What does /lit/ think of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy? I just

>>8648016
I despise C S Lewis. What was this like though? Anything like Narnia?

>>8648021
Not really anything like Narnia. More adult-oriented I guess. Especially the third.

>>8648048
Are there religious themes?

Those covers look comfy as fuck

>>8648055
The first one didn't have that much. The second one was obviously an analogy for Adam and Eve, but it wasn't overbearing. The third one was very heavy with religious undertones and contained a lot of Lewis' opinions on sex and marriage. All throughout there is a God-like figure with a Jesus-like son, but the Greek and Roman deities are there too.

>>8648016
I only ever read the first two. Liked them a lot.

I loved them as a teenager. Read them two or three times. I'm not sure if I would like them now, though.

>>8648055
>Distinguished Novel of Space-ship Adventure

>>8648092
You should try the 3rd one. I disliked it, but who knows? Maybe it's just me.

I only read the first one. It was definitely one of the best books I ever read. The Sci-Fi part my not be that overwhelming, but the characters and their choices and story is just charming and shows really the good part of Lewis.

Anyone read "Till We Have Faces"? That book sucked!

>>8648188
If you liked Silent Planet, definitely give Perelandra a go.

I remember liking Till We Have Faces.

>>8648016
i found the second two at my book store but not the first. i have read a good amount of c.s. lewis, i'd like to know what people here think of him as a writer as a whole. excluding narnia.

>>8648228
He is very oriented to christianity, likes references a lot, but not in a cheap way. He also tries to imitate his friends (like Tolkien), because he likes them. His strong side are characters and their choices. He is weaker on the part that concerns location description. He doesn't aim for perfection in his writing, so some parts may seem a little amateurish (like the excessive use of specific words in a specific novel...).
He is also very good in seeing things in a perspective of a woman (Especially in "Till We Have Faces").
Poetry is supposed to be mediocre, so focus on his prosa.
In my opinion Narnia is the best of him, especially the last one.

>>8648586
Are you baiting?

His religious references are so blatant, a 12 year old can see them. Hurr durr Aslan rose from the dead just like Jesus. Hurr durr a woman taking a magical apple created evil.

His characters are caricatures, especially his women. Their choices are either good or evil, for him to reward and punish. His glorification of childhood and blissful innocence is more appropriate for some inspid forgotten Victorian novel like The Water Babies than for something that millions of people around the world read today. Just look at Susan Pevensie. She grew up and that is evil, so she was punished. No exploration of her character, conflicts and motives. She's not "pure" so she gets cast aside and never mentioned again. She challenges his tiny worldview with her complexity, so he never writes about her again.

The Last Battle is among the worst books I have ever read. Let's kill everyone because children must understand sin, or something! Aslan saves the day! It's better to die as a child and go to Heaven than live long enough to become a gross, sinful, complicated adult!

I have a daughter who loves Narnia. The only way I can stomach this tripe is by pretending that Aslan is the villain.

the third book is crap, the first two are tolerable

also read his 'the great divorce', iirc he is against unisex there

>>8648607
hi philip pullman

>>8648618
Philip Pullman has his flaws but he's a better author in every way. Prove me wrong, protip you can't.

>>8648188
What do you mean? TWHF has one of literature's very most satisfying endings, not to mention an excellent pagan viewpoint.

>>8648620
Sure. The Amber Spyglass exists.

>>8648613
Third book is flawed, it reads more like a modern evangelical novel than anything you'd expect an Oxford don to write, but it showcases a lot of Lewis' best ideas, in particular the idea of the baptism of paganism. The scene where Merlin shows up is unexpectedly exciting, and the part where he's getting possessed by the planet spirits in the next room while Ransom's other people are just getting knocked around by their essences is one of my favorite Lewis scenes.

Great Divorce is also excellent. I wish more authors put together novella-sized allegories like that.

>>8648637
>tfw you write an atheist fantasy novel so bad it actually converts John C. Wright to Christianity

>>8648607
>butthurt fedora detected
>everyones dumb but me!

>>8648637
I genuinely enjoyed it. The new characters introduced were great, the development of Asriel and Mrs Coulter was great, and the ending, while underwhelming, was the only possible one in light of what Pullman was trying to convey.

>>8648640
How is the baptism of paganism his "best" idea, not to mention how is it original or relevant in any way?

>muh Christianity good paganism bad
That's all I ever get from his work.

>>8648635
I haven't actually read the book. But from the research I've done, it appears that Lewis is simply disguising a Christian perspective as a Pagan perspective. His theme of how the gods are always merciful and cause trial and suffering simply to guide or teach doesn't fit with pagan religions at all, where the gods are indeed often cruel, senseless and selfish.

>>8648665
Oh yeah, all pagan religions are the same. There aren't any pagan religions like the Classical Greek where the gods are morally superior to man, no, they're all Archaics.

>>8648649
Then you obviously have no idea what he's talking about.

>>8648670
Classic Greek gods are not all morally superior to man, anon.

>>8648675
Then explain.

>>8648647
>creates a series where the only possible ending is underwhelming
>"but that's just because he's good"
Every single Pullman fan. There are a million ways he could have ended that and kept the Paradise Lost comparisons and the atheist message but nope. The idea of man clawing his way to being in charge of his own fate is exhilarating. The concept of Men of Science tearing down that weak God and making a Republic of Heaven based on sound principles, maybe uniting the planes in enlightened grandeur, that's exciting. Pullman could have done that. He chose not to.

>>8648682
>Then explain.
It's a fool's errand. You literally read Lewis without picking up on his deep respect for paganism, and you're challenging me to prove it's... original and relevant? You want to juggle non sequiturs with me? You're going to come up with idiotic reasons why anything I'm about to say is wrong, and you won't even notice. There needs to be at least a little common ground, anon

>>8648687
To be perfectly honest I agree with you 100%. The part about the subtle knife needing to be destroyed because "people will use it for evil" is as anti-science as it gets and I feel like he only did it to appeal to the "muh feelz" crowd because there was no logical reason to keep Lyra and Will apart.

What always bothered me is that at the end, Xaphania and the witches sounded exactly as authoritarian as the Church that Pullman was fighting against the whole time. It would have been great to see a sequel where the rebel angels become the final obstacle between man and freedom. Yet another thing he chose not to do.

>>8648687
>Why, oh, why in a book about the virtues of not listening to authority and not taking anything on faith, did everyone in the book, and I mean everyone, believe whatever a dusty pocketwatch told them to do?

>Not a single character ever asked for independent confirmation of the pronouncements of the oracle of the Golden Compass. Sad if Lyra found out in some later scene that a slipped disk or a lose cog made the symbol arm overshoot by twelve degrees each time the dust-o-meter was measuring the truth of things.

>>8648698
I don't even know where he was going with it. I read it as a teenager for the fantasy bits, I really didn't care about the atheist stuff although the whole "the church is bad because they did the daemon slicing on a couple kids here and in Will's world THEY USED TO MAKE CASTRATOS!" didn't make sense. I remember the scenes with the unicycle elephants were very vivid and the idea of the Dust being this incomprehensible yet very alive substance was fascinating. It just didn't go anywhere.

>>8648695
Look, anon, maybe I judged too harshly and I'm willing to admit that I was wrong. I just have a personal bone to pick with Lewis after reading Narnia. Lewis treats the Narnians with utmost respect but has nothing but scorn and contempt for the people of Charn and the worshippers of Tash, who both represent pagans. When Tash does appear, he is a monster who is inferior to Aslan and must be destroyed. Aslan straight up says that people who do not believe in him, even if they do good things, are evil and wrong. I don't get any respect here, unless Aslan was meant to be the villain which I strongly doubt.

>>8648702
What he meant was that the Church prevents normal development by glorifying childhood, innocence and ignorance, and making adulthood and experience out to be sinful and imperfect. Which is exactly what imo Lewis does.

>>8648704
>Aslan straight up says that people who do not believe in him, even if they do good things, are evil and wrong
Isn't there a whole subplot with some guy who worships Tash but he's been doing it like trying to earnestly worship the creator and be as close to the truth as possible, and Aslan says "you've been worshiping me this whole time" or something?
Besides, it makes sense what he says, if you are trying to fight against good (in an absolute sense) you are on the side of evil

>>8648704
>Aslan straight up says that people who do not believe in him, even if they do good things, are evil and wrong
That's exactly the opposite of what Aslan says.
>For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.

>>8648708
Lewis doesn't say adulthood and experience is sinful and imperfect, just pseudo-adulthood where you're so concerned about seeming adult you forget the wonder of childhood. Susan didn't miss True Narnia because she grew up, she missed True Narnia because as she grew up she lost the ability to believe in it. Polly and Diggory didn't. The Magician did, King Frank didn't.

>>8648711
>mfw all of Narnia is good homble English fo'k with a little refined gent here and there and then Emeth goes full KJV


>"So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable trees till lo! in a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's; his hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes like gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was more terrible than the Flaming Mountain of Lagour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert. Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him."

>>8648710
But who is to decide that Aslan is good. From my point of view, Aslan is evil. He genocided all the races that supported the Witch, for example.

>>8648711
Pseudo-adulthood is a transitional stage that is necessary to achieve true adulthood. Maybe Susan wasn't ready to enter Narnia. Does that mean she deserved the horror of seeing her parents and siblings brutally killed? It's more of a punishment than a learning experience. And a god who punishes instead of teaching is not a god I'm interested in.

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>>8648719
>From my point of view, Aslan is evil

>>8648719
You mean the foul creatures that the Witch created to serve her? You must not have read The Silver Chair, either, where all the nasty creatures jump into the crevice at the end and then we find out that they're fine, just surfing on the thermals from their under-underground lava kingdom, they were just brainwashed. Did you really read it?

And Susan was ready to enter Narnia. She entered Narnia twice. She lost that readiness. Peter didn't.
>It's more of a punishment than a learning experience.
It's more of a consequence than a punishment. Bad things happen in life, if you're unable to see the good in them you take the brunt of it. Lewis knew a lot more about watching people he loved get brutally killed than you do.

>>8648704
>has nothing but scorn and contempt for the people of Charn
I wonder what sort of social commentary Lewis was making about nations that would use forbidden weapons to kill everyone before they'd concede defeat. Hmm. What sort of world events were going on in the 1950s? I just can't recall.

>>8648719
>And a god who punishes instead of teaching is not a god I'm interested in.
You're awfully quick to jump to these sorts of conclusions, anon. Might there have been other occasions where Aslan teaches instead of punishes, or allows people to face the consequences of their mistakes before helping them out of them? Yes, I think EVERY SINGLE NARNIA BOOK had a moral like that, actuallyp

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>>8648723
>I am willing to debate you on this issue over this pool of lava!

>>8648723
Thanks for acknowledging my little bit of sneaky memery, anon.

>>8648725
>foul creatures
I hate this mentality that every children's author has, but I guess it's not Lewis' fault for following the conventions of the genre.

>Bad things happen in life
Answer me, then, why is Susan the only person in the entire series who ever had anything genuinely bad happen to her? Why did he not explore the consequences of what happened to her, instead of just writing it off and expecting the reader to forget? Why don't bad things ever happen to "good" people in his work? Why did the terrible thing that happened to her so conveniently correspond to Aslan deciding that she's not ready to enter his magic made-up kingdom of fun and joy?

>>8648729
Doesn't make what he did to Susan any less unforgiveable. What about Aravis, where the only way he deemed fit to teach her was to physically harm her?

That's like a teacher beating a kid until he learns how to do maths instead of sitting down with him and actually teaching him maths.

>>8648734
>Aslan deciding that she's not ready to enter his magic made-up kingdom of fun and joy?
Aslan doesn't decide that. Remember the dwarfs getting physically thrown into Super Narnia but only seeing the stable? Yeah, that's grown-up Susan.

>Answer me, then, why is Susan the only person in the entire series who ever had anything genuinely bad happen to her?
>Why don't bad things ever happen to "good" people in his work?
She isn't. I'm convinced you haven't really read it. Go ahead, it doesn't take very long.

>>8648719
>Aslan is evil for not killing Susan when he had the chance

>>8648741
None of them had anything remotely as bad happen to them as having your entire family killed and their souls forget about you just because you liked spending time with your fellow adults more than playing pretend and silly kids' stories?

Out of the silent planet is a fucking sick iron maiden song so the books must be alright

>>8648746
Anon, that wasn't a punishment for Susan. She just wasn't on the train because she didn't believe in Narnia anymore. If you don't want Narnia you don't have to have Narnia.

only a few scenes have stuck with me:

The devil with the long fingernails who speaks with that certain eerie calmness.

The shaman who is able to make his voice sound like its coming from a different place.

And then the secret society with the immortal head like futurama talking heads.

CS lewis is very christian, but he's not a moron.

>>8648755
Even if I didn't actively desire Narnia, I'd take it over having my whole family killed anyday.

I don't like Aslan's terms and conditions.

>>8648785
oh geez I can almost smell you

>>8648785
>>8648746
>boilerplate atheist arguments
Is there any ideology more pathetic?

>>8648763
I don't remember the shaman, but it's been a long time since I read Silent Planet. The Un-man was a neat take on Satan, just someone who takes all his pleasure from other peoples' pain and will annoy Ransom if that's the only harm he can do. I don't recall him even being that angry while Ransom's killing him. I could be wrong on that though.

>>8648806
>>8648814
Well you haven't bothered refuting my arguments. And I'm not even an atheist. I just don't like how Lewis approaches faith.

Also I put on rose-scented perfume every day, anon-kun

>>8648820
You haven't made any arguments. You've totally demolished your own delusion of Narnia, I'll give you that.
>I'm willing to admit that I was wrong.
>immediately gets BTFO about Aslan and unbelievers
Still waiting on that.

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>>8648820
>atheists now have to act like they're deists or something
How can one meme do so much?

>>8648820
>Well you haven't bothered refuting my arguments.
What would you define as "refuting your arguments?" Because anon certainly answered your arguments, and I don't know how anyone could refute the "but I don't like it" argument.

>>8648665
Cruel, senseless, and selfish only apparently. How cruel it is to cause winter! To cause night! Why, if we were gods we might well abolish winter and make the Earth a desert, and abolish night and blind all men, in our ignorance.

>>8648016
I read the third one first, then the first one and finally the second. I would rate them in order of reading them. I didn't even finish Perelandria, but That Hideous Strength was a strong work of the imagination should probably be required reading for schools.

>>8648152
?

>>8649335
It's on the cover, silly

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>>8648838
>posting stale circa-2013 memes
You're no better

>>8649732
apparently it worked

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If ya'll liked Lewis' Space Trilogy, read pic related. Voyage inspired Lewis' work on Out of a Silent Planet and it won't trigger le hat man. I enjoyed both immensely.

They're not very good books by themselves but I think they're very unique and victorian-esque, which I think is a really nice take on sci-fi in general

>>8649929
>CS Lewis
>Victorian

you what?

>>8648719
>adulthood
top fucking ideology

>>8649915
Cheers, anon. Will check this out.

>>8649915
That's the one that every single Inkling loved, wasn't it?