SethH Hi there, and welcome back to Hugo's There. I think since it's been about a year since I started Hugo's There 2.0, I'm gonna stop calling it Hugo's There 2.0, it's just Hugo's There. SethH And this is gonna be a relatively normal episode where we're gonna be talking about ah nominated fiction, um and in this case it's actually a trilogy of books that were all nominated for, the Retro Hugo, and in this case it's the C.S. SethH Lewis Space Trilogy. We'll talk about that title for it as we go along, ah but my guest is Evan Bradky. Hi there Evan. Evan Bradtke I said, thanks for having me. SethH Yeah, yeah. ah What should people know about you? Evan Bradtke oh I am a text collector from Northeast Wisconsin um and and I like reading really everything, but I certainly have an affinity for sci-fi. SethH and Evan Bradtke I also am a runner. SethH Oh, nice. What's what's your your preferred distance? Evan Bradtke Um, I, you know, I haven't been trained in the past couple of months, but as far as races go, I don't, I won't get out of bed unless it's a half marathon. Um, I can do a 10 mile on my own, whatever. SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke It's not worth it. SethH ah Okay, okay. Evan Bradtke Great. SethH Yeah, whereas I won't get out of bed if it's a half marathon. 5k is like, they I can do a 5k I can I can pretty much you know, roll a 5k without Evan Bradtke Right. SethH training too much, um but it'll hurt a little bit. Evan Bradtke right SethH you know um Right now I'm kind of out of shape just because i' I'm still rehabbing my shoulder. So I haven't been able to to do a lot of, well, been just protecting myself from falling down and re-injuring myself kind of thing. Evan Bradtke Got it. Yes, yes. SethH Nice. It's funny, because i I recently recorded an episode with my friend Michael, who's a serious runner, and he's doing the Dopey Challenge, I think, in a few weeks, where it's at Disney World or something, and it's a 5K one day, then a 10K, then half marathon and marathon. Evan Bradtke Oh, wow. SethH All back to back to back to back. so Evan Bradtke that's That is interesting. SethH Yeah, that's pretty intense. so But for somebody who did seven marathons in seven days, it's it's not as not as much of a big deal. Evan Bradtke So i he's qualified for Boston, I assume at some point. SethH Oh, I imagine I think he said he's doing the Tokyo marathon this year. Evan Bradtke Okay, okay. SethH So yeah, yeah. But if you didn't, ah that hasn't aside, this won't go on the podcast. If you didn't, I did a an episode with him where we just talked about the world marathon challenge that he did, um where it was seven marathons on seven different continents on seven different day on seven days in a row. Evan Bradtke No. SethH um It was it was really good. And as a runner, I think you would enjoy it. Evan Bradtke Interesting. i will I will certainly look that one up. SethH Yep. yeah yeah and that was it was this year so all right um okay so by way of introducing the space trilogy and i do want to talk about like is the space trilogy really the right word for it and we can kind of get there as we talk about the three books i think the way we'll structure the conversation is kind of start by talking about c.s louis in case anybody's unfamiliar with him and then uh and then kind of go into some overall thoughts about the the books and the trilogy, and then we'll we'll kind of dive into each one separately. SethH um And, you know, I don't want us to go for three hours, so it's it'll be brief conversations on each book. Sound good? Evan Bradtke Sounds like a plan. SethH Okay. So yeah, any background that you have on the CSO list that you want to share? Evan Bradtke Yeah, so C.S. Lewis was a medieval literature scholar. um in And he he died in 1963. Evan Bradtke So he he lived 1898 to 1963. Actually, on the same day as John F. Kennedy and the the author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, interestingly. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Evan Bradtke um And ah he is maybe most famous as an author ah for the Chronicles of Narnia, um the sort of the the juvenile fantasy series that is filled with with SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke Christian allegory and you know ah in contrast this is ah the space trilogy is um a adult-oriented sci-fi Christian allegory series of books of but so um he he had it but he in addition to that fiction um he wrote a lot of nonfiction and ah and SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke theology. um He was a Christian convert, um a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, um and part of a group called, a discussion group called the Inklings with ah poet Owen Barfield, Tolkien himself, and and some others. Evan Bradtke And um so, he you know, Lewis is, I would say, more a popularizer of theology than a SethH yeah Evan Bradtke um you know, particularly, he wasn't doing, you know, innovative, ah youre you know, creating new new theories or doing particularly innovative theological things. SethH Sure, sure. He was a theology communicator. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. In the in the way that, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson is not doing what Albert Einstein did, ah with all respect for what he does. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. SethH Right, right. Evan Bradtke So. so SethH Yeah, it's interesting, too, when you when you think about all the stuff that you learn about the Inklings. And C.S. Lewis is kind of beloved by evangelical Christians, I would i would say, are big fans of C.S. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH Lewis. And it's it's so funny because there's ah there's a whole strain of evangelical Christianity that's very not ascetic, but like suspicious of people who drink or smoke. And if you think back to like the the Inklings, they were they were just sitting there smoking their pipes and cigars and and throwing back beer. Evan Bradtke Right, right. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH um Yeah. Evan Bradtke But in in a very collegial, ah kind of quintessential English pub way. SethH Mm hmm. SethH yes Evan Bradtke um Because as, you know, one of the themes of of that hideous strength, which we'll get to, is that comes up again and again, is is is when the the protagonist is sort of drifting from what he should be doing. SethH Yes, Evan Bradtke He sort of ah numbs his conscience with alcohol repeatedly, and that's a consistent theme there. SethH yeah. Yeah. SethH um the and and And I mean, you mentioned that the the Chronicles of Narnia do have that that strong allegorical kind of bent to them. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And, you know, I i agree, it's it's definitely there. and And Tolkien wasn't a big fan of that, right? Tolkien described, I think he described the Lord of the Rings as a fundamentally religious and Catholic book. Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH But there's nothing explicit in there, right? He wasn't trying to say, hey, by the way, Gandalf or Frodo or Jesus, right, where Evan Bradtke Right, right. SethH in the chronicle of Narnia, Aslan is definitely Jesus. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH um and And yet, I do think that in terms of the accessibility of those books to people who are non-believers or non-Christians, you can read them and miss all of that. SethH If you don't have the background in in you know the basics of kind of Christian thought, then then you can read it and it's a perfectly SethH readable fantasy, um because the the kind of Christ figure trope is very widespread in fantasy. Evan Bradtke absolutely yes yes yes absolutely and I think that's you know SethH And so like my my friend across the street had read The Crown of Sonarnia when he was a kid. I didn't come to them and until as an adult. But, you know, they they were not a ah church family at all. But, you know, he loved the books. Evan Bradtke our Our civilization, ah um for good in my opinion, but whether for good or for ill, is fundamentally, in so many ways, a Christian inheritance. Evan Bradtke And that yes yes, not strictly speaking American, but yes, Western civilization. SethH Western civilization, yeah. Evan Bradtke ah every you know All the values, you know Tom Holland's book, Dominion, um ah history Tom Holland is a historian, not not Spiderman Tom Holland. He kind of talks about that a lot about how Christianity Evan Bradtke through through the Roman Empire and then after the Roman Empire really inverted the value system that had been in the ancient and classical world in so many ways. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke and so yeah have the that you know it is i think I don't think C.S. Lewis would be offended is to say it is the myth that that SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke not Not myth in the sense of false, myth in the sense of story we tell ourselves as a civilization that shapes everything. SethH Right. SethH Right, yeah, and and I think Christians get their knickers in a twist when you when you say that something in the Bible is strongly mythological, right? Evan Bradtke Right. SethH um and And you're talking at that about that from kind of a literature, you know, and not not the genre of it, but what it's doing, right? This is the story this people is telling themselves. Evan Bradtke Right, right. Evan Bradtke Absolutely. Yes. and And even, you know, there's there's elements in certainly and in the Bible where ah Jesus is using hyperbole and humor and all those things. Evan Bradtke And you know if you are going to take a text seriously, sometimes that means not everything in it is literal, actually. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke ah and and And that's a, you know, there's this sort of valid source for debate and discussion around a lot of issues where, but but I think actually to read everything literally is in a certain sense, illiterate. SethH yeah SethH Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So I was talking about the the Chronicles of Narnia and having that allegory in them and yet being very accessible. And I would very easily recommend to people, if you've never read them, they're terrific. SethH They're they're a lot of fun. They go down really easy. Evan Bradtke yes SethH um You can you can easily sit down with one in a single day and get through it. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH I've done it myself where I i went through the entire trilogy in a week or not trilogy, sorry. Evan Bradtke I think it was seven at seven of the books. SethH What is it? Five, seven books, is it? Yeah, I've gone through all of them and in a week. And um It's not like the ah Douglas Adams, right? All five books of the trilogy. Evan Bradtke yes SethH um All seven books of ah the Chronicles of Narnia trilogy. um where with and And I want to get your opinion on this. right i i would I would hesitate to recommend the space trilogy to the same person that I might recommend the Chronicles of Narnia. SethH Just because I feel like there's there's some things in it where it's, and maybe this is the question, right? Is is a non-Christian going to enjoy these books? Evan Bradtke I would say, I was thinking about this, and I would say they would struggle with Paralandra. I think, you know, in rough sort of punchy one sentence, one or two sentence outlines, ah Out of the Silent Planet is in the tradition of Wells, H.G. Evan Bradtke Wells and Jules Verne, kind of a fun exploration story with some interesting philosophy and theology um mixed in. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, I won't try to say the extraordinary voyage thing that is, you know, in French, right? Evan Bradtke but SethH That's the all those Jules Verne stuff. Evan Bradtke Yes. um And Paralandra, if you are not interested in the you know the Garden of Eden story and an allegory of that, um it's it's ah it's a beautiful story in a lot of ways. Evan Bradtke um But there there are parts of Paralandra that kind of drag. And I think would would so ah would do so even more for someone who is not interested in or or hostile to SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke the Christian tradition. SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke And I think that hideous strength is up there with 1984 and Brave New World as far as a ah compelling depiction of a certain type of dystopia. Evan Bradtke um SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke so So I would i wouldve definitely agree with you as far as Paralandra. It's a trilogy that can be read separately. um I would not recommend reading Paralandra on its own. and If someone were you know just looking to dip their toes in the water, depending on what they were interested in, I would recommend their preferred type of science fiction. I would recommend giving um Out of the Silent Planet, or that hideous strength, a shot. SethH Okay, I think I have a hard time recommending that that he has strength just because i I feel like and we'll get to it when we talk about it, where it's a little more a little more in your face about some things, where, Paralandra, I mean, I just love Paralandra. SethH And so so I'd be like, yeah, I read that. it's It's kind of like a a take on the creation and fall narrative in the Bible. Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH um And I think it could be enjoyed in that way, unless that was totally not to your taste. And that's the other thing, right? Evan Bradtke Sure. SethH The genre here out of the Silent Planet is Lord of the Rings, more than more than ah Star Wars, right? Where where there there is a space voyage and that kind of you're like, well, that's science fiction. SethH Yeah, but it's it's done in that very kind of literary way that doesn't make a whole lot of sense necessarily, definitely not hard science fiction. Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH um and And so to me, it's more space fantasy. um And also just because ah you know, to somebody who is not not a ah religious believer, right? Angels, the OERSA, right? they're They're a creature of that that reads more fantasy than science fiction. Evan Bradtke yes that that that's a that's a fair i don't know i i think if you in and and wells was or pardon me louis was very uh cognizant of writing in the sci-fi tradition throughout out of the silent planet he uh you know he sort of tongue in cheek says you know this isn't like what what what what uh you know he'd read in his well's books uh SethH Right, yeah, he named Jax Wells, yeah. Evan Bradtke and And he makes a point to say, you know to explicitly say on the on the notes before the story, i I'm name checking Wells out of respect. I really like you know out of out of honor. SethH Yeah. um Let's see, take a pause here. um Should we, are there any other kind of overall thoughts on the trilogy you wanna get through or we can circle back to that at the end? Evan Bradtke um I think we can probably circle back on overall thoughts. SethH Okay, um so let's let's go ahead and I'll lead us into it um to start talking about the specific books. Sound good? Evan Bradtke Absolutely. SethH All right, so at this point, you know i I feel like i I haven't necessarily recommended these books to to everyone, um but you know they are on the retro Hugo list, so if you wanna check them out, you know I think they're worth reading. SethH um What's your history with the with the trilogy, by the way? Evan Bradtke um So this is the the second time I've read it. i would I mean, I picked it up because I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis through Chronicles of Narnia as well as some of his other theological works. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke So yeah, it's just just my second time reading them and yeah, it's I guess my history. SethH Okay. Yeah, for for me, I didn't come to a lot of CS Lewis until I was in college and taking classes like Christian Classics, where we actually read the screw-tape letters and and some other stuff, right? Evan Bradtke Sure. SethH um And then I didn't read the Chronicles of Narnia until I was 23, something like that. um And my wife actually took a full semester-long class on C.S. SethH Lewis, and so so she had a couple boxed sets of of books, and so I just read all of them, um because that's just kind of what I do. Evan Bradtke Interesting. SethH New books appear in my house, and I read them. Not so much anymore, but um you know like any time my son read something in high school, I was like, oh, sure, I'll read Life of Pi, I'll reread the Lord of the Flies, 1984, just to kind of stay abreast of what he was doing. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH um But yeah, i I read these ones. I don't know if I actually read those ones in college. I know that I read them, you know, as a young adult. And, um and so it was when when you kind of sent the email, and you you had suggested several different options. SethH And I thought, you know what, I should revisit the space trilogy just because they're on the list. And, and it's been 25 years since I read them. So, so I was glad to to revisit them. Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH So let's go ahead and start talking about what the individual books are. So we'll start with Out of the Silent Planet. Evan Bradtke Sure, so out of the silent planet um starts with a philologist ah basically studies of old languages and texts. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke I actually think Friedrich Nietzsche's degree was in philology um and SethH Hmm. Isn't that, wasn't Tolkien as well? Evan Bradtke um he was a yes uh or a linguist yes one of those similar well and and uh one sounds more scientific ah which is which is something that uh confers a certain dignity uh but also uh in some ways divorces SethH Yeah. Yeah. like I kind of think of them as the same, same term. Theologist and linguists, just one of them sounds cooler. Yes. Yes. Evan Bradtke ignores the the literary element of it. so SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke Yes, so Elwyn Ransom, the philologist, is out on a a walking tour. And he is ah he is asked, Evan Bradtke so he's looking for an in to stop at. And ah and he he runs into this woman. And I just want to pull up this this quote, because it's so ah classically Lewis, and it's funny. Evan Bradtke ah the kindly old landlord on whom he had reckoned had been replaced by someone who whom the barmaid referred to as the lady. And the lady was apparently a British innkeeper of the Orthodox school who regard guests as a nuisance. Evan Bradtke so Throughout Lewis's writing he has a very kind of gentle humorous way of sort of illustrating who these characters are and and their flaws, but it's it reminds me almost of Jane Austen, where it's not mean, it's funny. SethH Yeah. SethH Mmhmm. Evan Bradtke um you know you i You have a a line that I think you you said from The Horse and His Boy, the the opening line there. of There once was a boy called Eustace Scrub and he almost deserved it, right? SethH Right, right. Evan Bradtke ah SethH Now that's the voyage of the Dawn Treader. Evan Bradtke Oh, yes, yes, okay. um and and And Austin opens Pride and Prejudice with, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife. SethH Yeah. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke it Just sort of the the little gentle irony um that's soft. And I think there's something, it's it's it's easy to be sarcastic and harsh and cynical. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke oh and And sometimes characters deserve that and people deserve that, but there's something refreshing and enjoyable about reading, ah about a softer touch. SethH Yeah. SethH Yes, yeah Evan Bradtke Yeah, so he's ah initially going you know looking to to find to find a place to to stay for the night. And he is ah this woman ah says hurt so Harry is has been kidnapped by these two people and sort of sends ransom to go get Harry, who's important to her. SethH yeah. Evan Bradtke and ah Ransom kind of breaks into this ah state where he meets Divine, ah D-E-V-I-N-E, who he went to school with um and didn't really like, it ah and Weston. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke And Divine and Weston, you know, kind of, Harry escaped, and and Ransom is kidnapped. And he, he they, SethH right Right, right. Evan Bradtke launch a spacecraft from their from their backyard. but SethH Yeah, they they drug him and then and then put him aboard the spacecraft. Evan Bradtke Yep, yep. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And ah and there is a, you know, in terms of the sci fi element, there is the the um they are rotating the ship to generate gravity. um And there's certain elements of the spaceship that have kind of an aspect of sci fi realism ah to it. Evan Bradtke um Yes, yes. SethH 1950s sci-fi realism, or nineteen I guess 1930s, 1940s, yeah. Evan Bradtke Right. he's hes Yes, Lewis is writing this in 1938. So yeah given that he was not a you know kind of a hard sci-fi writer, um there's just little touches that that really place it in the sci-fi universe. SethH Yeah, I never really got the impression that they were rotating it for gravity, i i and or that they had, you know, um artificial gravity or anything. I know at some point they were rotating it and and part of it was that one side of the ship is very hot because it's facing the sun, right? Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH And so they're going around basically unclad because it's so warm in the spaceship. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. Yeah. SethH And they, um it's, it's got a ah fun, and ah some fun kind of not pre scientific but like, not a lot was known about space exploration in those days, right. Evan Bradtke No. SethH I'm certainly not on, you know, campuses, English departments, right. Evan Bradtke Right, right. SethH um it's It's, it's art major physics, right. and um So there's there's there's been, um I can't remember what the name of the paradox is, where basically the the idea is, well, if essentially there are an infinite number of stars in the universe. Evan Bradtke the Fermi paradox in the Drake equation, right? Or is is it... SethH No, no, that's it's i it might be Fermi, but you know, essentially why is space black, right? Evan Bradtke Right. SethH and in In the visible spectrum, right? Evan Bradtke Right. SethH And the in the expansion of the universe and, and you know, the um Redshift and all that kind of stuff it actually explains it where if you look in the x-ray You know you look in a different non visible light spectrum. SethH Yeah, it is all lit up out there um But for Lewis right space is very bright because now you're out of the atmosphere, and you just you have the Sun there Yes Evan Bradtke Yeah, space is very bright and you know talk about the name of the trilogy or ah the space trilogy. i I think you could call it the cosmic trilogy and and get at what Lewis is getting at here in it, which is space is the heavens with with spiritual beings um that are you know that sometimes operate on on planets, but you are sort of closer to the heavens and those spiritual beings when you're in space. SethH Yes, yeah. And here, and yeah I mean, talking about the cosmic trilogy, I want to talk about the cosmology of it because essentially the cosmology is that, yes, angels and spiritual forces are real. But what we have as our kind of Western, you know, the art of Christianity, right? SethH our our idea of beings with feathered wings and that kind of stuff is a small piece of it, right? Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH um And they're not just operating here on Earth, they're operating on other planets as well. And it kind of reminds me of some of the the divine council stuff that i've been I've been reading from Michael S. Heiser. Evan Bradtke Yes. i Yes. Michael Heizer is fascinating. SethH Yeah, yeah. Where um it's almost like a council of the gods, right? Where and and of course, Oyarsa, I guess, is Oyarsa the generic term? Evan Bradtke Right. Evan Bradtke ah So. SethH Because they have like the name of the planet, right? Evan Bradtke Yes, yeah, so it's, yeah, it's Oya Resu is the is the plural, I believe, but you're an oyarsa of a planet if you're, roughly speaking, the divine being in charge of a planet. SethH Yeah. SethH Right, right. And that gets into the the kind of ah the title here, Out of the Silent Planet, right? There's something wrong with, or something has gone wrong on Earth, where essentially you have had the oyersa that is in charge of Earth, has, is bent, right? SethH It has gone, has gone, rebelled, more or less. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH And so it's similar to, you know, stuff like you'd see in Paradise Lost or or other conceptions, or at least a take on that. Evan Bradtke ye yeah Yeah, so this ah this ship is, is ah well, so as he's kind of exploring space and and they are going he's not sure where he's going, turns out that he's going to Mars, and he hears that, he interprets, overhears a conversation ah that he's gonna be turned over to the natives as a sacrifice. SethH Yes. SethH yes Evan Bradtke so ah So he kind of keeps his guard up um and when he, you know, they land ah and and on on the first sort of encounter with the, as soon as he can, he he escapes and he he he runs away. Evan Bradtke um He, because they are trying to turn him over to the, and I would say that the Sorns, SethH Mmhmm. Evan Bradtke are perhaps the most humanoid um of the species, and they're sort of ah sort weaker weaker gravity, so they are really tall and lean. SethH Yeah. SethH Mmhmm. Evan Bradtke um And ah yes, yes. SethH But kind of imposing as well. Evan Bradtke Yeah, so he so so Ransom runs away, um and he runs into a forest, and he finds that he can eat some of the you know, the plants and and and and and and drink the water. SethH The vegetation, yeah. Evan Bradtke um and And then he meets a hross and they are, I don't know, would you say kind of dog-like? SethH Yeah, i I kind of pictured them almost like Wookiees, actually, um just not not quite as large, not maybe somewhere between Ewok and Wookiee, where they're a little more simple, right. Evan Bradtke Oh, yes, yes, sure. SethH um And reminded me of ah what what's the name of the character in ah A Wrinkle in Time, and something um who's who's very kind of furry and comforting. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Yes. Yes. I know I, the app name's not coming to head, but I know what you're, what you're referring to. SethH Yeah, I can can't come up with it. But yeah, and they they kind of help him along, right? And he he gradually, he's a philologist, right? And so he starts to decode the language. Evan Bradtke Yes. And that I think is depicted as yes. Very, very, it's very interesting to me. I'm I've always been interested in languages. SethH Yeah, me too. Evan Bradtke Um, and, uh, I think it is maybe the most kind of, uh, I don't know if realistic, but, but, but, you know, this was, uh, CS Lewis worked on languages and understood languages and how people would, um, so you know, learn them. Evan Bradtke So, um, that's very well depicted, um, in my opinion. SethH Mm hmm. Yeah, and so when when I said that the the book is more Lord of the Rings than Star Wars is, I kind of pictured the cross as like, um you know more or less like the hobbits, um just larger, larger hobbits, and then the the Sauron were more like men. Evan Bradtke Sure. SethH And then what is the name of the the more dwarf like creature? Evan Bradtke Phil Triggy, or kind of the Dwarfs, yes, yes. SethH Yeah, filtering yeah, they're the craftsmen, right? And so that's, that's where that comes in. I'm not I don't remember if they were described as small, um but they're certainly described as, um as being the craftsmen of the the world. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, yeah, and you know, this, so this book was written in 1938, so you have, ah in my opinion, it really reflects the worldview of someone in a, Evan Bradtke Small, rainy island, part of an empire that was that was controlling a quarter of the world at that time, right? SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke um Yay, we we can build a ship, put some metal together, go to go to go to Mars and learn the language. SethH Yes. SethH Yeah, but but it has both sides of that, right? It has it has the the more innocent side of that with ransom. Evan Bradtke Absolutely. SethH And then it has Weston and dev divine who are like, well, we've put our stake here. This all belongs to us now. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And when we're going to turn, you know, the natives into cattle or chattel or both. Evan Bradtke Yes, and divine is sort of vain and motivated by money. And and Weston is, in in a certain sense, more idealistic. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke it he He really believes in, I guess you'd call it, white man's burden, or, yes, yes, dominating um other other species and other planets. SethH Yeah, cultural supremacy. Yeah. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke And so, yeah, they're differently motivated. um SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke but But both. And then you have Ransom who is sincerely curious and excited to ah to meet these these these these other species. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke um So ah he's he's's kind of coming to fit into the the village life with the Rosa. And he is goes on a hunt. Evan Bradtke ah And ah on this hunt, he ah he manages to kill the the water beast that's significant to the rosa. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke and um But he he experiences the elders or the the spiritual forces um telling him that he needs to go to meet Oyarsa, the ruler of the planet, um and that he should have gone earlier. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke um and when he's gonna when he is starting to leave uh divine and ransom shoot uh the one one of the one of the people he's hunting with um so uh they ah the the SethH Mhm. Evan Bradtke The rosa kind of give him instructions as to give Ransom instructions as to how to get to to meet Oyarsa. SethH Mhm. Evan Bradtke And so the instructions they give him are could have been better ah because they send him to ah very high elevation where the air is very thin. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke and he's almost he directed to go to a cave um where he he meets with a Sorn who actually does help him and give him oxygen and all that and who actually ah carries him a significant chunk of the rest of the way to to ah meeting Oyarsa. Evan Bradtke um Let's see, am I missing anything so far? SethH No, that's about it, and then, and then So what I'll say about this book is it's it's not an anti-climax, but just stuff sort of happens and then the book's over. um And there's there's there's not sort of a traditional arc to it, to to me. right There is a climax of the book, but it's not that much. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, I agree with that and in a lot of these there's And I think this was you know necessarily kind of part of C.S. Evan Bradtke Lewis doing his project. There's there's a didactic element to it. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke it's It's not always story for story's sake. It's story for ah the sake of doing so you know communicating a message, which which can be a little clunky at times. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke But yeah, so he um he goes to, so this Sorn Agré helps him get to Oyarsa, and there's He goes to an island um where the Philtriggy, who are yeah roughly yeah roughly speaking the dwarf, the miners, the craftsmen, and Sorns, and the Rosa are all essentially worshipping the god of the planet. um And there are some really interesting um sort of carvings and and and artworks and things that that reflect a Evan Bradtke a cosmology um that is ah sort of rhymes with Earth cosmology. there is a There's a, you know, Venus, which is ah which is clearly a feminine. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke they're They're on Malaconda or Mars, which is clearly outlined as masculine. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um And some, yes, so sort of reflecting Louis's view that the You know, there there there are these universal myths that are just true everywhere. SethH Yeah, and and he absolutely was drawing on on this sort of traditional, um I can't remember what, like the Five Heavens or something, um Seven Heavens or something ah cosmology. SethH And I found some videos um where somebody, ah there's a scholar who who wrote a book, and I can't remember the title of it, um that's all about kind of the way Lewis enacts that in the chronoxal Narnia and in the space trilogy. Evan Bradtke Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. SethH But it's good stuff. Evan Bradtke um Yeah, so it goes to the, to meet with the OYAR suffragist, essentially the God of the the planet, and learns that Earth is called the silent planet. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um SethH Solkandra. Evan Bradtke And because it's because Earth's oyarsa, which is clearly Satan, is is is bent or and has sort of perverted um all the instincts. SethH Right. Right. Evan Bradtke Because malachandra is not it's not and a paradise in the way that paralandra is, right? SethH right Evan Bradtke but it It is not fallen in the same way that Earth is. It's maybe somewhere in between. um and And each of these three, because the filtriggy, the saurans, and the rosa, they all have their purpose and fulfill it, and they're not trying to dominate each other. Evan Bradtke they all SethH Right. They all have a common language as well. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. and SethH So they never had a Tower of Babel event, right? Evan Bradtke Right, right. And so there's, and that takes a while for Ransom to kind of wrap his head around. Oh, these are all kind of rational species, irrational animals or now. Evan Bradtke And, and they all fit together. And it's not about one, it's not about one's in charge of the other. It's, they all bring something different to SethH Right. Which is is hard for an imperialist person to understand. Evan Bradtke Yes, and it is hard for a ah human with on on earth to you know just from Earth to understand. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke yeah there's there is a throughout lewis's Throughout this trilogy and throughout Lewis's work, there's a sense of, and heck, even in Tolkien, um needing to have a respect for nature and and the role it has. um And and um it's not sort of something to be dominated and exploited. We all need we need to fit into it. SethH Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that reminds me of the magician's nephew when when they're there in Narnia right at the creation event, right? And Uncle Andrew thinks, well, we can just bring raw metals here, and it'll, you know, the the the the world will bring forth ships and and things, right? Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH And it'll be a great industry thing. And Lewis is like, yeah nope, that's no. that's That's not a good idea. And there's a fun um conversation that goes on between because of course, Ransom has learned the language, and he can he can, and he can see the Eldil, right, um or Eldila, and West and Kant, and his language is very imperfect. Evan Bradtke Yes Yes Yes SethH And it's kind of amusing that that it, you know, he's talking in, you know, me, Tarzan, Eugene kind of ah ah language. Evan Bradtke Yes, well, he's trying to sort of bully what he regards as these primitive natives. He's he's trying to give him a couple of beads for the island of Manhattan, sort of. SethH Yes. SethH Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke And it is is it is a genuinely hilarious scene ah because Weston's trying to, ah sorry, Ransom is trying to translate it. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke And and and ah Weston is, he he thinks they're all dumb and he's the idiot. ah oh SethH Yeah, yeah, exactly. Evan Bradtke Who doest who doesn't understand doesn't understand what's going on? SethH Well, and two, like like just just the fact that he knows just enough of the language to to try and get his bullying points across just reminds me of like some of the history of colonialism where where like you establish a pigeon and then you never really want the the person you're talking to to progress past that. SethH You don't want to learn their language. You you keep them down with the language right um and because it keeps them from being able to say complex things. Evan Bradtke Right. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, that's a good point. it's you know i said We said earlier that in some ways it reflects this book reflects the confidence of of an empire, um but it is very explicitly anti-imperial in its message. SethH Mm hmm. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke um yeah so yeah so So divine and Western are also brought to this island and SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And so at first Weston is trying to kind of bully them. And that just doesn't work and it's this really funny scene of of what does this idiot think he's doing. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke oh What he think he's achieving here. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke ah and then a little bit more kind of a disturbing side is is he he thinks he's gonna be be killed and he gives a speech about how you know progressive scientific evolution demands that that the stronger wind sort of might makes right ah combined with Darwin and ah and SethH Yeah. Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke So there's there's there's the comic side of it and there's the I think a little more um Serious critique of of a philosophical view to there Yeah Yes, and SethH Yeah, yeah. um I think we could probably leave off with that book and not, I mean, but you know, they end up back on earth, right? So that further adventures can can happen. Evan Bradtke Yes, and and oyura you know they offer to to let him stay on on Mars, but he says he has an obligation to his people. um And so they they go back to Earth and further adventures. SethH Mm hmm. Yeah. So then Paralandra, which I guess I guess I didn't mention at the top right out of the silent planet comes out 1938. And then 1943, we get Paralandra, which is the continuing adventures of ransom on another planet. And this time, it's Venus. And like you said, it kind of evokes that the feminine over, you know, SethH Mars obviously Aries right the war, um the the traditional classical kind of understandings of masculine and feminine. And, um and I was always enchanted with this book and in in both Evan Bradtke great Right, right. SethH the the first two books, I did enjoy like that, that some of the language of just, here's Ransom rambling around the country, just looking for a place for a pint in a pie, right, you know, um and and a place to to lay his head. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH um And it's it's just sort of very, very fun. but ah But every time I reread them, I'm like, I cant want to get to the other planet, right? I'm impatient for that. And I was impatient for that in Paralander as well. SethH And I don't really remember what the setup was. um So maybe you want to talk about the beginning of it. Evan Bradtke Yeah, so the setup is so Elwin Ransom has really been transformed by this changed understanding of the universe um and and and and the the the spiritual forces that are real. And so he is kind of continually talking to Maybe talking isn't the right word, but in contact with these forces. Evan Bradtke And he is told, hey, we got a mission for you. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke And ah he's ultimately sent to, to Paralandra or Venus um to counter an attack that is being launched by, by Satan. Evan Bradtke ah So he's he's transn he's sort of magically transported in this casket vessel. And clothes are are are unnecessary on this planet. Evan Bradtke um And it really is an Eden-like place. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um And there is the ah there's floating islands um that he has difficulty walking on but until he sort of gets used to how he view ah SethH Yeah, gets his his sea legs kind of. Evan Bradtke Right, right. right how you SethH Yeah, and I always loved that that image your imagery of the flexible islands, right? Just just floating around this this world. um And yeah, she's very cool. SethH Not the fixed island, not the fixed land, right? Evan Bradtke That's right, that's right. Yeah, and it's it really is um some really beautiful language and and beautiful images that are evoked. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke I don't, you know, the, in terms of almost lyrical language, I would compare it to almost, you know, parts of childhood's end by Clark. Evan Bradtke I don't know, are there, is there anything, what what would you compare the kind of lyrical imagery? SethH ah Yeah, I mean, i to me, it brings up Paradise Lost, um which is, you know, very lyrical, right? Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH It's literally um it done in, I don't know, Daxilic Exameter or whatever it is, Daxilic Exameter. Evan Bradtke A lyric poem, yes. Evan Bradtke Right, right. SethH And this isn't that, but it is still evoking that story, right? um and And so like like we mentioned, right, this is the most kind of explicitly, oh, we're doing we're doing a Bible here, right? Evan Bradtke right yes yes um SethH it's It's, he meets Eve, the Eve of this world, right? um and And I can't remember, was she ever given a name? Or was she just a woman? Evan Bradtke She was the queen. SethH The queen, that's right, yeah. Evan Bradtke Yeah, I mean, and at the and at the end, I think she's terrendrel. But throughout throughout most of the the text, she's the queen of the planet. of SethH Yes. And and they're there he here, Paralandra is in a pre-fall state, right? So it's still an original innocence. And you know me as a you know leaning more progressive Christian kind of these days, I don't really buy original innocence. um I don't think it i think it was said. SethH It was a theology that was created for a particular reason, um but we't we don't have to go into all of that. But it still is really fun to think about um you know what what does it look like to be to continue in a state of innocence for you know all time. Evan Bradtke Yes, and that's really the challenge. um So what's what's what's going to happen here in Weston from from the from the previous book is ultimately the source of this you know temptation um in in in this sort of Garden of Eden. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And yes, yes. SethH Yeah, he he he basically becomes the serpent, right? Evan Bradtke well i I don't know about the serpent, per se, because he's clearly possessed, yes. SethH Possessed. Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke So Weston lands and he is, and and um Ransom is with this woman in this paradisiacal environment, and he he sees, he recognizes this is a threat and stay away from you know these people and this woman. Evan Bradtke and ah But at first, Weston, ah is He is very much ah saying he's a changed man, that and but but in this very, you know, I believe in all spirits type of thing. SethH Yes. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke um it's It's sort of ah ah a, yeah i don't I don't know what type of faith it would be like, but it's certainly not Christian. um SethH Yeah, more more of a pantheist kind of thing, or a panentheist, right? Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH every There's spirit in everything. Evan Bradtke Absolutely, that's a good yes and um You know when you try and nail it nail him down and well, what are you what do you believe? It's it's it's very slippery and then event and then eventually he becomes ah possessed clearly by by a demon um and so ransoms challenge is to is to keep so the the one rule that that SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke the that that that Malaldil, which was sort of the supreme god of all the planets, um has is do not stay on what they call the fixed land. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke oh And ransom is um ah Weston is trying to convince her to ah to stay up. SethH To transgress that, yeah. Evan Bradtke Exactly, exactly. SethH Yeah. And so so you end up with with Weston being the little devil on her shoulder, right? And and Ransom being the little angel. Evan Bradtke Yes. ah And so it there's a lot of philosophical debate um back and forth. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke And, you know, ah Weston has some advantages in that he doesn't need to sleep. That's that's one of the, you you know he's ah you know, he's a demon because he doesn't need to sleep. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um SethH yeah I thought it was very evocative, the the scene where Weston trying to take advantage of this basically keeps Ransom from sleeping, you know, just Ransom, Ransom, you know, just it just periodically calling out his name to keep him from from being able to rest. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, very effective and interesting. um And, oh, and it's, there's, there is the, where he's, ah and and I didn't mention it in the first book, but the whole vivisection thing comes up again and again with sort of Lewis's skepticism of science and SethH Well, and he's going around in harming little creatures as well, right? SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke i don't I don't know, but skepticism of science taking too far, I guess. um SethH Right, in some of his nonfiction work, he talked about vivisection. Evan Bradtke Yes, so, ah you know, it comes up certainly and in in that hideous strength and in, and but Weston here, it's first it's sort of the the frog creatures that he he just kills a bunch of them for fun. SethH you SethH Just flaze them, yeah. Evan Bradtke And it's it's a really horrifying description. SethH It's very visceral, yeah. Evan Bradtke And then eventually he makes clothes for the queen. He said, you need some clothes. SethH Right, to appeal to her vanity. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And where does he get the feathers? He he brutally kills a bunch of birds. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um SethH Right. Yeah. and And I mean, it's very much when you when you think about like the the garden narrative in in the Bible, right? That Eve looks at the fruit and sees that it it is appealing to the eye and also good for knowledge. You know, there's there's more than one aspect of it that's appealing to her. And so Weston is trying to appeal in as many different ways as possible. Evan Bradtke Yes, and trying to appeal to her vanity and to appeal to her as a woman um who needs to ah who who is somehow wronged by the world around her and needs to violate the rules to to you know for for there to be some greater sense of justice. SethH Yes. SethH Yes. Yeah. And so let's see. that um SethH that but I mentioned that Weston was the serpent, and I think i think you're right in correcting that into war and more where he is is kind of possessed right there. But he's not innocent, right? um because Because he set himself in opposition anyway. SethH And it reminds me of the the narrative of the Exodus, where um where the Bible talks about Pharaoh hardening his heart um to to what Moses is asking for. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And then later, the The emphasis shifts to God hardened Pharaoh's heart right to where you set yourself an opposition and now you're stuck in that and I'm going to I'm going to put you on that path for my own purposes. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Yes. And he, you know, Weston clearly, I mean, in terms of Christian theology, you do things that let demons into you. Evan Bradtke Right. um and And so, it you know, he, you know, let the demon in and now and there are these really sad moments when you see um Weston, you know, always is is that is that that person there that's actually still suffering? Evan Bradtke Right. SethH Right. He snaps out every now and then. Right. The the real Western peaks through every now and then. Evan Bradtke Um, but it's, you know, it's only in moments. Um, so, uh, and, and, and it's just, you know, that, that real person is getting weaker and weaker, um, and more and more diminished. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke Um, yeah. So they're kind of having this extended debate and, um, and eventually, uh, you know, uh, ransom starts to perceive I need to sleep. Evan Bradtke He doesn't need to sleep. Things are trending in the wrong direction and realizes he needs to physically fight Weston. SethH Yeah. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke um so there's yet um a you know, kind of a ah ah physical fight of kind of ah a boxing match. And then they're both really injured. Evan Bradtke um And oh they so the the, the humans on this planet are able to essentially call animals to them to do their well. um And so they, he is, ah you know, ransom is chasing Weston on this sort of dolphin fish thing. SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke um And eventually they land in a in a tunnel and in a cave and then Ransom ultimately has to throw Weston into a pool of lava to end the demon's presence on the planet. SethH It, uh, it just reminds me of Obi-Wan versus Anakin a little bit. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH The, the confrontation of, of kind of good versus evil there. And yeah, they end up on the, you know, he ends up essentially below ground, but on the fixed land. right Evan Bradtke Right. Right. um Yeah. and And one thing I show, Weston is the only one with clothes throughout the most of this. And that's one thing that kind of ah sets, you know, sets him apart. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke um And of course, in the original garden garden narrative, why do you need clothes? Because you're naked. Who told you you're naked? SethH yeah How did you know you were naked? yeah Evan Bradtke Right, right. um so um And that was you know part of that temptation that ultimately didn't choose to wear clothes. um um and yeah so SethH yeah yeah You end up with ah with a long discourse from Paralandra. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH The ruling sort of deity of each planet is just the name of the planet, right? So Malachandra was the one from Mars. Evan Bradtke yes SethH And the the trilogy makes clear too that they're not physical in the same way that we are, right? They can be in multiple places at once. Evan Bradtke right SethH um And so that's why he's able to talk to them even when he's on earth. um And the there's there's a long dialogue that that keeps having the term blessed be he in it. SethH It's it's very, it it reminds me very much of like, if you've ever read any of the prophets um have some of the language there. Evan Bradtke right yes yes yeah and it it's a um and this is why I say if you're not sort of interested in in Christian theology, um you would struggle with with with parts of this um because it's it's all about the you know the the allegory here and the fall and how how humans are supposed to to to relate to to God ultimately. SethH Yes, yeah. And I can't remember who said it. I wrote down the line. I think it was Ransom saying it to to the Queen. Whatever you do, he will make good of it, but not the good he had prepared for you if you had obeyed. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH um And that's that's very much like, Lewis definitely doesn't sit in the Reform tradition, um where where like everything is laid out just, you know, on rails. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Predestination. SethH Yeah, yeah. um Where there is a ah trajectory of of the will of Meledil, right? Evan Bradtke Yep. SethH um Where he'll course correct you, but you might you might not end up where he wanted you originally. Evan Bradtke Right, right. Yeah, and um so the book ends and um he meets with, Ransom meets with the king and queen and the the god of of ah Venus and there he's, Ransom is sent back to, you know, is kind of celebrated as a ah savior and sent back to Earth, but You know, ah also told um there's, there's, there's a battle coming on earth and, um you know, yes. SethH Right, prepare for it. Evan Bradtke And and we. SethH Yeah, and, and Weston at some point has these these terrible nails right on his fingers. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And he ends up ah wounding Ransom in the in the heel, which I'm sure is straight out of ah you will crush his head and he will bruise your heel right out of the out of Genesis. Evan Bradtke Yeah. Evan Bradtke Absolutely. SethH um And and so that wound carries over to the next book. Evan Bradtke yes yes um so yeah i think that's really uh i mean in terms of one thing to say about paralandra it was written during world war two and there's some you know several references to you know rants ransom saying okay i'm struggling here but there are people dying in trenches um back home and it is the the book um during the war uh that is about SethH Yes. Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke kind of a direct confrontation, right? So it's sort of a thematic fit there. SethH Yeah, and it makes sense for an author like Lewis, where he would he would have someone like Ransom, who's essentially the author proxy, right, who had served in the earlier war. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke Absolutely. Absolutely. SethH Yeah. So yeah, let's move on to that hideous strength. And this is by far the largest, the longest of the books. um And this was written in 1945 or published in 1945. Evan Bradtke Yeah, probably roughly the the the length of the other two combined, right? Would you say? SethH Yeah, yes, definitely. And this is one that, you know, like I i enjoyed Out of the Silent Planet the first time I read it. um I found it a little bit of a slog on on a reread, um even though it's short. So like a short slog isn't as bad as a long slog. um Where Paralandra, once you get to to kind of all the debates and stuff, I really, really enjoy it. um There is some sloggy stuff toward the end of that as well. Where that hideous strength, I really struggled with the first time. And some of it is that it's, SethH It's like Lewis taking King Arthur, Brave New World, Star Wars, and the Book of Revelation in a blender. um And here's what we get. Evan Bradtke the Yeah, the the the Arthur stuff doesn't work. I think if if he had excised the Arthur stuff, it would be a tighter narrative and um yes. SethH But it's very British, right? And and i I wonder as Americans, like, without being kind of steeped in Arthurian legends, and I'm not sure that everybody is anymore. But I feel like there's stuff that, you know, the original audience reading this probably got it better than we did. Evan Bradtke That's fair. Have you done the the Once and Future King? um SethH I have ah i the the sword and the stone was a retro ego winner. Evan Bradtke Okay, okay. SethH And so so yeah, I did I did do that. Evan Bradtke Okay, yeah, that's ah i mean that's a wonderful retelling um of ah yeah all of the elements of the Once and Future King are are are good with this. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Well, the, the the sword and the stone is like the, the, the YA portion of it. And the rest of the once in future King is not forgets. Evan Bradtke that's Yes, yes. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um And non-fiction, that author um T.H. White was kind of kind of a troubled man. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke And there's a really good non-fiction book called H is for Hawk, ah written kind of interweaving the story of this author of the non-fiction book, Raising a Hawk with T.H. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke White, who was raising a hawk and really struggling with SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke with, T.H. White was gay. um And that was obviously not, I mean, it was illegal until the late 60s in the UK. SethH Hmm. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke So um struggling with that, struggling with other aspects of his life and how that contributed to the story he ultimately wrote. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, so one thing that um I've gotten ah negative reviews, I've kind of stopped even looking for at at reviews for the podcast, because and one one negative review that I got was, you know, he seems to think that he needs to apologize for all the old science fiction. And I'm like, I'm not apologizing for it. I'm explaining it and setting in its context and saying, you know, some of these books aren't exactly the most progressive things that you're going to read. SethH um and And here, you know, we already talked about this is in a very sort of Western civilization, Christian worldview that it's coming from. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH And I wouldn't say that need his strength is a progressive book. and In many ways, it reads as an anti progressive polemic, at least against the kind of progressivism in academia um that that Lewis was seeing. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And and he said right in the in the introduction to the whole trilogy that, you know, Yeah, the main character is an English professor. Sue me. Evan Bradtke Right right. SethH This is the world I know. Evan Bradtke Yeah, and anti-progressive bureaucracy um and in in all its forms, and in government and in universities and that. SethH Yes. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um and and And I think one thing you said in a previous podcast is, you know, Heinlein wrote a lot of books with a lot of different ideas. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke ah you can you You can disagree with some of his themes and and that's fine, but to pigeonhole an author, especially someone like Heinlein who did not, I mean, a Stranger in a Strangeland and ah Starship troopers and the moon is a harsh mistress like those are three SethH Those are mutually and but incompatible philosophies, right? Evan Bradtke me Evan Bradtke Correct. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke and they're And they're all fantastic books. And you know sometimes you just got to take ah take a book. And and I think you know C.S. Lewis wrote a really great essay called, I'm Reading Old Books. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke um And he would be talking about books from the 1700s or 1800s. But he really um eloquently challenged people. SethH yes Evan Bradtke you know Our era has blindnesses. And the way to see what we're blind to is to read from other eras. um SethH Yeah. Yeah. I remember reading that essay and where where he said, look, it's fine to read contemporary novels and contemporary works, but, you know, alternate, read read older stuff, too. Evan Bradtke Yep. Evan Bradtke Yes. Yes. So, um, but you should probably return to that hideous drink a little bit. ah SethH Yeah. Yeah. and And this is definitely the least space book in the space trilogy, which is I i do think the cosmic trilogy makes more sense and because it's all set on Earth. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And this is ah the confrontation that was coming. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Yes. You're, you're exciting sci-fi novel. ah that starts with ah a a university selling land and discussion about appointments to university physicians. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke so SethH Trade disagreements. Evan Bradtke yeah Yes, that's a good one. SethH Like from from prequels, right? Evan Bradtke um Yeah, so it so it starts with ah Jane and Mark Studdock. And Mark is an academic and Jane is a wife. SethH And and she's a PhD candidate, right? Or at least was before she married. Evan Bradtke She's a PhD candidate. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. And that is a kind of part of the tension and resentment and challenge that's going to be kind of pushed throughout the book. um So Mark Stuttick is a sociologist at Braxton College in Edgesto. Evan Bradtke All right. So they are debating the sale of this land hey called Bregdon Wood. And it is, as it turns out, where Merlin was buried. Evan Bradtke um And SethH Right. Yeah, and they're they're selling it to the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments or NICE. Evan Bradtke Yes. Interestingly, there is a ah part of the National Health Service in Britain has the acronym NICE. um So ah ah ah Lewis may have been making a SethH Mm. Lampooning that, yeah. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. um so ah and and this It's interesting how they they set up the kind of bureaucratic trench warfare um throughout the the novel. Studdock always wants to be part of the the inner ring. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke wherever that is. So at Braxton College, it's the progressive element. um And the progressive element sort of disdains the the conservative traditionalists and wants to sell the land and um sort of controls things um behind the scenes. So it doesn't, yeah you know, they they set the agenda and manage the agenda so that the land is, the sale is going to be approved. Evan Bradtke um SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke but they they describe it as, you know, certain transactions ah that that that may be beneficial to the college in this very obscure kind of bureaucratic way. SethH yeah Yes, obfuscation. Evan Bradtke um Evan Bradtke Absolutely, absolutely. um So the yeah so after after the deal, um after after the land is sold, one of the insiders from Nice, called Lord Feverstone, but he's actually divine from out of the silent planet, ah ah approaches Mark about joining the Institute. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um And so while this is going on, ah his wife is um having some bad dreams, or what she thinks are bad dreams, um involving a ah convict, Al-Qassan, who was executed, and he sees, pardon me, she sees Al-Qassan kind of being experimented on, you know, saying, I would rather die than have this that have this done to me, and he is, um you know, Alka-san's head is is talking and and operating on its own. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke And she's just kind of terrified of this. And so she meets ah the wife of one of her her tutors, Mrs. Dimble, who sends her to ah Miss Ironwood in in who lives in a manner in St. Evan Bradtke Ann's. And so, you know, Mark is this time, he's kind of interested in his career advancement. The thing about Mark is he's never actually interested in the work of sociology, it seems. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke He's always interested in being an insider. ah And ah so he he has this position and and Jane is ah experiencing these these weird dreams and and and anxiety. um And they kind of have ah have have a spat. Evan Bradtke ah And then Mark goes to Nice, where he gets to know some of the the people at their headquartering headquarters in Bellbury. He keeps asking, so so what would my job be? Evan Bradtke No one can ever tell to tell you what his job is. SethH Yes, yeah. Evan Bradtke it's it's very There's a very good comic element to it, too, of just almost kind of office space. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke um If you've seen in that movie of, what what do we do here? SethH I got six bosses, yeah. Evan Bradtke oh SethH Yeah, it reminded me a little of Severance. um I don't know if you've seen that show where where they where they're sitting there and like they they never have explicit instructions on what they're supposed to be doing. Evan Bradtke I don't think so. Okay. SethH It's just like, you know you'll know you'll know the bad ones you know when you see them in in on the screen. um and yeah that That just kind of reminded me like the vagueness of what exactly are his duties, you know all he's he's just advancing and that's yeah That's the most important thing to him. Evan Bradtke Right, right. SethH And meanwhile, he's not recognized that his wife is really unhappy Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. And ah he meets ah another fellow at Braxton there, ah Bill Hingest, who is, I would say, a real scientist, like a chemist. Evan Bradtke um And Hingest tells him to get out. um And Hingest leaves, and he is murdered. um And Jane has a dream of that murder. SethH Right. Yeah. Evan Bradtke um so ah so So Jane visits Miss Ironwood and ah Miss Ironwood tells her your dreams are visions of true events. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um and And I think it's around this time that that that Jane meets Ransom, correct? SethH Yeah, yeah. Oh, they call him the director. Right. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And and and what is it? Mr. begins with a B. The the bear, ah Mr. Evan Bradtke Oh, uh, Bultitude, yes, yes. SethH Bultitude. Right. Yes. Evan Bradtke So, yes, so so Ransom is is the director of this, ah I would say, similarly, seemingly yeah amorphous institute ah at at St. Evan Bradtke Anne's, um and he's gathered the few people around him, um and and and a talking or not talking bear a bear, Mr. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke Bultitude. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um SethH Yeah, and and it's worth noting too that some years have passed, right? and And yet Ransom still looks like a relatively young man, right? Because he's, because of what happened to him on Paralandra, right? Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH Because of the influence. It reminds me of the the shining face of Moses kind of thing. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, yes. And and he he can't age, but he does have that wound in his heel that still hurts. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um So, yes, so, ransom is still kind of in contact with these oyars, or the spiritual beings. um and um Evan Bradtke And yeah, what next? um SethH Well, then you you have kind of a dueling things that happened back and forth with with the director. I think he goes by Mr. Fisher King right you know to really set in and obvious that there's Arthurian stuff going on here. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH um And his forces are working against the the kind of progressive forces of Nice. And everybody's trying to find Merlin. And it's kind of amusing when the progressive side thinks that they have Merlin. SethH um but But he's just a tramp. Evan Bradtke yes yes yes and and it's yeah and you know louis is really good at at making comic scenes um you know uh and and yes so so everyone's looking for merlin and ah meanwhile nice uh proceeds with the the sale of the land they are essentially tearing up this charming country university town edgesto and building SethH um Evan Bradtke you know, big buildings and they are inviting a workforce deliberately, ah not familiar with native customs and participate in starting a riot. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um and SethH Yeah, the false flag to to to justify taking over the the area. Evan Bradtke Yeah, and and Mark's first actual job is to, before the riot, write a ah newspaper articles for different newspapers, um arguing that the riot proves that the that that NICE needs to be given its own law enforcement power. SethH Yes. Yeah, yeah they're co-opting the press, essentially, for their own use. Evan Bradtke Yeah, it and it one is sort of ah for what would be kind of the tone of the New York Post, one being kind of the tone of the New York Times. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke All trying to justify the same thing. SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke um Evan Bradtke And so so Jane is kind of returning from the Institute um when she gets arrested and tortured by the nice police, ah by a very hard castle. SethH right Evan Bradtke ah SethH yes yeah Evan Bradtke And ah because she had been, she she Jane had been talking to the director and the director said, well, now i Jane had wanted to to come to this saint St. Evan Bradtke Anne's Manor, but the director said, I want you to try and rescue your husband, um essentially. SethH Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Evan Bradtke And then she's you know arrested and eventually ah let go and just go straight to the manor. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke um SethH Right. Evan Bradtke So, um, and, and, you know, while this is happening, Mark is never a very ah consistent person. He, uh, he, he, he has these moments where he wants to leave. SethH No. Evan Bradtke Um, and then he is, he's always dissuaded. SethH Mhm. Evan Bradtke Um, so, you know, at one point it was, you know, they really want to get their hands on Jane. So they are trying to get Mark to bring Jane to nice. Evan Bradtke Um, and. SethH Right. That's the only thing he's really good for. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. ah a and um And then they say, well, you know youre your wife's not doing well. He he's he's he is about to say, my wife's suffering some kind of mental breakdown. I need to be there. And then he is he is dissuaded after a um after an interaction with the deputy director with her. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke And Wither is, like Ransom, doesn't sleep a lot. And he has these, you know hes he's as as as it progresses, clearly also possessed. um um But he has more of these more of the moments where you can see kind of the two personalities, where there is a real Wither who's sort of a ah hapless bureaucrat that just talks nonsense. SethH Right. Yeah. Everything he says is super vague. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, um in a way that, again, it's it's very comic when he says something, when he's talking in this way. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um and ah but But he's clearly you know possessed, too, and and kind of able to use threats and and and and and bureaucratic cajoling to advance the demonic agenda. SethH Yeah. Well, and we we didn't even really talk about the the quote head, right? Evan Bradtke so Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH um Which normally when if you if you didn't know better, right you'd think the head, well, that's the person in charge. Well, no, in this case, it's a it's a head. Evan Bradtke Yes. but Yes, yes. And yeah, so the formal, the director is this Horace Jules sort of a populist journalist type who's not worth much. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke um and But the one who's actually in charge is, you know, they took the the the criminal Al-Qassan's head and there's this physician, Philostrado, who thinks that his whiz-bang medical machines are you know animating this head. Evan Bradtke but it's not it's it's a demon so yes SethH Right. Yeah, so much of ah of what Philostrado says reminds me of all the the idea of uploading consciousness into a computer, you know, which I'm like anybody who's ever worked with computers for long enough knows that's not really a great idea, because it's not like they always keep running. Evan Bradtke Yeah, and I mean, i I have to say the whole, you know, in terms of current events, the whole Neuralink thing is candidly pretty disturbing to me. SethH Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke um Even if it's possible, ah what's what's being promised, I think, I don't think that's a good thing. SethH Yeah, you also have ah Professor Frost, who but he he knows what's going on, right? Evan Bradtke hu SethH And he he he talks about the macros, which are you know larger forces. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. So, Evan Bradtke They are the, yeah, the demons that they are, you know, dark spirits that they are in contact with. SethH Yeah, and that are animating the head. Evan Bradtke um Yes, yes. um Yeah, so those are, I mean, there's really, you know, what, three people that kind of really know what's going on at NICE. SethH Yeah, yeah. and and And in terms of like, my criticisms of the book, there there are a lot of characters. And it was pretty hard to keep track of who was who I had to keep going to the the Wikipedia article and looking at the cast of characters. Evan Bradtke yes it um yes that's a fair yes yes yeah so um so at this stage uh you know jane has a dream that uh that merlin is waking up um and so they so SethH Where the the other books are very succinct, right? You you have in Paralander, you have Weston Ransom, you know, the queen for most of that book, and that's it. Evan Bradtke Ransom concludes that they are looking for the body of Merlin and they are Ransom thinks that Merlin is sort of this Spiritual force that will be will likely be kind of fall in with whoever gets to him first right um and um Then you know while this is going on so that the nice bosses SethH Right. Evan Bradtke um so So Mark lost his wallet when he got to Belberry, to Nice. And he ah didn't make a report about it. Evan Bradtke And this, of course, like, you know, Chekhov's gun comes back. um Guess whose wallet has been found by Hingest's corpse, Marx. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke And so they try and blackmail him into kind of committing to signing on with them. SethH Yeah, and bringing Jane in. Evan Bradtke ah Yes, yes. And ah and And so this actually prompts him to to leave. Evan Bradtke um SethH Right, yeah, that that that prompts has come to Jesus moment, right, where where he kind of has his foxhole conversion experience. Evan Bradtke Yes, I will, hey, I'll go to the police and try and straighten this out myself. And um yes, and um so but he is arrested ah for for the murder of Hengist and then kind of transferred to the nice police. Evan Bradtke um so yeah So during this, the Saint Anne's, it's let's see, it is it is Jane because she has the dreams, so she can help find Merlin and Dimple and Deniston, um two two of the men at at the Saint Anne's group. And the there are some nice personnel that are all kind of chase trying to chase down Merlin. And ah he, Evan Bradtke The Saint Anne's Company meets him, but he rides away. um and And the nice group ah traps, ah captures a tramp that Merlin, whose clothes Merlin had taken. Evan Bradtke oh Evan Bradtke So that's kind of a ah source of ongoing comedy is there's there is this, you know, illiterate tramp who the the fancy progressive nice people are are trying to charm and talk to into, you know, working for them. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And ah yeah, so SethH Yeah, and so eventually they're able to essentially figure out that Merlin no merlin is on their side, and and he almost he's he's almost the inversion of what happened with Weston in Paralandra, where he he more or less, I won't say gets possessed because that that has a negative connotation, right? Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH but like is filled with the spirit, right, um of, of oyarsu, or of all of them, right, oyar, oyarsu. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. Evan Bradtke ah your raceu Yes, yes. SethH Yeah. um And, and he goes in too nice, essentially acting as a translator, right? Evan Bradtke Right. SethH Well, I'm going to translate chip for Merlin, right? Evan Bradtke Because Evan Bradtke Yes, because Nice had to outsource this because they weren't good with the language. Now, remember, Divine could have learned the language. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke was you know plenty of these you know There were opportunities early on to to learn the language, ah if you were really curious or or anything like that. SethH Mm hmm. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke um um Yes. So and then so Merlin, you know, trends, you know, ah takes the tramp through and demands to kind of go on a tour of Nice. And while this is happening, Evan Bradtke um SethH Yeah, Evan Bradtke He, ah the formal head, Horace Jules, is like at a banquet. SethH mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke um And Merlin releases all the animals that Nice has been torturing. And it's a, yes, yes. SethH Right. Another anti-vivisection thing. Yeah. Evan Bradtke And it's a very, again, another really funny scene where there's just this absolute chaos where, oh, yes, yes. SethH Oh, it's grim though. Evan Bradtke um And it starts with, okay, Horace Jules is just talking gibberish, but no one's really paying attention. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke And then Merlin sort of casts the Curse of Babel, he called it. so And they, so no, none of them can understand each other. SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke as in you know the tower of babel um And while this is going on, the animals are released and um and a lot of people are killed at the at at the banquet. um let's and who is it is ah not weston It is wither and strake and filistrado that go to the head at this point, right? SethH Right, right. Evan Bradtke And they the head the you know the demon says, I need a new head. So they they kill Philistrado. And this one's not good enough. um and And then ah Wither kills Strake, who is this this this reverend who sort of just believes in power and has come to serve nice. um And then Wither gets killed by by Mr. Bultitude. SethH Right. so then Who then finds us is his one true love in the woods. Evan Bradtke Yes. Yes. Yeah. And and um so I mean, that's really ah one element that i we didn't touch on that I wanted to is Mark is sort of being tortured in the the objectivity room or the normal room where everything's just slightly off. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke um There's, you know, ah you know the the door isn't quite the right size. It's on ah it's it's on a wrong angle. um and Eventually, they're asking Mark to do sacrilege, to you know to condemn, um you know to to stand to stamp on a cross, that type of thing. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um But there's ah you know the the whole element of people say this of you know This is important to Mark's coming to Jesus of, you know, there is an objective truth, there is beauty, there is order, there is right. um And they are trying to to train that out of me by um putting me in this this objective room. I don't know if I'm quite doing it justice. SethH Yeah, it I feel like you kind of have to read that one. Evan Bradtke Yeah, yeah, it's ah it is, I mean, on reading, I would, for me, it is as compelling as, you know, O'Brien interrogating Winston Smith, of you know. SethH Yeah. SethH I was going to say it's very evocative of 1984 in that way. um Although I guess this one precedes 1984. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes, yeah, it was it was written in 45. SethH Yeah. It's yeah objectivity room instead of room 101, right? Evan Bradtke Right, right. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um and and And sort of very much, of you know, of a piece with with Lewis's belief that there is, you know, ah objective standards of right and wrong, and that, you know, part of them is, you know, beauty shows us truth, ah to you know, to borrow from from Keats and truth, beauty, and beauty truth. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke So, um SethH Yeah, or even even um Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank Redemption, right? I'm talking about hope. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke yeah and and And I you know i think um when it comes to to architecture, um you know the buildings you live and work in either reflect a you an appreciation for for the human or contempt for the human. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke um Are they designed to intimidate or they do they fit in with their built environment? SethH Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke um So, yeah, so, so Merlin helps Mark escape from prison and they go to St. Anne's um and Ransom and Merlin are both kind of like like Enoch and Elijah um in the Bible sort of just taken away. Evan Bradtke They don't die. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke They, they, you know, it's, it's implied they go to to the paradise of Venus. SethH Right, right. and And I think earlier I can't remember it was Merlin or or someone who basically offered to heal ransoms foot and he he essentially said this is my thorn in the flesh and and you know, it will be healed. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH You know, when I'm judged more or less right when when when I go to my rest. Evan Bradtke Right, right. Yes, yes. So yes, so that's, um, that's the, that's the trilogy, I think. SethH Yeah, there is so there's one other part that i think I think people would probably find a little problematic just because of um you know some of the the fault in Jane right is essentially she wasn't submissive of enough to her husband. right she was She was resentful that she didn't get to continue in her studies and her career, and it ends up with with them kind of reconciling in this bridal chamber. SethH right And I really I was I was really hoping that Jane was going to become the new Pendragon because there was something earlier in the ah in the novel that essentially said like Merlin was really had no use for her right and was like, well, you were supposed to have, you know, a child that was supposed to be a key figure here, but it's too late for that. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke Yes, that that you're right. that's ah That's a key element. And the yeah kind of the dissolution and eventual repair of their marriage is is a key kind of driving plot thread. SethH No, not not that I think that husbands and wives shouldn't be reconciled to each other and and live and live happily ever after. It's just, I wouldn't mind a version of it when it's less about, well, the default with you is that you're not complying with the feminine norms. Evan Bradtke Right, right. Yeah, because it it starts, I mean, the the book starts with Jane being resentful because she doesn't have anything to do after 11 o'clock and um and and and the sort of the the the domestic role that she's that she's not happy with. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, SethH yep um yeah you mentioned earlier that that Mark just kind of progressively drinks more and more. um and And, you know, Mark is just kind of a pathetic character. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And that's that's kind of why I wanted Jane to be fronted more as the main character. um because Because I would struggle to sort of say, who is is Mark the protagonist? Because he doesn't really drive the plot very much. Evan Bradtke but Pathetic's a really good word. Yeah, and um yeah, i who is the protagonist? I don't know. oh it's kind of I mean, Mark is the figure, I guess, most involved in the story, maybe. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke ah Yes. SethH Well, he's most at the center of the story, but involved is is a stretch where where I feel like Jane is much more crucial to actually what happens. Evan Bradtke Yeah, that's fair. Yes, yes. SethH And yet she's a woman and so she's sidelined. ah So, and you know, that that may be just, you know, blind spot of the time. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. Evan Bradtke Yes, he was, yeah. um lewis Yes, and it was, I don't know, it's probably going a little too far to call it an immigration scam, um but it was not a, ah but but it turned out to be a very yeah ah good marriage and and and and and a real love. SethH I mean, Lewis wasn't even married until he was, he was in his middle age. SethH Right. Evan Bradtke And he actually wrote um A Grief Observed after his his wife Joy died. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And it's a really Wonderful. SethH That's a tough book. Yeah. Evan Bradtke It's tough one, but it's a really beautiful meditation on grief. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke So and And yeah, so I was I was surprised when I realized that this was written in 1945 because it very much reflects a post-war world um Like right after the war has ended oh And there's um something of SethH Yeah, yeah. SethH Yeah. SethH yeah Evan Bradtke yeah I think I said in my notes the the the type of bureaucracy that was necessary to fight World War II. Evan Bradtke That nice maybe represents the worst elements of that. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke um The sort of faceless you know ah monolith that is vague and that you can't you know oh that you can't hold accountable and runs your life in a lot of ways. SethH Yeah, yeah. SethH So yeah what what are your overall thoughts on on this novel? Evan Bradtke ah Um, I mean, this was my favorite of the novels. um And I, you know, I, I would, if I were telling someone to try one of the novels, I would say that hideous strength. SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke um SethH Okay. Evan Bradtke It's, um You know, throughout the earlier books, the criticism of of vivisection, there is this nicest constantly promoting objectivity, or you know putting the science in charge, whatever the science is. Evan Bradtke It's it's never actually very clear oh what the science is. SethH Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke ah And that's something that sticks with me when it comes to current events, um candidly. um We had scientists in charge of deciding to do gain-of-function research. SethH Hmm. Evan Bradtke And now there are millions of people dead because we put scientists in charge. SethH Sure. Evan Bradtke And if you know if someone who just spent a lot of time watching horror movies ah saw, hey, let's make diseases more dangerous in labs, they would just say no, and there would be millions fewer dead people. SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke and And so I think, and this is you know pretty explicitly something Lewis was critical of, and that I agree with him on, is that science is a wonderful tool that ultimately needs to be submitted to greater principles, to non-scientists, to right and wrong, to common sense, things like that. SethH Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And then you know, there's a tipping point where where all of a sudden it's now it's official science, you know, that's bit reminds me of um the planet of the apes, where where Dr. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH Zayas is like, you know, they theology has nothing to fear from science, true science. Evan Bradtke Yeah, yeah, it's science is a tool just like capitalism. Capitalism is awesome. Seems to have made us relatively wealthy. But, we you know, we don't yes, yes. SethH It has its downsides. Yeah. Evan Bradtke And so we as humans set up our societies not to serve abstract science or abstract free markets or abstract capitalism. We can, we should, I would argue we must deploy our human judgment above the science. SethH Yeah. SethH Right, right. um I mean, this this one definitely is more explicitly Christian in in that the term Christian is used frequently, right? Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH And and Jane explicitly converts to Christianity. Evan Bradtke Yes. Evan Bradtke yes SethH um And so so to me, that that makes it a ah tougher one to recommend to just anyone, right? Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH Whereas I feel like somebody could could read Paralandra at least, you know, the the first two thirds of it and really enjoy just sort of that exploration of innocence. SethH um And then at the end, it might get a little preachy. Evan Bradtke see and Yeah, the I mean, the language is beautiful in Paralandra and some some wonderful scenes and some really interesting ah philosophy. SethH Mm-hmm. Evan Bradtke I think that we struggle to write the most compelling, the it's easier to write about how ah hell or suffering is gonna make it interesting than paradise. SethH Yes. Evan Bradtke And i was like I mean, for me, it was like, okay, you know what, 20 pages of all the fruit is delicious and everything's great. And that was about enough for me. um ah Okay, I get it. SethH I mean, that that's that's the way it comes out to in people talking about how, well, heaven sounds boring, right? Evan Bradtke Yes, there's an element to that. SethH um Because because our our minds don't really, we're too familiar with suffering to understand what it would be like to not have that. Evan Bradtke Yes, yes. And we're too, you know, arguably too familiar with, yeah not familiar enough with, you know, paradise or goodness or whatever, to write compellingly about it, in my opinion. SethH Yeah, yeah. SethH ah Any other thoughts on the on the trilogy? Anything else you want to talk about? Evan Bradtke um Evan Bradtke Yeah. um Evan Bradtke You know, i I don't think so. I think, you know, C.S. Lewis has has these is a really great stylist and it's is really, um you know, relaxing and enjoyable to read. Evan Bradtke um in you know you can just he's he's he's he's he's kind and and and sensitive to his characters, even the demons, that you know you sort of see how they they they give themselves away, um even if they're not likable characters. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And um he's a really good stylist that, you know whether it's one or all the books in the space trilogy, or um I think Screwtape Letters is fascinating. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke um Again, heavily heavily Christian, but SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke it's it's it's It's got more than pure theology going on. SethH Yeah. Evan Bradtke And of course, Chronicles of Narnia are just a joy as well. so And I think, especially with his role in the Inklings and his relationship with Tolkien, if you're a speculative fiction reader, sci-fi or fantasy, this is an important figure to try. SethH yeah SethH Mm hmm. Evan Bradtke You might not like it, but you know like, oh, I'm a big sci-fi fan. I just have never read H.G. Wells. why not Try it. you know like if you're if you If you're really trying to get a sense of what's the scope of speculative fiction. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm hmm. Yeah, and it's definitely, you know, of its time and and set in a particular place. Evan Bradtke Right. SethH and and And I can't help but wonder, like, would somebody who's in academia get some of the the stuff and especially in the third book better than I would? Evan Bradtke ah Yeah, I mean, ah I work in government, so maybe the ah the comedy of Silly bureau Bureaucracy ah lands lands a little more with me. SethH Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke ah SethH All right, well, you know, I definitely recommend them, especially if you're if you've read, like, the Arnold Schlegarnia and and you want to, like you said, kind of be well read as a speculative fiction fan. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH I do think they're worth reading. um And, you know, if you're a Christian or or even even like if you were were raised in the church and are are not particularly church anymore, I think I think some of the stuff will resonate um with, you know, stuff you remember from Sunday school. Evan Bradtke Yes. SethH and So and yeah I have no idea how it would it would hit for a person who was you know, an atheist or or hostile to to religion. Evan Bradtke Yeah, Evan Bradtke yeah I mean, I might i might say that they would I would start with Out of the Silent Planet just because it's such a fun exploration book that lays out the geography and language and species. SethH Yeah, yeah. Evan Bradtke And of course, it's got its perspective. ah But there's just a lot of cool exploration, you know, fun happening there. SethH Yeah. SethH All right, um well, SethH Evan, it kind as we move towards signing off, do you have any social media presence you want to give up for people to find you? Evan Bradtke oh i I do not have anything to to promote. Thank you so much for having me and hopefully we can ah do something. and Hey, if if you do Pride and Prejudice, I do want to be on the list for that. SethH All right, you know, that one I might have to do a panel discussion because I'm sure at least one of my sisters will want to be on. um And just just so that they can argue for the Colin Firth adaptation more than the Keir Knightley one. Evan Bradtke I haven't seen any of the movies, but yes. SethH Oh, okay, okay. They're both good. I do like the the the lengthier one. And yeah, one of these days I need to get back and and finish that. I was going to actually mention that to my sister at at Christmas um when when I see her just because I had started reading it and and would like to to go back and finish that because it's kind of delightful. All right. Yeah. And and I mean, people don't know that that was one of the books on on your list. and And I said, you know, it would be kind of funny to have two guys talking about Pride and Prejudice. Evan Bradtke it's it's It's a great book, greatest greatest opening sentence in all of literature in my opinion, but there's a lot of competition there. SethH Yes. Yeah. There is, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, um don't hang up. I'm going to sign off, but I got to hit stop on my end, so don't close your browser or anything. Evan Bradtke Okay. SethH All right, well, Evan, thank you so much for for reaching out. It was a long time ago that you reached out, and I was like, well, I'm i'm booked out for another year or so. so um But yeah, thanks for thanks for doing this. Evan Bradtke Thanks for having me and being flexible on my schedule. SethH Yep, no worries. All right, bye now. Evan Bradtke Talk later, bye.