have to say, I became far more emotionally invoved in this Ransom trilogy than I expected to. I was looking for spiritual food and found it in plenty, but the story and characters themselves would have kept me reading even if I hadn't picked up on anything else.

Lewis's world-creation is captivating in OotSP and Perelandra, and "That Hideous Strength's" unveiling of motive and momentum in our own world is terribly profound, and usefully embarrassing.

And speaking of embarrassing, some amusing posts way back there were discussing the possibility of filming the trilogy, although the characters' nakedness in Perelandra would present an artistic difficulty. That got me to thinking about nakedness as a theme that runs not just through Perelandra, but through OotSP and THS, as well.

In OotSP, Ransom is, at first, naked in his naivety and vulnerability, kidnapped and escaped on a foreign planet where he fears death from sacrifice if he is caught, and death from starvation or exposure if he is not caught. He has no hope of returning home, and no hope of finding the comfort of friends if he manages to keep himself alive. He is effectually stripped of all solace and hope, made utterly alone. Of course, thank Maledil that that nakedness doesn't last longer than one day and night! Ransom neither starves nor remains alone and friendless. And his fears of being made a human sacrifice are put to rest, at least until the next book!

Then in Perelandra, Ransom is physically naked, as Adam was and is. But this time there is no danger of exposure or starvation; the world supports life almost effortlessly, and nakedness is both necessary, because of the warmth, and beautiful, because the body relaxes in the state of existence it was originally built for, basking in the warmth of God and His creation.

Then in THS, it is the world that is stripped naked; human motives and temptations and faults, the traps and snares of the devil, the goodness and grace and mercy of God, are all exposed in their true shapes and colors. The polarity of good and evil is no longer a convention of story and myth, but a clarifying image of the way things really are. Every thought and every action is either for God or against him. Both good actions and bad actions have their momentum and can snowball without warning. Both Jane and Mark come to realize that their own actions can determine the fate of others. Both Jane and Mark are made naked as part of a healing and reconciliating process; they are taught that their past views and attitudes were mistaken. They both come to God along opposite but like paths; Mark by discovering what true evil means, and Jane by witnessing what the truly good can do about it.

Oh, that's only scratching the surface. Does anyone have anything to correct or contribute? I'll be reading this trilogy over and over in the future, I am sure.
 
searchingforacalling said:
And speaking of embarrassing, some amusing posts way back there were discussing the possibility of filming the trilogy, although the characters' nakedness in Perelandra would present an artistic difficulty. That got me to thinking about nakedness as a theme that runs not just through Perelandra, but through OotSP and THS, as well.

In OotSP, Ransom is, at first, naked in his naivety and vulnerability, kidnapped and escaped on a foreign planet where he fears death from sacrifice if he is caught, and death from starvation or exposure if he is not caught. He has no hope of returning home, and no hope of finding the comfort of friends if he manages to keep himself alive. He is effectually stripped of all solace and hope, made utterly alone. Of course, thank Maledil that that nakedness doesn't last longer than one day and night! Ransom neither starves nor remains alone and friendless. And his fears of being made a human sacrifice are put to rest, at least until the next book!

Then in Perelandra, Ransom is physically naked, as Adam was and is. But this time there is no danger of exposure or starvation; the world supports life almost effortlessly, and nakedness is both necessary, because of the warmth, and beautiful, because the body relaxes in the state of existence it was originally built for, basking in the warmth of God and His creation.

Then in THS, it is the world that is stripped naked; human motives and temptations and faults, the traps and snares of the devil, the goodness and grace and mercy of God, are all exposed in their true shapes and colors. The polarity of good and evil is no longer a convention of story and myth, but a clarifying image of the way things really are. Every thought and every action is either for God or against him. Both good actions and bad actions have their momentum and can snowball without warning. Both Jane and Mark come to realize that their own actions can determine the fate of others. Both Jane and Mark are made naked as part of a healing and reconciliating process; they are taught that their past views and attitudes were mistaken. They both come to God along opposite but like paths; Mark by discovering what true evil means, and Jane by witnessing what the truly good can do about it.
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May I use that in class? We're reading THS, and that's something I'd *never* thought of!
 
Yah, Searching, your comments on this theme were also something I had never considered! Well done!

Now you have made me want to read the Trilogy again and see what new insights I can find. But I am in the middle of the LOTR trilogy again ... I thank God for JRRT and CSL when I am too poor to buy more books.
 
*blushes and takes a bow*

Warrior-Poet51088 said:
May I use that in class? We're reading THS, and that's something I'd *never* thought of!
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I'm flattered, W.P. I didn't think my post was all that worthy of class discussion. But yes, you may use it, if you swear poet's honor that you'll give me credit! ;) (Just say it's from a recently graduated English major in Illinois, who wishes she was still in "Tejas!!")

What class are you taking? Someday I'm going back to school for the express purpose of sitting in a class on Lewis and/or Tolkien. My academic career is incomplete without it! :D
 
We're reading it for the government section of a "worldviews" class, analysing the implications of having a humanistic rationalist government (N.I.C.E.), specifically how they would naturally seek to wipe out Christianity (e.g., St. Anne's, Cure Hardy; all the quaint, traditional English items in the book); no idea is neutral.



Where in Tejas are you from? I might not end up using that, as the teacher doesn't seem to be headed in that strain; it might be taken as a tangent (which, in this class, especially, is very bad!).
 
"No idea is neutral" -- how true! Sounds like a well-taught class (but I'd say that of any class that found an excuse to incorporate Lewis!) It's too bad your teacher isn't fond of tangents ;)

I'm from Sugar Land, Texas (just southwest of Houston,) but I left for college in 2001, and my family moved out of the state in 2003. I sure miss it!
 
I have! My favorite is Perelandra, but I think the most important is That Hideous Strength. Almost prophetic in its understanding of how moral decay strikes at the heart of a culture.
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
I have! My favorite is Perelandra, but I think the most important is That Hideous Strength. Almost prophetic in its understanding of how moral decay strikes at the heart of a culture.
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Yes, Perelandra is...happy and just kind of radiating goodness. Of course everyone likes it. After all, don't the people there achieve the thing that the people here didn't...at that was our downfall? But you're right, That Hideous Strength seems to be the point that the whole series (if you call it that) is leading up to. The way C.S. Lewis understood - way back then - where society was going and how and why it was going there is extraordinary. It isn't as 'warm and fuzzy' as Perelandra (although Perelandra isn't really warm and fuzzy either), but it is exceedingly right.:)
 
MY fave is that Hideious strenth its eerie somewhat how it resembles our culture and the fleecing of America My good freind that is in seminary said these are some of Cs Lewis best work I agree with him and I sped thru this triolgoy even quicker then Narnia and I just think its neat how he brings merlin into it too just somewhat and what the outcome is of all of The work and travel that Dr Ransom had done paid off in the end and how the old world wisdom changed them.
 
Unsurprisingly, I like the whole thing. I have a particular fondness for the part in OOTSP where Weston stands up and delivers his justification to Oyarsa, except that it has to be translated into much shorter words by Ransom and does not sound quite so grand by the time he is done.

It has to be said though that Lewis's science fiction is about fifty years off the pace - late-Victorian science jars oddly with the mid-20th-century timeframe.

I also love the depiction of Ransom and his household by the time of THS. He has drunk the waters of an unfallen world and spoken with its Adam and Eve and with archangels, and he has become Earth Man as he was meant to be. I instinctively felt that once Jane Studdock could get to Ransom, all would be well.
 
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