A Writers View

Happy New Year!

While I was mindlessly browsing the internet the other day, I came across a person’s New Years Resolution that I liked, and it was, “To read 1 book a week.”

At first I was like, “52 books? That’s not a whole lot!”, but realistically it is! Let’s face it – ever since I “grew up”, I really haven’t “had the time” to read. So, my annual book count is definitely, definitely waaaay down there.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to do this one. 😀

I’m going to (do my best) read at least one book per week (realistically sometimes it might be less, sometimes it might be more).

I am happy to say that I’ve already started 😀 and I can check book #1 off my list. The first book of the year has been:

Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis.

Out of the Silent Planet follows the adventures of Dr. Ransom, a philologist, who is kidnapped and taken to an alien planet. Escape from his captors leads to the discovery of new languages, species, and insights into the role of man in the cosmos. (I don’t know if that’s a good way to summarize it haha, but it’s what I’ve got!)

CS Lewis is such a masterful writer that sometimes I feel at a loss to recount what I’ve just read. But, I’m going to try my best here. 😀

Here’s what I liked:

1: evidence of same ideas.

If you’ve read any of CS Lewis before, or any clump of books by the same author before, then you’ll know what I’m talking about here.

Out of the Silent Planet was written well before the Chronicles of Narnia. OotSP was published in 1938, and the first Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 1950. What is so cool about having read the Narnia books as a child and then going and reading OotSP as an adult now, is that you can see similar themes, concepts, ideas, and scenes at their early stages. OotSP is a bit harder to read because it is written for adults and not for children, but it’s also a bit harder to follow (I believe) because CS Lewis himself is still refining his ideas, still honing his craft, still working on the best way to concisely get the message across.

As I writer, I am so encouraged by the authors like CS Lewis, Agatha Christie, William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien – because they stick to their stories. For some reason there’s this feeling as a young writer, and maybe I’m the only one that’s ever felt this way, but there’s this feeling that your “next story” needs to be ENTIRELY different from your last one. And while CS Lewis wrote a multitude of fiction and non fiction and cannot be accused of being repetitive, he and all of his books have the same heart.

2: space done differently

Outer Space in Mr. Lewis’s book is unlike any other rendition/representation of space that I’ve ever come across. Space is not a cold empty void, it is a bright warm living heaven. After the initial fright of having been drugged, kidnapped, and waking up in a spaceship hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth Ransom spends a lot of time marveling and basking in the beauty and glory of heaven.

3: God, creation, and the devil.

Towards the end of the book, after Ransom has been on the alien planet living amongst the aliens for some months, Ransom meets the ruler of the planet Oyarsa, and from him (as well as from the aliens he’s been spending so much time with) Ransom learns a bit about their planet, how it was created, how there was one creator of all the planets and creatures including men and Earth, and how their is a Bent One chained to the Earth that has been at continual war with the Creator.

I won’t go into too much more of this part, because it was truly the most fascinating and my favorite part of the whole book, so I really don’t want to spoil it for any of y’all’s! It was really good!

It reminded me of Tolkien’s creation story in the Silmarillion, with evil Melkor and all of that jazz.

4: fun writer banter

At the end, there is a post-script chapter between the Author, Lewis, and his friend “Ransom”. It is revealed that the events of the book are true, but that they have been packaged up as fiction so that it will be more widely distributed.

There’s a line where Ransom is complaining to the writer, Lewis, about why does the “reader” need to know this part, and when he says “reader” he adds in brackets “you seem to know a devil of a lot about them!”. 🤣

In conclusion, it was a good book! It was small, it was spacey sci-fiy, it was thought provoking, it was of course well written, it was fantastical, and it was the first in a trilogy. I’ve read the third one That Hideous Strength before, but that was years ago and I can hardly remember it now.

I am definitely looking forward to reading the next two, Peralandra and That Hideous Strength, and in continuing this one book a week thingy! I will post about the books I read once I finish them, so the posting schedule might end up a little wonky, but I hope that you’ll enjoy them.

I hope that you’ll join me in reading this year!😁 Even if we’re not reading the same things.😆

If you’ve read Out of the Silent Planet before, or if you’re going to, or if you have any book recommendations for me – then please let me know down in the comments below! 😀

Cheers! ❤