Like a lot of people, I have only read the Narnia books out of the large number of books by C. S. Lewis. I guess that is a matter of the availability in the library. I did actually not even know any other titles by him. Hence, I was rather curious about it when my wife suggested to read Out of the Silent Planet, which is a good starting feeling when reading a book.
The book starts when the philologist (I had to look up that a philologist studies language in oral and written historical sources) Elwin Ransom takes a walking tour in the English countryside. He runs into an old, and disliked, college acquaintance called Devine and a general scientist called Weston. After some interaction, they drug Ransom and kidnap him, so Ransom wakes up in a strange place. He is actually together with his kidnappers inside a space vessel travelling to a different planet. That planet is called Malacandra, and on arrival Ransom manages to escape and uses his professional skills to survive in the new setting.
The book is interesting in a couple of ways. One thing I reacted to is that the narrator in the book explicitly and dismissively compares its contents to those of H. G .Wells books, which feels very odd to me. My feeling is that there are many similarites. Another interesting feature is that it glosses over almost all scientific aspects of the travel through space. The focus is almost fully on understanding the locals of the planet and how everything works in the seemingly strange place. So it is mostly an adventure book, but only until close to the end where there is a big moment with an almost trial like situation showing the moral and philosophical point of the book. Sadly, for me it felt a bit too much in my face, and changed the direction of the book very drastically.
I think the book is OK, but I had some problems with the style of writing. There were for me unknown words that I had to look up, combined with a generally rather naive storytelling style. These two things clashed in my head, and confused me a bit since it felt difficult to actually understand who the expected reader would be. On the other hand, I think the book contains very good world building, describing a planet where the socio-economic aspects actually makes sense in contrast to many other science fiction stories. This is the first part of a trilogy, so I guess that I will have more insight when and if I continue with these books.
