Tammy’s Reviews > Out of the Silent Planet > Status Update

Since noone would believe such a story, they write it as science fiction. They hope to reach open minds and hearts with important ideas before the story reaches Weston. If the story is literary enough, even better, since Weston doesn’t read trash. It may be that some people uncover the identities of key players. Space and the Heavens are two different things. Events (Perelandra) happened before they could publish.

“The planet that shall not be named”..... LOL

The manuscript tells of a journey through the heavens and he’s struggling to translate the word “oyarsas.” Of course, he is!!!!! Ransom invites him to visit for the weekend for there is no way one could put something so crazy in a letter. They decide to read old manuscripts and information about medieval Platonists to get more facts to substantiate his experience. He gives the three fake names and identities.

Ch. 22 I love the romance here. He is unconscious for the landing (figurative death). Because he spends several months ill and recovering, he questions his own sanity. Perhaps it was all a delusion. Ransom (not his real name) decides to keep quiet until he receives a letter from an acquaintance with a literary bent about an obscure word in a 12th-century manuscript written by the Platonist Bernardus Silvestris.

Two days to go and they all think it is over. They are moving away from Earth. He realizes he will die either in a few days or thirty years later. He chooses sleep. OF COURSE, he chooses sleep. It’s a space romance. He woke up with a familiar sound. It’s rain. His heart leaps and he sobs and calls out to God. The two goons left him without bothering to wake him. He leaves and it is night, pouring down rain.

He struggles with drowsiness. His right arm is stiff and sore because he presses against the console trying to push the ship. The days keep passing by. He sees Australia. Ransom cheers the ship. With ten days to go, the air is terrible. With three days go, it seems as if the moon is coming from behind the Earth which will ruin things for them. Weston cries. Devine works the controls and keeps his cool.

Weston must be out of his mind because he let Ransom take the controls. Weston is hoping to catch a cosmic trade-wind. He has Ransom set course on a star one day. Then he picks a different one on day fifty-eight. It’s like navigating a ship! He does a bell in case of emergency. He finally sees Earth as the days tick by. Navigating means longing for grass, meat, beer, tea, and the human voice.

The walls of the ship are hot. The course is mad; they are going mad. They shiver as they turn away from maximum heat. It feels cold but it is hotter than any temperature on Earth. Weston (the mind) hardly sleeps and falls into despair. He has given up his incessant calculations. Devine (the flesh) moves like a sleepwalker. Ransom stays in the dark and thinks of nothing. They are on day fifty (no speech, bad air).

While his brain reels (Luna), his heart is steady (Mars) because of the influence of the heavens. The light and heat continure to increase and they find it unbearable. With rationed water, their lips cracked and blackened, their eyeballs dilated, their cheeks are flecked with froth. It reminds me of a horse that has broken its wind. He only thinks of water. The path is cutting between the orbit of Earth and the sun.

The heavens are an ocean of eternal noon. True life is outside their little iron eggshell and he would welcome it in, even if it unbodied him. Westons’ idea of life is nothing like that of Ransom. He feels the life tenfold more since he has a better understanding of the heavens, even though he sees no signs of the eldila. He wonders what the true population of the universe with the infinitude of plenitude.