Third Time is a Charm?

C.S. Lewis and His Space Trilogy

Dear Friends,

Here’s an embarrassing confession. I have never read C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy. Despite scores of people telling me over the years that some current event or cultural upheaval is “just like such-and-such in Perelandra” or “Ransom says that in That Hideous Strength,” I still have never read these apparently profound and prescient novels.

I did try on two occasions. My first attempt came when I was in my preteen years. My mom handed me Out of the Silent Planet but I only made it a couple of chapters before giving up. My tastes for Lewis at the time were stuck in Narnia, and this Oxford don walking for fun in the English countryside did not at all captivate me. English academia and “walking” culture was simply too foreign a world for me back then.

My second attempt was probably eight or nine years ago and there was a different reason for not making it very far. I got a very good deal for the Kindle versions and I launched in with some enthusiasm. I made it a lot further; at least Dr. Ransom got to Malacandra, as I recall. I made it far enough to read that memorable paragraph where Ransom realizes that “space” is the wrong word; it is “the heavens.” The problem was, well, Kindle. I know people who just love Kindle, but on that we are not kindred spirits. There is something about not having the tactile “sense” of the book—the feel of the pages, the look of the typeface on paper, the intuition of “making progress” through a book (a little % marker is not the same as feeling the pages on the right-hand side dwindle)—that makes me feel lost and disoriented. I am curious if any of you also have that sense. I also simply got out of the habit of opening the Kindle app, so Out of the Silent Planet was soon forgotten.

Well, the third time is a charm, isn’t it? The other day Tara picked up a cute little mass market paperback boxed set of the trilogy for something like a dollar, and now I am determined to, at long last, see what the fuss is all about.