| $@%&! level: None “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Medium-Low (there are some fisticuffs and a few gun deaths, but the way they're told makes them more sad than violent) Back Cover: “Out of the Silent Planet begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom. Here, that estimable man is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Once on the planet, however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity.” |
Given that it is C. S. Lewis, it shouldn't be surprising that he took the opportunity to turn science fiction on its head a bit and make the story about something more. I say he turned it on its head, because in this world, humans are the bug-eyed aliens. Not literally, of course, but the people of Malacandra are all good people, to the extent that many of the things the humans take for granted—like greed and theft and domination—have to be explained to them in very simple terms. And even when they understand that these kind of things happen on Earth, they don't really understand it, in the same way that I can't understand why anyone would waste time watching reality television. (Or perhaps a bit more extreme than that, but you get the point.) So when the three humans arrive, Ransom's kidnappers wanting to exploit the new world one way or another, the Malacandrans pretty much think they're just crazy. I think my favorite bit is when Weston tries to treat the natives in rather the same way that Europeans treated Native Americans, and gets laughed down. Totally serves him right, just assuming his own superiority like that. Sheesh.
So, as I said, it's not exactly adventurous. Ransom does to a good bit of running away, but he figures out pretty quickly that the aliens don't actually want to kill him. Actually, they're much less likely to kill him than his own kind. So he settles down to learning as much about their culture and language as he can. That takes up the more part of the book, really. It's almost more of a Malacandran travelogue than anything. But the philosophies and ideologies they talk about are kind of interesting, as if Lewis had imagined as close to a perfect society as he could get. I also thought the way they discussed Earth was very insightful. And I liked the idea of space, or as Ransom puts it, the heavens, as a place of light and life, while planets are dark and heavy and dirty. It may not be accurate according to the laws of physics, but it's a deep thought and a cool idea anyway.