The Space Trilogy

Frost and Wither are great because they show opposite ways that embracing evil will **** you. Wither has become dissipated to the point where there isn't any coherent man; he's spread too thin. Frost has become concentrated to the point that he's all sharp, hard, evil, driven by forces that have nothing to do with his humanity anymore. In each case, there's no "Wither" or "Frost" left to speak off -- but they were "lost" in different ways.

If you think of it, Wither sort of represents a New Age philosophy where he has embraced the oneness of everything to the point where there's no one man, Wither. And Frost ... he has refused all connection with the rest of humanity's loves and heartaches by insisting that there are no emotions -- it's all chemical reactions -- and so detachment has "detached" him from humanity. They're a great study in evil. Also I think of them as Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets.

I also love the Merlin character in this book. I love how CSL weaves in the Arthurian legend. It's beautiful.

**** I wasn't cussing! The system misunderstood how I was using a word.

I think it fascinating how the two sites, Belbury and St. Anne's, represent the two poles of human history: the City of Man and the City of God. At Belbury, men seek to ascend to power and self-exultation on the backs of others. At St. Anne's, everyone is submitted and in his proper place - even Mr. Bultitude and the mice. At Belbury, words are used to batter and intimidate, and there is no concern for truth, only the advancement of power. At St. Anne's, True Speech is spoken (if only between Ransom and the eldila) and truth is sought. It's an amazing contrast that Lewis wrought.

You have an excellent point about the Tramp, Ink. I think he's a beautiful example of how the Lord uses the simple to confound the "wise". Frost and Wither were so out of their depth that they had no idea what to expect, so a plain man who was cunning enough to survive in a harsh world but wasn't power-hungry or manipulative was opaque to them. Note that he was preserved in his simplicity - he escaped both the corruption of Belbury and its destruction. In a sense, he exemplifies some of the traits of simplicity that we are called to exhibit. He certainly lived for the moment, trusting his Father for his daily needs.

That's true. Filistrato was also a good example of a technician who lost all moral bearings in the lust to push the borders of knowledge and control of nature as far as he could. He fell prey to the outlook that just because something could be done, it should be done. He never asked if what he did was wise or moral or beneficial in the long term.

Sadly, this is one of the most prophetic visions of the entire book - the world is full of people who think this way, and they're already experimenting on humans, creating them just to tear them apart and use their cells.

PrinceOfTheWest said:

That's true. Filistrato was also a good example of a technician who lost all moral bearings in the lust to push the borders of knowledge and control of nature as far as he could. He fell prey to the outlook that just because something could be done, it should be done. He never asked if what he did was wise or moral or beneficial in the long term.

Sadly, this is one of the most prophetic visions of the entire book - the world is full of people who think this way, and they're already experimenting on humans, creating them just to tear them apart and use their cells.

Click to expand...

Very true ... You can see what is good in Filostrato, that he is smart and has an unquenchable desire to proceed with his studies, to grow in his learning and intelligence. And you see how the enemy takes what is good in him and corrupts him, shifting his focus from what good work might be done with his intellect to only caring about how far he can push himself and the science. It's a good thing, science, turned evil by its being unchained from morality. And yes, we do see that today.

Potw said:

In a sense, he exemplifies some of the traits of simplicity that we are called to exhibit. He certainly lived for the moment, trusting his Father for his daily needs.

Click to expand...

Exactly! He is enjoying himself immensely a Belbury, eating the good food, drinking the good drinks -- while he's a prisoner of these corrupt and evil people. I think this is a great illustration of how merry our lives should be in Christ -- even though we are dancing on a razor's edge in this world. We enjoy what God provides for us to enjoy, and we don't bother our heads with worries about what might happen next.

CF said:

As I'm pretty sure I've remarked before, Mister Straik, the apostate clergyman, is also an important illustrative character among the villains. He abandoned everything that was right and worthwhile in the hope of becoming a power-broker in the schemes of Belbury; but NOT ONLY did he lose his hope of Heaven, he DIDN'T EVEN get the earthly reward he hoped for. He lived and died as a mere vassal to the real bosses. Which IS what happens when professed Christians decide they prefer to conform to the corrupt world-system: that system USES them, but never for one minute respects them.

Click to expand...

I sympathize with Straik most because he had suffered. He talks about the deaths of his wife and child, right? His mind (and heart) were broken by the struggle and pain, and he responded in the exact wrong way to it. What an easy mistake to make! Instead of turning to his faith and letting Christ console him, he turned away from the truth and looked elsewhere for hope for the future ... Suffering shapes us, and if we are not able to find Jesus in it, then it shapes us in distorted ways. Straik let his suffering pervert his vision for the future ...

We haven't talked about the woman chief of police yet, the Fairy. She's probably my least favorite character! And yet, perhaps the least dangerous of all of the villains. She's a sadist; she enjoys power over others and enjoys hurting others. But she isn't in it to bring the "macrobes" into power. She has no interest in the spiritual side of what Frost and Wither are doing. She just wants to be on top. In this way, she is something like Feverstone (although he doesn't have that mean streak!) -- just looking out for herself rather than trying to bring hell to earth.

It's interesting that Ivy's husband, the thief, is welcomed at St Anne's after his prison stint -- he was acting in self-interest and went wrong, but he can be redeemed. But in Perelandra, Oyarsa said that Feverstone wasn't worth fixing; that he was so bent on his own self interest that he couldn't be redeemed. (And if Oyarsa had the right, he would have gone ahead and "unmade" him.) It makes you wonder what the difference is as both men could conceivably be called sinners who had acted out of self-interest and hadn't done anything that bad.

I recently went thru THS again, and then I remember on the Drudge report that there was talk in the next 20 years science will be able to download the Human brain into a computer or an android. And that made me think that this would be the great fear that Lewis describes would be this false immortality that is described the Space Trilogy.

He was picturing an immortal mind without the body for enjoying eternal life. One of those fiends even says at first immortality won't be too comfortable for those people on whom they confer it, and Alcasan certainly doesn't seem grateful for his immortality in that condition. (Although we're led to believe that it's not really Alcasan anymore but the macrobes who are speaking through him, aren't we?)

So, I digitized version of a brain, like Data from Star Trek ... wonder how that would work?

I am not sure. It may be just all your memory and knowledge downloaded onto a hard drive in just bits a data. I don't know if you could retain consciousness or what would happen to the soul. Scientists are also talking about computers attaining consciousness in of themselves soon like Hal in 2001 a Space Odyssey.

In my opinion, that's just a pipe dream - it'll never happen. We don't understand consciousness, we don't understand identity, we don't even understand how human memory works. Simply projecting the capabilities of our creations out a few years and assuming that will answer those questions is nonsense.

I find it interesting how CSL included Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889–1929) in THS referring to him as the Sura. A very interesting Christian mystic of India who disappeared while traveling to Tibet. In CSL's THS the Sura's visions lead Ransom to form his company.

Now, I didn't know that! I remember the reference to the Sura, but wasn't aware that the character had any connection to any actual person. Even if it's a loose connection, it's still interesting to know.

It is clear that Lewis based "the Sura" on Sadhu Sundar Singh. The problem is why Lewis called his character "the Sura" and not refer him as a Sadhu of India, which means a Indian holy man. Sura is Arabic for a chapter in the Koran. It may be that Lewis got the words mixed up and no on ever corrected. Anyhow Sadhu Sundar Singh was a remarkable man who lead many to Christ and said to have preformed many miracles. If he was a Catholic he would have been a Saint. But he like Lewis was an Anglican.

I didn't know that, either. That's pretty cool.

I came across something else in THS that I never saw before. You know when the ladies are putting on robes and gowns at the end of the book for Ransom's farewell celebration. Well all the robes in the big room where they were stored are described as looking like a forest and the Director called the room the Wardrobe. This was written about 5 year before the LWW and yet Lewis was already playing with the idea of a wood in a Wardrobe.

Nice! I never thought about that either. Funny how you can see it in hindsight. I always liked that scene where the ladies all choose dresses for one another because there are no mirrors in the room ...

Good Review of THS in The American Spectator by Matt Purple 12/6/2013.

All this talk of transhumanism really relates to what Lewis speculated on in his Space Trilogy. The question is can you transport more than just a persons memories into an artificial body. Do we really know what a soul or human conscious is? Heck, we can't even transplant a human brain yet. Of course I did bring this up lats year. Drudge keeps updating us on the subject and I hear the Glen Beck loves to talk about it too.

That's the first thing I thought of when I first heard of transhumanism: Alcasan's Head. But it'll never work, because they're working from a faulty understanding of human nature. As Peter Kreeft would put it, they're thinking Platonically, not Biblically. They'll never succeed because they're working from a faulty premise.