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Revisiting OOTSP

PostPosted: November 15th, 2007, 12:11 pm
by ransomed

PostPosted: November 15th, 2007, 1:36 pm
by galion
I don't think the low door can be that of the spaceship, since it is specifically described as "filled with red firelight". Possibly a forge? And may the outhouses be workshops for constructing the ship?

BTW, in case anybody is puzzled, in British English "outhouse" just means any building separate from the main one; it does not necessarily have the specific meaning it has in N. America. Anecdote: many years ago I was talking with Eva Moseley, archivist at the Schlesinger Library, about dealing with archival storage, and said, "We outhouse some of ours". Eva gave me an old-fashioned look and commented: "Yes, we have some archives we'd like to do that to." OK, I was just off the plane ....

PostPosted: December 8th, 2007, 3:51 am
by Dr. U
In one of the books of essays by Lewis, I believe it's On Stories, he has an essay on species of science fiction, and mentions some details behind the writing of his own science fiction works. He hoped they would fall within the genre of sci-fi stories that tackle The Big Questions, but in a fantasy type of literature; he didn't personally have a taste for what he called "Engineer Fiction", in which possible future technologies are seriously explored in detail.

For example, Jules Verne accurately calculated, merely based on the laws of physics, some of the technical aspects that were later part of the Apollo moon launches - and these calculations are all included within his novel From the Earth to the Moon! But, if you read it, other than a headline type of thrill of "Man Goes to the Moon!", there's not really much depth to the characters, let alone any conflicts among them in how they view the universe. The only plot conflict is figuring out how to successfully launch a vehicle into space over the objections of nay-sayers.

Instead, Lewis seemed to hope that his type of sci-fi novel was more mythopoeic, or fantasy/dream-like, and the technical details should intentionally be as vague as possible, since it really didn't matter for his purposes HOW the spaceship worked, and might even detract from the story. In that opening chapter you cite, I think he's just trying to communicate the general sense of disorientation that Ransom is experiencing - this is NOT your normal English country manor, but what is really going on here? - which continues all the way to, and for some time on, Malacandra.

PostPosted: January 5th, 2008, 5:41 pm
by ransomed
In chapter one of OOTSP Lewis refers to the road Ransom is walking on as "metalled". Does anyone know what this means?

PostPosted: January 5th, 2008, 5:54 pm
by Sven
It's what is now commonly called a paved or macadam road. It comes from the old name for rock chips mixed into tar, "road metal". The Latin word metallum meant a digging for either ore or rock, ie., a mine or a quarry.

More OOTSP Questions

PostPosted: June 16th, 2008, 8:24 pm
by alcazal
We just had a book club last night where we discussed the first two books of the Space Trilogy and we were left with a few questions, so I thought I'd ask them here.

First of all, does anyone know why Lewis chose the three races that he did for Malacandra? Is there any reason why they are divided into the intelligensia, the poets, and the craftsmen?

My second question has to do with Perelandra more so, but I will voice it here anyway. What is the meaning (if any) of Ransom's bruised/bleeding heel? And why does it continue to bleed? We had some thoughts on this, but I want to see what others think before I bring those up.

Thanks!

Al

PostPosted: June 16th, 2008, 8:46 pm
by repectabiggle

PostPosted: June 16th, 2008, 8:59 pm
by alcazal

OOTSP Answer

PostPosted: July 5th, 2008, 6:08 pm
by Kanakaberaka